The BIBLICAL Formula for Unlocking GOD’S WILL For Your Life | Live Free with Josh Howerton

The only way to get real lasting peace is to know the Prince of Peace himself. - We obsess over the what, and then we forget about the who. - That's called you. - What God wants to do is not dependent upon who you are, but on who God is and what he wants to do. - Well, hey, Liffrey Nation. Before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. But the Liffrey Nation is straddle over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking man, I wish I could be part of something like this. We wanna invite you to take a simple next step and that is join us for church online. Every weekend, we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook and our church online platform, and it's more than just watching a service. There are a live hosts in the chat. Prayer teams ready to stand with you and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church or just looking for a place to start, church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend and now enjoy the podcast. - Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Liffrey Podcast. - Wait, here's how-- - Oh my god! - Oh my god, oh my god! - We are so bad. - We are bad. - For America 250, baby. - Come here. - Come on, man. My name is Carlos Arraz, I'm here with Pastor Josh Howardson and Pastor Paul Cunningham. Let's kick this pig. - Let's kick this pig. We're America maxing right after the 250th birthday. You know what I say? I got my shirt on, I got grandpa's hat on, international harvester, very American. And then do we even have a shot of the, do we have the white shot? We've got the flag up here. We're all in there. - Come on, man. - And the boys are back. - Yes, we are. - I love that one. - Hey, we're gonna have a great episode today. We are gonna be talking about what is the secret meaning behind the name of God Yahweh? We got Chad G. Paul C. ready, locked and loaded. Pastor Josh, you will be explaining a little bit more about this heated controversy on X, on Christians and immigration and faith. - Man, I'm a total stranger to that. This is all new territory. - We are gonna be asking, hey, how can I discern the will of God for my life? And we're gonna be talking about this trend of high profile intellectuals and scientists exploring faith. - And, and we're gonna talk about how Paul, who's in a Pride parade in Santa Fe last month. - What? Did you hear about that? - Oh no! - Can you tell us the, okay. Are you in a Pride parade in Santa Fe last week? - Okay, how did this get to you? I only told about three or four people. - Man, all the activists were so excited to have Chad G. Paul C. - Gosh. - Of little three famed in their Pride parade in Santa Fe. So Paul explain yourself. - I can feel myself getting ready as we speak. I am turning a deep into what I'm here usually am. Yeah, so I was in town. Good segue in a few minutes. I was in town for high school camp. - Shout out. - We were downtown and we're in a parking lot and we got trapped by Pride praise. - That's what they all say. - Big pride celebration. So we get trapped and we go and we ask like, we go and ask the manager like, hey, how long is this gonna take? 'Cause I was supposed to be getting a camp, bless our staff and get to hang out with some students and ask some answers, some questions. And so we're just, they're like, hey, it's gonna be another hour. And so I'm like, okay, I got it. We gotta get out of here. So I thought we should go right 'cause there was a road right there and immediately go. My wife, amazing woman that she has told me to turn left. - So wait, I just wanna clarify this. So right was away from the Pride stuff but a left word direction was the word. - Right, right was the thing before. I was gonna wait for a break. I'll have to hear from this. I was gonna wait for a break in the parade. Turn right and go out of there. So I listened to my wife and we turn left and then we are stopped by a fish. - Hey Paul, hey Paul. - You never turn left. - We never turn left. - That's a joke. - That's actually, there might be some hidden looming behind those mistakes. So we go left and they're like, stop this 'cause maybe they thought we were like random or something. So like, hey, turn around. So we have to turn around and then for the next about 100 feet, we have to be in the Pride parade. And so immediately my family's like, take off your leg point. - They have their leg point here. And this is what I was was relate to. - It's the mission field. - Why are you trying to get away from the mission field? - I took it off and like get my head down and then you had to stick. And we got that street where I talked about. I took a right and high-toded out of that. - Paul, Paul, this is why we have leg point merch so that you can represent in the places that needed the most. - I did it, my sweet daughter must be 11 year old. She was wearin' like her kingdom shirt. She's like, dad, I need to take it off. And I was like, no, we need to be proud about that. - Hey, it belongs to Jesus. - You do not hide that, you do not get ashamed. And so, yeah, so we'll find out who got that news to you. There's only a few people I told. - If the world is proud to get out of the closet, Christians can be proud to buy the grace of God to represent the Kingdom of God. - Can I do a shout out this very, very not. This is very unpride parade-ish. - Okay, this is legit. So again, we're America maxing for the 250th anniversary. So dude, we got a shout on this. I want to make sure we see this. Who, what's the best angle on this guy? - Right here, right here. - Middle one. - All right, I'm gonna get this. - No, no, no, right here, right here. Okay, there you go, that works. - Okay, you can barely see it. Here's what this is. I just got handed this today. So this was sent in. If you can see it, it has live-free engraved on the show-casing. Here's what this is. This guy's name, retired Colonel from the US Air Force, Ryan Zombie Freeman sent this guy in. Dude, this is hardcore right here. So he sends us in, live-free listener. This 20-millimeter shell was fired from his F-16 in support of US Navy SEALs and US Air Force combat controllers in North and Central, Afghanistan in active combat. Live-free listener got live-free on the shell casing, shout out Ryan Zombie Freeman retired Colonel in the US Air Force. - Boom. - Wow. - Boom, live-free brother. - That's amazing. - That's awesome right there. - Hey, you mentioned high school camp. Man, we got a lot of celebrate from camp. - Yeah, and then let's get to it, man. I just got a shout out this set would be nuts, not too. So last week, I just remember me and Paul, and my family was, my oldest start early and I was at high school camp. So we're there, we're there. I think it's third night of camp, Clayton King, Preach and Gospel. That guy's anointed. So I want to show this video. So he just preaches like a straight up gospel message, conviction, repentance. And then he calls for me to respond, which scene right here is the moment third night of camp where 170 students stand up in front of everybody to bend their knee of the Lordship of Jesus in front of all their friends. This wasn't like a bow your heads, close your eyes and do it in secret. This is them standing up in front of their friends. All those people streaming backwards are students responding in faith and giving their lives to Christ. - Wow. - On the same night. - Well, it was unbelievable. So I think across the, across all the camps, I mean, students across all the camps went to camp town. What do you think? No, no, no, no, that was just high school camp was 1300. It pushed, it pushed 2600. So 2600 kids from Lake Point were at all our camps and I mean, dude, I ain't nothing like camp. - That's amazing. - It was amazing, man. - We had so many salvations. My daughter actually got called to ministry at high school. Come on, man. - Yeah, Paul. - Yeah. - It was a special moment. - It was a special moment when we didn't talk to her. I've just been like, wow. God does a lot of work in a little time at camp. - I can't. - And we got to experience that in our family side. - That's amazing. - It was special. Speaking of special things, this week we are excited because we are starting a brand new sermon series. Pastor Josh, what is it? - Yeah, okay. So we do this once a year. It's called "At the Movies." And I always like to do this every single time 'cause, you know, online, especially online, we're anger-reformed people hate at the movies. Here's, so here's what this is. We're not-- - You're pushing movies, right? That's what you're doing. - Yeah, we're just preaching movies. That's all we're doing. - Or exegene movies. - No, what it is, is using movies to illustrate biblical truths. So it's kind of the same concept as what Jesus did, as Jesus would take popular modern day stories. And then there are some of Jesus parables that Bible scholars will say. And that was actually a popular story in Jesus' day. And then he, either he tweaked the end or he used it to illustrate biblical truth. It's kind of the same thing. I use sermon illustrations in every sermon. So what it does is it's using movies to illustrate biblical truths. So you're preaching the Bible and illustrating it with movie. So it starts this week. We will see an insane number of people saved. It is not online. And so if you were ever going to visit a lake point campus, this is a great time. Come hang out. Can I, let me do this. And then I want to actually just get an Exodus three and start deep diving the thing. Can I tell you the story of why I started want to do this? - But yeah. - Okay. Here's why I started want to do this. So you know the story of a CS Lewis conversion. Okay, a lot of people don't know this. CS Lewis, due to wrote Chronicles of Narnia and all the things. CS Lewis was converted largely by J.R. Tolkien, who wrote Lord of the Rings. I'm a super Lord of the Rings nerd, J.R. - Tolkien. - Yeah, that's great. - So here's, you make fun of me? - No, he's not as much. That's a different talk. - Different conversation. Go ahead and do it. - We're gonna like to do it. - Go ahead, none of us. - All right, so here's the story. So CS Lewis was a professor at Oxford is famously a staunch atheist. Famously a staunch atheist. He becomes friends with these two guys. J.R. Tolkien obviously writes Lord of the Rings and again, he's Hugo Dyson. CS Lewis writes after his conversion. He tells the story. There's this one night where these three guys, they just sit in a room and they're smoking cigars and drinking brandy and they just start talking about life, philosophy, literature and religion. And J.R. Tolkien, and from what I understand, Hugo Dyson, they have already been there needed Jesus. J.R. Tolkien was notoriously a very committed Catholic. Christian. So they just start talking and do that. My starts sweating every time. So J.R. Tolkien begins explaining to CS Lewis, he was a professor that studied in particular, they called him fairy stories, fairy tales, medieval fairy tales. So Tolkien starts explaining to CS Lewis. He's like, "Hey man, do you know why you love all these. stories. And do you know why in every one of these stories there's these little themes that it doesn't matter what culture the story came from or what year it was written in. All the stories that move you the deepest, they have the same themes. And see us listen, well why? And he starts explaining book of Ecclesiastes because God has written eternity into the hearts of man. And he starts explaining like, "Hey man, do you know why you love these stories about how it's always, it's killed the dragon, get the girl or it's a brave prince from a far off country. You know, comes and and awakens the princess from the sleep of death." Or it's man somebody dies in order to set the captives free. And he just starts explaining well because there's a story underneath every story. And all the stories that move you the deepest, they resonate with the story underneath all the stories. And it's the story of the gospel. And he starts explaining, bro, he's like, "Hey man, the whole story of the gospel is Jesus is the far the warrior from a far off country who comes and he slays the dragon to get the girl his bride the church. And Jesus is the brave prince from a distant land that comes and awakens the princess from the sleep of death with his kiss. And Jesus is the the warrior that dies and trades his life to set the captives free. So what he has been explaining to C.S. Lewis is like, "Jesus is the true myth." Now, he fasts forward. C.S. Lewis later, he doesn't become a Christianite. But it leaves an impression on him. Later, in 1931, from what I understand, he writes a letter to a friend named Arthur Grieves. And he's explaining why he became a Christianist way says. He says, "Now the story of Christ is simply, and he starts telling him what what Tolkien explained to him, a true myth, a myth working on us in the same way as the others. But with this one tremendous difference, it really happened." Now, his way says, "On September 28, 1931, just nine days after my conversation with Tolkien on Christ being the true myth." He says, "This Lewis took the final step in embracing the divinity of Christ while writing in his older brother's motorcycle sidecar on the way to the newly opened Wipsnod Park Zoo in Bedfordshire." Go ahead and toss that picture up here. This, that road right there is literally the road that C.S. Lewis is on the side of his brother's motorcycle when what I'm getting ready to read happens to him. So he's thinking about all this. Christ is the true myth, the story underneath every story. He's writing on a motorcycle on that diagram road right there. And this is what he says in his letter, "I know very well when but not how the final step was taken. I was driven to Wipsnod, one sunny morning. When we set out, I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And when we reached the zoo, I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. And right there, C.S. Lewis became a Christian why? Because somebody showed him that there's a story underneath every story and every story whispers his name." That is part of the reason we do at the movies. So don't call me all you want. I'm all in. It's going to be awesome. Starting this week, come hang out. Come on, come on, come on. Actually, I took my three-year-old son to the movie theater for the first time. That's what we, that's what we, that's what you think. Okay, so let me, super quick, let me give you a quick movie review of Toy Story 5 heads up some minor spoilers. So if you haven't seen it, you know, do what you need to do. First of all, man, people ask me how was it? Generally, it's a good movie. It's a good movie. Creatures are funny. Stories entertaining. There's a lot of things that are true in a movie. That's what you want to do every time you watch a movie. What's true and what's not true. Again, dangers on technology, bravery, friendship, all the themes. Having said that, there's at least two things that I'm like, I'm not a fan of those things. So for context, Toy Story 5 makes Jesse the main protagonist of the movie, which is great. The movie's about her. But oftentimes, what you'll see in some of these Pixar and Disney movies is that the female hero will be elevated, oftentimes at the expense of the male characters. And so what will happen is that the female hero, you'll see she's brave and she takes initiative and she exercises her leadership. Or again, all good things. But then you also make the male characters intentionally more passive, more less competent and more dumb by comparison. And so what you'll see in this movie, again, the movie, the joke is on Woody. He's like a little bit older. He's got like a big belly. He's balding. And you know, he's he's arguing over buzz over who's in charge after Jesse's gone. And then buzz on the other hand, he used to be this like strong decisive space ranger. Now he's portrayed us like this week. Super insecure. And he's constantly trying to get Jesse's approval. And then at the end of the movie, Buzz tries to propose again to Jesse. And Jesse takes over, she takes control, kisses Buzz first, and then Buzz's leg kind of like goes up kind of like this classic movie cliche where like the woman is kissing the man and she swept off her feet. And then during the wedding of Buzz and Jesse, Jesse takes the role of a husband. She's wearing a bow tie while waiting at the altar. And then Buzz is wearing this guilt for whatever reason. He's walking down the aisle the way the bright traditionally does, kind of reversing the roles a little bit. And so here's what I'd say as Christians, we don't consume entertainment passively, we consume it with discernment. And so because every story is shaping a world view and we want it to be the word of God, not the world that shapes ours. And so two things on that one, this idea that a woman can only be strong and empowered only by making the man more weak, more diminished and more ridiculed is not true. I want to teach my son that that's not who he's called to be. He's not called to be perfect, but he is called to be strong and he is called to take responsibility over common securities and be a leader. So two, regarding the whole Jesse and Buzz kind of swapping gender roles also in the movie, in the relationship, people might just say, "Well, it's just a joke, you know, you're supposed to have fun with it, it's playful, maybe." But I also want to teach my son that the Bible says that God made men and women husbands and wives to be equal in value and dignity, but different in function and roles. And those are not interchangeable because we are designed differently and those are not there to oppress you, they are there to bless you, to bless you in your relationships and in your marriage. And so what happens is when you deviate from that design and from those roles and you think that your way is better at the end of the day, this order in chaos happens. And so again, does that mean that Toy Story 5 is terrible and it's evil and you should never watch it, not necessarily. Now you can enjoy it with your family, that's fine. First Thessalonians 521 says, "Test everything, keep what is good, reject what is not, but I would say this, if you're a Christian, do not settle for just passively consuming entertainment because if you parent, do not disciple your children, this day and picks your will." That's right, bro. That's my review. That's my review. Right, that's a, Carlos, good job, Dad. Yeah. Seriously, good job, Dad. Because it's like, what you're doing is like, even from a young age, you're teaching your kids to walk in, I call, "Hey man, let's have our lie detectors on." Because people don't realize like, hey man, like stuff like that, movies are sermons. Yeah. And they're sermons and you got to figure out, is this a Christless sermon or a Christful service, fantastic. That's right, good job, man. Hey, to participate in this week's giveaway, comment hats on YouTube or Spotify. Also, don't forget to subscribe and all the things. Pastor Josh, I have a question for you. I will allow. What did I make it to the sermon? By the way, welcome back. Hey man, let's get away from that. I've been listening to this, in fact, oh. In fact, oh. You feel right at home. That's it, that's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's his favorite sermon. Yeah, because of that, exactly that. That's right. I did. So, honestly, a lot didn't make him a sermon. So, let me just take a deep breath, shoot you real, say here's the deal. All the Bible is equally true. Not all the Bible is equally important. If the Bible was a mountain range, Exodus 3 would be like Everest. So, honestly, what's tough about a sermon like this, is it like, I'm not joking. In the middle of the week, I was like, oh, this one passage could be four sermons. You could do a whole, I mean, I could do the whole, you do a whole sermon on name of God, take off your feet, take off the sandals, feet, which, you know, place, which is standing this holy ground. Something, I'm going to talk about this in a second. There's a pretty significant theological thing that happens at this passage. It's called a Christophony that is very significant. We'll get to this here in a second. There's a whole bunch of stuff. So, let me, let me just do this real quick. So, first of all, let me back up. So, obviously, we're doing right here to close the series. This is about reigniting a calling, you know, in Fuego, far all the stuff. That's what happens here. So, this is Exodus. Go ahead and toss it up here. This is a little fun fact. I took this picture we were in Greece last time. What's really interesting is the name Exodus. It literally just is a, well, it's both Greek and Latin. It's a transliteration of, it's the Greek word Exodus that just means to come out of. So, literally, if you go to Greece right now, I took that picture while we were over there. That's the second letter right there. It's called it, it's C, is that a classic C? Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah. So, that's Exodus. That's what you were saying. That's still the, that's all their Exodus signs. So, the book of Exodus is about the exit or the going out, obviously, of the people. Now, what you got right here in Exodus 3 is this is the calling of Moses. At this point, I'm going to give this here in a second. A lot of people don't realize this. Moses is 80 at this point. You don't get to that later in the passage. That becomes significant in a second. I will show you this because this is really cool. For centuries, Bible critics would point to the Exodus story, and this is fascinating. For literally centuries, they would be like, "This never happened. It's just a, it's a, you know, it's a national sort of, you know, Semitic myth that for National Pride and some of He made this up and actually kind of the narrative was the Israelites literally were never in Egypt. That literally for a long time was the thing, bro this is so fascinating. So then a few years ago, they dig this up, go and point this, go and toss that first thing up. So what they do is they go to this place and a few years ago, they find a burial place in Egypt of Egyptian nobles. And they find what you're seeing right here is on the wall of a nobleman tried to get this right. The guy's name was Recmeyer. The nobles name was Recmeyer. R-E-K-H-M-I-R-E. And this guy, this is on the side of his burial place. He was the second in charge for two pharaohs, a guy named Thutmost III, that by dating and just sort of context clues, almost everybody thinks that's the pharaoh who wanted Moses dead. So when there's a whole story about kill all the Egyptian boys and Moses gets thrown in the Nile, he's the dude that issues the command slaughter the boys. That's what they think. And then Recmeyer was also the second in command for a guy named Amenhotep II, that almost everybody thinks is he's never named in the book of Exodus, but people think, dude, that's the guy that was the pharaoh, okay? So this guy, Recmeyer, this is the side of his burial tomb, and he's the one the second in command of both these guys. Now, bro, what's your seat right here? This is crazy. So for centuries, they're saying, oh, this is all a myth. They were never in Egypt, right in the middle there. Look at these people bending over. You'll see right in the middle of that little part there. You're going to see this guy, this bent over, and he's got a brick wall in front of him and underneath him. You look right underneath it, and there's these people bending over on these hay little heaps. What you're seeing right here is, these are semitic or at least non-Egyptian slaves. Making straw bricks. So they discover this, the guy that is second in command, and history during his time, and he's during Exodus, it is literally depicting non-Egyptian probably semitic slaves making straw bricks. It's right there. Yeah. Right there. Now, you go a second. I'll also say this, the mural, when they dated it, in his tomb, the dates that they give are 1479 to 1425 BC. That is right in the middle is the estimated early date of the Exodus, so 1446. Anyway, dude, I always just want to say the same thing over and over again. This stuff really happened. Yeah. Now, here's another one that's really funny. I ran across this week. To this day, if you go to the British Museum, they have one spot, this is an Egyptian sort of display thing that is from this period, and they have, and they don't even comment on it from what I understand about it being tied to the biblical narrative. They're just like, "Here's a brick that was made by slaves in this era." So a picture of that brick, and if you look real close, right in the middle of the dagum brick, is straw. Yeah. Now, if you are a Bible reader that has read Exodus 3, 4, 5, the whole story is about them, their slaves, they're making bricks with straw, whenever Moses asked for them to be set free, Pharaoh's like, "You got to make bricks without straw, and all of this stuff is confirming exactly what you got in the middle of your Bible." So I want to say the same thing over and over again. The Bible really happened. Yes. Wow. This is not a myth. It's not a story. It's an event. The real Jesus died in a real cross with the real you, and if you give him your life, he can really change it forever. Wow. So we got that now. Can I deep down some stuff in the business? Let's go. Let's go. So, a couple things, and then I'm going to turn over to Paul, and he's going to talk about Yahweh and all the stuff under the name of God, it's insane, it's absolutely insane. So what you got right here, I'm just going to read it, Exodus chapter 2 ends like this. It says, "During those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery, and they cried out for help." This is really important. Listen real close. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and God saw the people of Israel and God knew. Number one, I just want to point this out, you are the answer to somebody else's prayer. I just want to say that we're going to talk in a second about fulfilling your calling. Whatever God call God puts on your life, and that's not just about you. You are the answer to somebody else's prayer. Their cries go to heaven, and their prayers move heaven, heaven moves Moses, Moses moves her deliverance. So that's it. Number two, it's really interesting what they do here is it just emphasizes all these the things God does. So it's God heard, God saw, God remembered, God knew, and there's this whole thing about how most people think about God is this very impersonal force, and it's really just like, you know, when stuff happens, it's kind of like, well, man, what are you going to do? It is what it is, but with God, it's not an impersonal force, he's a personal God. He sees, he hears, he remembers, he knows, and he answers. So with God, it's not, it is what it is with God. He reveals himself. I am who I am. Wow. So it's like, hey, it's person. It's person. Now, you get in this passage. Moses is 80. Moses spends first 40 years of his life in Pharaoh's court. That's going to be important here in a second. The second 40 years of his life, he's doing shepherds stuff for it. The guy has two names, by the way. In Exodus, I think two, he's called Reuel, and then Exodus four or five. He's called Jethro. It's kind of like Kanye and Easy. He's got one guy, two names, very different character, hopefully, but two different names. But I do just want to point this out, man. I wish I had time in the sermon to talk about the number of people in the Bible, who the greatest thing they do for the kingdom of God is in their old age. I really wish I had time. I just want to list this. I had to cut this last second. So Moses here is 80 when he begins the most significant calling of his life. Abraham is 75 years old when God calls him and he moves. Anna is 84 years old when she's interceding and fasting and prayer, and she's the one that recognizes the Messiah. Daniel is 82 years old when he gets tossed in the lion's den. John is in his 90s when he writes the book of Revelation sees Jesus, eyes, flame, a fire and all the things. David is 70 years old when he sets out to build the temple, Jehoet, who's a total, you guys, I can't say that word. He's amazing. He's hardcore. Jehoet was 100 years old, by the way, when he leads a national coup over throws the wicked queen, installs Joe Ash and leads the entire nation in national revival, the dude's 100. By the way, that guy's story is awesome. He's the only priest that ends up buried among the kings. As God said, what you did was as significant as what any of them did and he did it when he was a hundred years old, Caleb's 85 years old, when he conquers he breathed. He drives out all the anachem giants. Here's all I just want to say on this, I wish I had time to say this Psalm 139 says that every single one of our days before we're born is written in God's book and he knows the full span of them every single day. So Chaggy Paul C, there's two days in your life that have been set in stone, your birthday, and you know exactly when that day is. But there's another day that's just as in stone as your birthday. You got no idea when it is. It's when you breathe your last breath and you go and you hug Jesus. Those two days set in stone. And what that passage says is every single day God determines for you, there's a purpose for that day. So I don't care, Liz, you may be listening and you know, JC Ryle has this old quote where he says, "What Satan says to you when you're young is it's too soon to surf God." And then what Satan says to you when you're old is, "Oh, it's too late to surf God." And what I want to say is like, man, if you're somebody who like made your age, might start with a six, seven, eight, nine, I'll even venture, we've got some listeners whose age starts with a one and a zero maybe. And you may be going like, "Hey, you know, my time probably passed by and I've probably already had my chance to do whatever was the great thing." Now I just want to say to you, listen to me, soup cans and Advil have expiration dates, but they can't move God. People don't. That's right. And if you still got a pulse, God still got a purpose for your life, guys 80 years old when he begins the most significant thing in his life. So this happens here. Now I got to talk about two other things, but now I want you to talk about the whole Yahweh thing. This is a bug. One, it is very significant in me. So you read the passage, you know, and Moses, he walks up on the, you know, it's the burning bush thing, the bush and it burns, but it's not consumed. This is really heavy on me. Come back from camp. And by the way, when I'm getting ready to say in the next 45 seconds, it's not hating on camp. I'm a camp guy through and through by love camp. It is very significant that throughout the Bible, arguably the most frequently way God reveals himself is as fire. Like this is you stop and think it's like you, that's right, and that's like usually. So you got again, we're just Bible nerd now for a second. Like just let me do it. You got during the Abrahamic covenant, I think it's Genesis 13 or Genesis 15. Actually, I think it's start in Genesis 13 is repeated in Genesis 15. It puts Abram to sleep and then it says the appears as a smoking fire pot and he passes through pieces. That's one of the coolest passage of the Bible. I got time to do it when he's leading the children of Israel through the way. wilderness. It's a pillar of cloud by day, but a pillar of fire, fire by night. When God gives the law on Sinai, it says that He descends and that our God is as a consuming fire, fire. You fast forward. When Solomon dedicates the temple, it says, it says, fire comes down from heaven. The glory of God filled the temple. And it says, I think smoke was so thick with the glory that the people could not stand in the temple. But again, it's fire and it's smoke. Fast forward to Daniel 7. Again, we're Bible nerd and keep Bible nerding with me. Daniel 7, he sees a vision of the ancient of days, who is by the way, a pre-incarnate Jesus, which by the way, I'm about to blow your mind. Jesus is in this passage in Exodus 3. It's pretty awesome. He sees the ancient of days and ancient of days is sitting on a throne of fire. Now, let's go to New Testament. Acts chapter 2 when the Holy Spirit descends on the apostles and their preaching. It says divided tongues as of fire. Revelation chapter 1, the apostle John sees the incarnate Jesus and loses his mind. He like falls on the ground. He's like, I'm going to die. And what he sees when he sees Jesus who is God, he's like, man, there's crazy. I see Jesus and he's got hair and it's like, why does snow? And he's got legs, like burnish bronze. And he's got this robe on. It's like a white snow. By the way, he's coming to pick a fight and with judgment, this is an old preacher joke. If a guy comes to a fight dressed in white, you know you're going to lose. Because he knows I'm not getting blood on me. That's right. It comes dressed in white, you know you're going to lose. So Jesus got his white robe on. But John looks in his eyes and he freaks out because like his eyes, man, his eyes, man, he's like his eyes. They were like flames of fire. Now, I just want to point this out. Here's what people always think. The younger you are, the more you need to understand what I'm about to say. People always think that like the sign of the presence of God is emotion. And like, man, I was there and I was singing the song and I started crying and it was the presence of God. I'll shoot you really straight dude. I traveled and preached a billion youth camps before becoming an actual church pastor. And listen, man, third night of camp, your sleep deprived, you drank 47 energy drinks and you're all coped up on sugar. And you're with all your best friends and you just burned your secular CDs and whatever it is. Like honestly, man, the third night of camp, I could get you to rededicate your life to a leprechaun. There's just so much emotion. Here's my point, man, is the sign of the presence of God is not emotion. Here's the question, why does God throughout the Bible reveal Himself as fire? Well, think back to your chemistry class. Whenever something catches on fire, it literally restructures the chemical composition of the thing. Before something was on fire, it was one thing. Then it catches on fire. And literally when it's finished being on fire, it's another thing. Here's the big idea. The sign of an encounter with God is not emotion. Listen, it's rearranged priorities. Yes. I'm going to say that one more time. The sign that you had an encounter with a living God is not emotion. You're going to have a motion, but you can have a motion without God. The sign of an encounter with living God is not just emotion. It's rearranged priorities. It's, oh, man, now I care about stuff. I didn't care about before. And I hate some things that I used to love dang what happened to me. Well, before that encounter, I was this thing. And then I encountered some fire. And now that I'm done, I'm this thing. And I'm not the man I used to be. And I don't got to do the things I used to do because in Christ, I'm a new creation. You see what I'm doing there? So this is why God reveals Himself to Moses as fire. Now, He tells them to do something here that is again, you start getting to the deep end of the pool here. And then I'm going to do the deep end of the pool. And then I'm going to turn it to Paul. And he's going to go one layer deeper. Okay. So it's really interesting. I'm going to read this passage because this kind of thing, if you're just a normal Bible reader, you just skim right passage dude. And you have no idea. You just read something stinking mind block. Okay. So this is what it says verse one, chapter three. Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. And he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness. He came to whore of the mountain of God. Listen real close. Listen real close. And what's that next word? Paul, are you looking at it? Are you looking at it? Okay. You're fine. It says and the that's so important. It says and the angel of the Lord and Lord is in all caps. By the way, sometimes Lord is in all caps in your Bible. And sometimes it's not. He's going to explain that in a second. There's something stinking mind blowing about that. You can hear that in a second. It says and the angel of the Lord appeared to him to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Okay. What you are seeing right here, virtually every Bible scholar. By the way, I'm getting ready to give six reasons for this. I got him from Bible time. I got him from old Driscoll. So I'm just going to get an attribution here. But what you're seeing right here is nearly every Bible scholar everywhere identifies this right here. Whenever you see the phrase, the angel of God in the Old Testament, almost every Bible scholar everywhere acknowledges this is a pre incarnate appearing of Jesus. So dude, in a very, I'm going to show to you in the Bible here in a second. Moses is meeting Jesus 1500 years before Jesus is born. This is Jesus. Okay. Now I'm real quick. This is where again, we're theology nerding out here. I'm going to give you seven reasons that we know this is what theologians call a Christophany. Is it or some people call it a theophany or is it? No, it's Christophany. Theophany is just an appearing of God. Christophany. Yeah. Theos equals God. Theophany. Christophany is appearance of Jesus. So this is a Christophany. Okay. Number one, the passage, the six reasons. I'm a rapid fire. Number one, the angel of the Lord is identified as God himself. For the rest of the passage just as God spoke to him out of the flame of the fire, even though it's called the angel of the Lord. No, that's number one. So Jesus, God, this guy's identify as God. Number two, the New Testament specifically tells us that what the sun does is make the father known. That's what the sun does. So John 118 says this, no one has ever seen God, but the one and only son who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the father has made him known. By the way, that's why that's thinking awesome. It's the Christmas Carol, which one is it says, "Vailed in flesh the Godhead see." What is it? It will come to me. It will come to me. Which one is that? What are the Christmas Carols at? I feel in the flesh. God. I feel dumb. Look it up. I can't do that. I'll talk ahead. The flesh, the Godhead see. Yeah. The heart. By the way, the heart, the herald angel saying is the best Christmas Carol. Yeah. But when that passage says it's talking about Jesus and it's the best theological line in any Christmas Carol, it says, "Vailed in flesh the Godhead see." Wow. It's saying Jesus put on this veil, this lens of flesh, and you're seeing the entire Godhead revealed in the flesh of Jesus Christ. Okay. Number three, it uses the phrase, this passage uses the phrase, the angel of the Lord, and this is repeated throughout the Old Testament. So you'll notice in the Old Testament, if you pay very close attention, sometimes it'll say an angel of the Lord, referring to like Michael or Gabriel or whoever there's there's only three angels that are mentioned by the name Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer are the only three angels. Sometimes it'll say the angel of the Lord. Sometimes it'll say an angel of the Lord. This is the angel of the Lord. You will notice this. This is your little homework. The etiology nerds go study every single passage where quote the angel of the Lord appears. Whoever this mysterious the angel of the Lord is, he receives worship. He speaks as God in the first person. He has identified as God by those who encounter him, and this passage says that God called to him Moses out of the bush. So you got that right there. Reason number four, a lot of people miss this. This passage has a holy ground parallel with Joshua chapter five. I did not realize this until studying this passage this week. Okay. So this is Joshua chapter five. It says nearly the exact same thing, angel, the angel of the Lord appears to Joshua, and it says the commander of the Lord's army replied, take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy and Joshua did so. Now here's what people miss. In the previous verse, now before I say this, there's an angel in the book of Revelation that John falls down on his knees and is tempted to worship and the angel wigs out on John. He's like, bro, get up. I refuse to receive worship. I'm just an angel. Okay. Well, whoever is the angel of the Lord is. In Joshua chapter five, it says this, and he said, no, but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshipped and said to him, what does my Lord say to his servant? And whoever this mysterious, the angel of the Lord is, he received the worship. Okay. Number five, the I am statements of Jesus. So as Paul is going to talk about here in a second, Jesus reveals God's name in this passage as I am who I am. Jesus throughout the book of John reveals himself and he's doing this very on purpose as the I am. He goes, I am the bread of life. I'm the lot of the world. I'm the door. I'm the good shepherd. I'm the resurrection of life. I'm the way of the truth in life. I'm the true vine. The reason he's repeating, I am, I am, I am, I am. He's going, hey, bro, I'm the guy from Exodus chapter three. That's That's me. That's what he's doing. Now let me do the last two because the last two are the most mind-blowing. So Jesus says this in John. This is what gets Jesus killed. This is what starts getting Jesus killed. So Jesus, he's having this big argument with the Pharisees, they'll, you know, the H.O.A. Presidents of his day. And he says very truly, I tell you, Jesus answered them for this mind-blowing. He says, "Before Abraham was born, I am." At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid slipping away. What he literally says to them, and this is why they start stone in him, is he's literally saying to them, "I'm the one that was in the burning bush and revealed that I was the I am." And all of them immediately realize this guy's saying, "He's God." If anybody ever tells you that Jesus never said he was God, bless their heart, they're too dumb to talk to. This is what Jesus is doing right here now. Let me do this last one, and this is the one that like, I was like, I wish I had time to get at this discernment, okay? All right, so let me coil up here. (laughs) All right, so Moses walks up to Jesus in Exodus three, and Jesus, it's a little weird. You're like, why is he doing this? Jesus says, "Moses, take off your feet for the place on which you're standing." Or take off your shoes for the place on which your standing is holy ground, and Moses' feet got to hit the dirt, okay? Now, there's this weird passage in Exodus four that when you read it, you're like, "Oh, like what the heck is that doing there?" It feels so stinkin' weird, okay? So it's in the middle of all this, and all the cool stuff's happened with the bush, and okay, let's go get all the Egyptians out of Israel. And then there's this weird like, non-sequitor, verse 24, at a lodging place on the way, the Lord met him, Moses, and sought to put him to death. Then, Zipperah, Moses' wife, took a flint, cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it, and said, "I know, it sounds weird," it does. And said, "Surely, listen, you are a bridegroom of blood to me." Hang on. So he let him alone, and it was then that she said, a bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision. Now, you read that, and you're like, "What the heck, man?" Take off your shoes and feed, and we gotta put blood on the feet. - Did I make it into the Prince of Egypt movie? - Didn't make it into Prince of Egypt. So you're like, "What's happening here?" Well, part of what's happening is you're seeing this theme of sinful things have to be redeemed by blood in order to come and contact with things that are holy. And remember what you got right here is this is a Christophany. This is a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus now fast-forward, nearly 1,600 years. And Jesus shows up, and all of his disciples are with him for that last supper, and they're getting ready to see him go to the cross and be crucified. And Jesus has spent his entire ministry talking about, "Do you know who I am?" I'm the bridegroom, and you're the bride. And he sits him down at this table, and he's like, "You know what I'm gonna do before I go to the cross? Hey, everybody, take off your sandals. I need to wash your feet real quick." And then Peter pipes up like an idiot, and Peter goes, "Yeah, actually, Jesus, I got a better idea." And he was like, "You wash my whole body." And Jesus, this is the Josh version. Jesus like, "Shut up, Peter." And Jesus essentially goes, "Hey, man, what I'm doing here is this is a symbol. The water is a symbol that I'm about to touch you with my blood." And unless I wash you, you have no part with me. So the bridegroom leans down and he grabs their uncovered feet with no sandals. And as a symbol of the blood he's about to shed, he touches their feet with a symbol of his blood. And then he goes to the cross, and they all watch him, shed his blood, and what I think all of them would have been thinking of is surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me. And in that moment, Jesus Christ, the bridegroom of blood, he cleanses our sin so that you and me can stand on holy ground face to face with God. (laughing) - Wow, dude, I didn't know that. - Bro, I've never heard that. - Before this week, maybe the Bible is amazing. - Wow. - Can I back up a few days though? Or are they even months? - You do your things, you do your things, you do your things, you do your things, you do your things. - So there's another place in the Bible where Jesus meets with Moses on a mountain. - That's right. - Ah! (laughing) - That was the first time. - Do it. - There's this little place called the Mount of Transfiguration where all of a sudden Jesus is revealed for his divine glory and for who he really is. And it says that two people appear with him, Moses and Elijah. Then here's what's interesting. That's why I got distracted from it when you asked me a question because I was looking it up to get the exact passage. There's this interesting phrase though in the book of Luke. It says that he appears and they're in glory and it says that he is speaking of his departure. This is Jesus speaking of his departure. You know what that word is in Greek? Exodus. - Oh no way. - He is speaking of his Exodus because when he appears with Moses in the Old Testament, he is speaking of the Exodus of those people which he was gonna have most of them with. Here, he's speaking of the Exodus. He's gonna accomplish, but not by having other Lamb's Lamb but by him slaying his own life so that he can set his people free from sin. - Wow, wow. - I got a weird connection. Have you ever seen that YouTube video of Brian Scalabrini who people used to say was the worst NBA player ever, like absolutely dominating a college basketball player? Have you seen it? - No. - All right, well Brian Scalabrini, just let me do my thing for a second here. So Brian Scalabrini who people used to say was the worst NBA player ever. He got tired of people saying it and he asked a D1, a good D1 basketball player to play in 101 and he beat him like 10 to one. And when he finished, he said, he said, "I'm closer to LeBron James than you are to me." - Whoa. - And he's right. Okay, but then he said this, people looked at that and they said, there's levels to this. Listen dude, if you're listening, here's what just happened. There's levels, bro. When you're reading your Bible, there's levels to this. You can just do the surface thing and then you can get like, bro, go under the surface, the bridegroom of blood and like, seven different connections. And then, freaking, Chad G. Paul C, there's levels to this. He's going Greek words on Transfiguration Mountain Exodus. Listen, there's levels to this. - There's levels to this, man. - There's levels to this. All right, not Paul. Let's do this. And then I want to talk about high profile intellectuals that's starting to turn to God. There's two crazy clips that we're gonna play real quick. So God reveals His name in this passage and this becomes arguably the most significant thing in the rest of, in some ways, the entire Bible in one sense. And there's, it has like major tie-ins to even help people read their Bible. There's things that people have seen that they don't know that they're seeing that are related to the revelation of God's name. So do your thing. - Do your thing. We'll get to the differences that people see in their English New Testament here in just a bit. I want to walk you through first the Hebrew. We're gonna get fancy and go into some of the Hebrew together. I think actually we've got what's often referred to is the tetragrammits on. The idea of God appears here and reveals His name. So oftentimes there are titles used for God in the Old Testament like Elohim or Adonai. That is what God is. He is God. Adonai means master or Lord. Yahweh is who He is. It's His name, it's His personal description. And it is by far the most used in the Old Testament. Over 6,000 times, almost maybe even 7,000 times that this is used. More than I believe Elohim and Adonai combined. Now what you often see when you see this in Old Testament manuscripts is right here with you're seeing this, if you're watching YouTube or seeing the video in Spotify. You're only seeing what are called Hebrew consonant. So this has no vowels. Vals are often represented by people think they look like dots or little marks or stuff like that. We're gonna say Pastor Dodger. - Well, I'm just gonna point out. So first of all, so Hebrew is the only C.I. ever got. It's a hard language. - It's the whole C.I. ever got. It was Dr. Dubas, man shout out, Dr. Dubas, He crushed me. So two things about Hebrew and no Vals. And it runs right to left, not left to right. - Exactly. And so even when I say, in a second, I'm gonna read the Hebrew right to left to right. - Actually, English is left to right. - Isn't it wrong? Isn't, 'cause at the bottom it goes Y-H-W-H. - That's what I was saying. So the Hebrew is right to left, but then the English is left to right. So the reason they call it the tetra-grammaton is 'cause tetra means four. Such a Greek word, meaning four. Grammatos is letters. So it's four letters. So in Hebrew is Y-O-D-H. Vav would be the modern pronunciation, although an O-testment would be W-A. And hey, so Y-A or Y-O-D-H, W-A-H. And so you only appear the constants. In fact, I think I've got some stuff from what's called the Dead Sea Scrolls. These were found in the 1900s and, I don't know, right? - Exactly. - Date somewhere between 300 and 100 BCE. So very old. And what you would see if you really look closely is again, there's no vows in this. The letters that are highlighted are actually Yahweh in a very ancient Hebrew script. - Yeah, I've never seen that. - So when people were riding it, even when they would get, not all the Dead Sea Scrolls, but some of them when they would get to his name, they would try to preserve as close to the original as they could 'cause this was a sacred name that they wanted to preserve as much as possible. Then if you fast forward, we have, it's called the Leningrad Codex. Over time, you have this group of people. I know, it's a great reading on a Wednesday night, that's what it feels like. - That's what it feels like. - Before going to bed ever again. (laughing) - It is. And by the way, I'm building up to like why do we, why do we pronounce it Yada way, Yada way, how do we know that we're getting there? Just follow me for a little minute. We'll build this system at a time. This is from the year 1013. It's the oldest complete Hebrew manuscript we had. There's this group of people called the maserites. And what they did is is that the pronunciation of the words were maintained by tradition, by an oral tradition. They actually went through and to help people pronounce and help people read it would go through and they put all the vows in. So if you ever heard something called the maseritic text, this is the Hebrew with the vows in. I'm actually going to have this originally to win. The Hebrew, this one is from 1013. It's within a few hundred. So yeah. So if you're ever, you know, I don't know, this is like super nerdy stuff. But if you're ever seeing Hebrew writing, and it has dot little dots. Yes, underneath it. Those dots are the vowels that they tried to put in like, you know, 2000 years after the language was actually spoken. Exactly. And so actually I think we've got a second picture that's going to zoom in because this right here is actually showing Yahweh or Y-H-W-H with those vows in there. So here is how we came to the belief. And most scholars would hold to this that this is pronounced Yahweh. Because again, we don't have the original vows and it was a sacred name. So even scribes would not often say this name at all. They, when they write it, they would wash themselves afterwards or they would use a fresh pen. And this is really connected to the idea of, and the Tim Commandments says, do not take the Lord's name in vain. We often think of that as don't say G-D or say, oh, M-G or anything like that. For them, it was either, you don't take God's name lightly. So to preserve that commandment, they said we shouldn't even pronounce it. So here's how they literally wouldn't even say it. They wouldn't say it. And I'll get to in a minute what they would say in its place or what they would write in its place because it's really important to know. So how do we know as pronounced Yahweh? So early Greek writers would often give us hints of, hey, here's how they would say as early Christian writers would really help us understand that the E that we pronounce would be the pronunciation at the end. And Hebrew grammar, the word Yahweh, it originates from the word Hayah, which simply means to be. So even when, yeah. So I think, we don't know how to say that. I was joking. Can we put it up? This is probably a little too much. But if we go to Exodus 3, 14 to 15, now the other one. Exodus 3, 14 to 15. So this is where, and God said to Moses, it says, "Ah Yah, Asher Hayah, I am that I am." And then you see Yahweh beneath it. So you can see they're very close to each other. So the word Yahweh literally just comes from the verb "I am." And so that's a little bit of how we would know that first-parts pronounced Yahweh. Also, think about some of the names, or words and scriptures, Hallelujah, Yah, praise Yahweh. Or Isaiah, Jeremiah, Yah, their last part, their name would have been Yah, forgot. So this is a little bit of how we would basically piece together of how we know as Yahweh, Yahweh. Okay, so then where do you get things like, for example, over time you have things like Jehovah. - It is important. - This is really important. A lot of people have no idea what the word Jehovah is. - And it's actually really interesting, 'cause when the mazeries put in the vowels, they still wanted to preserve and to protect the sacred name Yahweh, and keep it sacred. So they put in other vowels specifically from the word Adonai, which means lower. So they took the vowels from Adonai, put it to Y-H-W-H, and basically you got I-A-Y-O-W, or if you then put that into Germanic language, Y became J, and W became V, so you get Jehovah. And so Jehovah is a little bit of a made-up word that basically happened where you take the vowels that the mazeries put into the word name Yahweh. You change the language a little bit and you get Jehovah. But that's not the original pronunciation of the word. - So the word Jehovah, like technically, the word Jehovah is not in your Bible. - It's not in the Bible. Because all it is is the consonants of Yahweh - Exactly. - with the vowels from another word that they just sort of made up because they had such a reverence on the name of God. They didn't even want to say it. So let's say this word that's kind of like it. - Exactly. - But that it's not it because we want to treat you guys name as holy. - And by the way, Jewish people often decided this today and were instead of saying Yahweh, they'll say Adonai, where they'll say Hashim. - That's where the vowels come from, right? - Exactly, that's where those vowels come from and everything like that. - Okay, so some things that'll help you is you're reading your Bible and translate like the translation helping you understand a few deep cuts here. Number one, a cool little thing that connects to Jesus is that when they translated the Hebrew testament into Greek, whenever they got to Yahweh, they would translate it as curious. - What? - Curious. - What? - Or Lord. - In the Latin vulgate. - No, in the Greek. - In the Greek. - In the Greek. They would translate it as curious. - Because the Greek, curious is the Greek word for Lord. - Lord. - Exactly, they would translate it. - So they didn't translate the name? - No, they didn't. So when you see, 'cause this is going somewhere even while it's in our English translations the way it is, actually, I'll go ahead and jump there. So like, if you're reading, if I'm reading Exodus 3 and I'm in any place where I get to Yahweh's name, for example, it says, the Lord, the God of your fathers, that Lord, if you look closely, is in all capital letters. And this really comes from the idea of, hey, when they put into Greek, they made it curious, which means Lord. And so today to mark out where we see it's in all caps, that means Yahweh is simply, when we read Lord, that's what it means. If you see Lord in the lower click case in the Old Testament, that's the word Adonai. So if you're reading your Old Testament and you see Lord in all caps, that literally just means it in the Hebrew saying Yahweh. - That's right. - If it's in lower caps, it simply means Adonai, which is basically just a term of Lord or Master. - That's right. - Where was it going? Oh, well, here's what's interesting about that. In the Old Testament, when they translate into Greek, they used the word Curios, which means Lord. Besides Messiah, any guesses of what one of Jesus' main titles is used to describe him in the New Testament. - Lord. - Lord, but specifically Curios. - Wow. - Not a coincidence that they take the name that in Greek was over and over again used to designate Yahweh. And then when they're getting to the New Testament, anytime they want to call Jesus Lord, they use the word Curios. - Who did that? Who did that translation? - Oh, that was, I mean, you get to the early church, I mean, the early church. - Okay, so I understand you're like church. - No, sorry, I mixed up a little thing. So like the gospel writers and the Apostle Paul and all of them, oh yeah, they used the word Curios. Sorry, I got a little mixed up. I thought we were going back to going to the Septuagint and some of that stuff. - So like the New Testament biblical authors, you're saying they did this. - They did that. - Yeah, yeah. - I don't think I've ever heard that before. - Oh yeah, this is one of the fun parts. So this is, when you mentioned earlier by, oh, like Jesus never referred to his God, we've talked about this before, but literally like, if Jesus did only things God could do, he knew only things God could know, and he said things only God could say, well, if it looks like a duck walks like a God, in fact, so it could duck, it's a duck. Same thing is that early writers knew exactly what they were doing. They used the titles that were only used of Yahweh in the Old Testament. So again, sorry, I got a little mixed up there. I thought we were going to Septuagint mode. So yeah, so Jesus, one of his biggest titles is Curios, which is the word they would have used for Yahweh in the Old Testament. - Yeah, so that's just kind of a little bit of a deep up. Anything you want to be to double click on, I know I went through a lot in a whole ton. - You want to talk with just real quick about, well, I don't know if you wanted to do this. Like, so the question I think a lot of people have is, okay, why did God reveal himself as I am that I am? Okay, you want to talk, there's a few different directions you got. You want to go Aseyati, you can talk Aseyati. Let me do one, and then you add on. - Okay, so let me do one that you add on. - And then I'm going to do one that's like a little speculative. I'm going to do the best thing. I'll do one that's a little speculative, and we can do it. So number one, it's really interesting. If you look at all the names of the Old Testament when other people give their names, so here's the question we're answering. Why does God reveal himself as I am who I am? Okay, well here's, in all the other names of the Old Testament, you'll notice their names are always given in reference to something else. - That's right. - Okay, so I'm Joshua, son of none. I'm Moses, the son of whoever, that sort of, or they'll be in reference to a geography. So this person who was from here, so all their names-- - Jesus of Nazareth. - Jesus of Nazareth, and that's a bad one because he is God. - That's right, that's right. - But they're all giving names. And oh, the way that you know who I am is in reference to something else. One of the things that God is doing is going, "Hey man, I am not in reference to anything else. Everything else is in reference to me." - Exactly, well, and even think of the context because he says, "Hey, when I go back and tell them, "which God is this, what am I to tell them?" He's going back into Egypt, which is a polytheistic place, which is a bunch of God's, but usually it tied to something specifically, raw, that God is the son. And then even many people would say that each of the plagues is an attack on the specific God of Egypt. - Oh, I understand. - Basically God systematically saying, "Hey, I own this joint. "I'm the one in control. "He's done it on everybody." - He's done it on everybody. He could have wiped him out in one plague. He did tend to systematically show that he was God and the false gods of Egypt were not. And so all these gods would have been attached to a specific thing. He's basically saying, "No, I just am. "I am the God of all." And you mentioned this word of satiety. It's a fancy word, but let me break it down as simply as I can. God doesn't depend on anything else besides himself to be himself. - Yes, right. - Yeah. - And he, because that he needs nothing, he gets the source of being from nothing. He just is. And because of that, by the way, he can be the source of joy and everything else that we need in life. 'Cause he didn't depend upon us. He just is who he is. He's the foundation of all reality. I've been going to more, we're leaving a lot out, but I want to be careful not to take people too far to the deep end. - There's two fun little things on this. And then let's talk, I want to do this, Stephen Barlett and it's Andrew Huberman. - Yeah, and we're going to, I want to ask her, so we'll do it for you. - But we'll do it quick. - Yeah, that's right, that's right. Let's do this real quick. So one, here's an interesting way that God's name is you. So it's, you know, Moses in this passage, he's got all the insecurities. And he's like, "Man, I can't talk." And God's like, you know, basically what God does is Moses like, "I can't talk." and God essentially is like, "Why can't?" That's kind of his, basically the "I am" is whatever you're not, I am. It's great. He's got a feeling of gaps. So what's really interesting is throughout the rest of the entire Bible, like all those little names that you'll sing in little hymns or whatever, and they're like Jova Jaira, Jova Nisi, Jova Rafa, Jo-- Honestly, I'm like, when everybody says that, I'm like, "That's real weird." I'm like, "That's the same way." Okay, I'm like, "That feels Jamaican to me. I don't know why, it does not, but it feels weird to be." But all, here's all those names for real. This is really interesting. So obviously, what we just learned is Jova, that's just another way to say Yahweh. Yeah, that's right. Okay, so what he's saying is, "I am." Okay, so this is really interesting. Throughout Israel's history, whenever there's something they realize they're not, they need, God will reveal his name as the thing that's gonna fill in their gap. Okay, so for instance, Jova Jaira essentially means Yahweh, our provider. I am your provider, okay? So they're like, "Hey, we don't have enough." We go, "I'm Jehovah Jaira." You don't have enough? I do, Jehovah Nisi, the Lord our banner. It's a war terminology. Hey, we're not powerful enough. Well, I'm Jehovah Nisi, I am. Hey, Jehovah Rafa, the Lord our healer. We can't heal ourselves. I'm Jehovah Rafa, I can. And all throughout the Bible, what he's doing is he's going, "Whatever you're not, I am." And he's essentially going, "I'm the gap filler." Whatever you know, I got that. That's one. Another one. Now, this goes back to, I think some Jewish rabbis that it sounds a little speculative, but I know people have been talking about it for centuries. People have pointed out before, this is a little weird, man. It's a little mysterious. That the way that you pronounce Yahweh, that some of the ways that people would vocalize at particularly in ancient cultures, it sounds like inhaling and exhaling. So like, just a little closer, it's like, Yahweh, you know, Yahweh. And that part of what God might be signaling is from the very beginning in Genesis, is that he knelt down and he breathed the breath of life into them. If that is true, now what you think about it, every single person who is ever born, the first word they ever speak, Yahweh. And then the very last thing that they say when they breathe their last. Yahweh, the breath of life, yeah. There may be something to do then. - Oh, I think there is. Well, and one quick thing, 'cause it's just to me, it's always been encouraging when I've been discouraged and I'm like, can I actually, can I throw up the Exodus 3, 7 through 10? It's really interesting. You don't have to know how we get discouraged and even Moses was, what's interesting, if you actually go to the calling of Moses, I highlighted in Yale all the places where it talks about God or his actions and the two little small places where he says, now to Moses, you go, that you may bring the people, the son's out of Egypt. And so he puts the emphasis not on Moses and who he is and what he has to do, but on who God is and what he is going to do. And even the little interesting fact, the next chapter, Moses, like, but I have the stutter and it's interesting, God, you know, in our most foreign listeners and translations, it says, I will teach you what to speak. And the Hebrew literally says, I will be with your mouth. And so it uses God's name and says, I am with your mouth. 'Cause again, the emphasis, anytime you're discreet, any find your discourage and your calling or the difference you can make, just remind yourself that what God wants to do is not dependent upon who you and you are, but on who God and who God is and what he wants to do. - We've done a lot of theology. You know, if somebody's asking right now, man, there's a lot of Hebrew and I don't know what this has to do with me. People need to understand too that this whole story, it is literally like your life and how Jesus saves you. The whole, there's so many levels to this. Pastor Josh, literally the whole story of Moses, he just screams the gospel, Jesus is everywhere. Like we said, if you think about it, we're quite before we ask the following question. The people of Israel were in bondage to Egypt under the rule of Pharaoh. Egypt represents the slavery of sin and Pharaoh is Satan before Christ. That's literally our story. We are all slaves to sin under the rule of Satan. In Exodus 3, God says, I have seen and heard my people, so I have come down from heaven to rescue them. Jesus literally says in John chapter 6, I have come down from heaven to see He can save the lost. The final plague of the first born, the death of the first born, that there's a curse and a death that is, that the people are passing over the people that are covered in the blood of the lamb and then they were set free. Jesus, the Bible says, is the first born of all creation. He takes that curse and that death upon himself and those that are covered in his blood are now in him. We are set free because of that. The people of Israel, so that's salvation. The people of Israel were set free and then immediately, they went through the waters of the Red Sea, leaving their old life behind and coming out a new life and a new identity that's called baptism. After you and I are saved, we go through the waters of baptism, we leave our old life behind and we have a new identity in Christ. The people of Israel were spent 40 years in the wilderness, 40 in the Bible is the number of testing and preparation. That's called sanctification in the life of the Christian. And finally, interestingly enough, Moses who gave us the law, led God's people to the edge of the Promised Land, but he did not go in. Instead, he points to another leader named Joshua. So that God's people could actually finally enter the Promised Land. Joshua and Hebrew is the same name as Jesus Yeshua, which literally means Yahweh is salvation. So here we see Moses literally pointing us towards Joshua for us to be able to enter the Promised Land. Our Promised Land ultimately is not a place. It is a person, his name is Jesus. Jesus who said, I promise you, I will be with you and I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. I will always be with you forever. So again, this is literally your story where Israel failed, Jesus succeeded with a lot exposed, Christ fulfilled and whom sin and slave, Jesus, that's free. The whole story is about Jesus saving sinners like you and me. There's levels to this, there's levels to this. Hey, my question real quick, as we're going to move on here is so great. That was Moses, what about me? How do I figure out God's will for my life? Well, hey, before we get back to the episode, I want to tell you about something coming up at Lake Point that we're really excited about this summer. We're hosting, add the movies. A four week sermon series where we'll use movie clips and stories to illustrate powerful biblical truths. It's one of the most fun and creative experiences we do all year here at Lake Point and it's designed for the entire family. And so every weekend, out of our physical locations, we'll feature a unique movie themed experiences, fun characters in the lobby for both kids and adults, incredible worship and practical teaching from the word of God. And of course, popcorn and drinks for everyone. So whether you are here and maybe you're a long time church or someone who's been away from church for a while or maybe you're looking for an easy way to invite a friend, neighbor or coworker to church, this right here is the perfect series for you. Add the movies is an in-person only event and begins July 11 and 12th and continues to August 1 and 2. And so if you're in the Dallas area, we'd love for you to join us at one of our campuses. You can find service times, locations and more information by texting the word ATM to 2-0-4-1-1. Now, let's get back to the conversation. - Yeah, crazy nuggets. - That's honestly what I think this passage is practically most helpful for. Is what the Bible says is that God created us in advance. He created good works in advance for us to accomplish. That's what the New Testament says. So somehow and some way, every single person got ever created, there are good works that he preordained and designed for you to accomplish with your life. Honestly man, that's why I think this passage does is the best way to do it. I did a little Venn diagram and this is the best way to think about it. Is this, if you look at this passage, it's like a Venn diagram of what is at the intersection of ability, affinity, and opportunity. - Say that all more time. - Yeah, ability, affinity, opportunity. Okay, so let me explain. It's like, ability is, if you ask the question, watch what happens with Moses here. How's Moses figure out what he's supposed to do? Okay, ability. What am I good at? - Yeah. - What do other people say that I'm good at? Better ways, what do other people say that I'm good at? Because a lot of people think they're good at something or I get at something. It's like heads up just by the way. That's why you need people's eyes on your life because your whole life is the first two episodes of American Idol every season, where you think you're awesome and nobody ever loved you enough to tell that you weren't awesome at that thing. And it's like the people who, they think they got the spiritual gift of singing, but nobody ever seems to have the spiritual gift of listening to 'em. It's like, okay, man. So you need to ask, what other people say that I'm good at? Well, look at Moses' life. It is not a coincidence. He spent 40 years in Pharaoh's court learning how to, at the executive level, how to lead a nation. So think about the skills they got downloaded into Moses in those 40 years. Well, God put him in a position so that he'd be able to someday lead two to three million Israelites out of. Okay, so ability. What am I good at? Like, what skills do I have, okay? Affinity is, ask this question. It's a little counterintuitive. Not just like, what's my heart sort of vibrate to? Ask this question. What can you not stand? And here's like, when you see this in Moses' life, and I think it's Exodus 1, the first time we ever see Moses as an adult, he commits, he kills a guy. He murders a guy. Why? Because he saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave, and he just could not stand to see the injustice of the slavery. He's like, I can't literally, I can't, I can't say. It made me kill somebody. Well, ask your, don't start killing people. But ask the question like, what is it that when you see it, you're like, bro, I literally cannot even watch. Like, I'll be honest, it kills me, it kills me. I'll be honest, dude, so like, all the best student minister volunteers, or all the best kids minister volunteers, you know there. They're people who, when they see kids who don't got spiritual fathers and mothers, it's just like something just wants to snap inside of them. They're like, they gotta have this. Or they're people who like, I didn't have that, and I know what happened, and it just grates on me. And, hey man, if you walk past a kid's ministry room and the thought of those kids growing up without a spiritual dad or a spiritual mom, like you literally just, "Yeah, I just can't stand it." That's probably part of your calling. Like for me, man, honestly, when I hear a bad sermon, it's like, I can't do it. Like literally I'll just turn it off. - You're going Facebook and you're criticizing? - No, I do not. No, I do not. I just, literally, I cannot listen to a bad, it just does something so emotionally of viscerating in me. I'll just turn it off. - Can I ask you this? Pastor Drusker, I'm sure people are curious. Was that always the case? Is that what your thing was? - Very, very, very early. Very, very early. - You always had a thing for preaching. Like, we don't need to get into this, but like, I don't know this sounds weird. It's just what God did in my life. I'm a third generation pastor, and for some reason, dude, when I was, I think I was like 13. I had a really gifted communicator that was my childhood pastor, and my parents would get the little tapes. Carlos, the tape was this thing. - Yeah, I know that. (laughing) My parents would get the sermon tapes. - The round things, right? That's what the tape was? - That's what I was talking about. - And they were a bucket piece. They were a bucket piece. My parents would get the sermon tapes. And from the time I was 13 to the time I graduated from high school, every night, I fell asleep listening to one of those tapes. I fell asleep every single night. - You had a tape recorder with you? - No, I had a, no. I had a tape player. - Oh, a tape player? - Stop, man. Stop, man. We wouldn't have had time for this. And literally every night, I had like 30 of those tapes of like his best of sermons. And from the time I was 13, time I was 18, that's how I fell asleep. And it's just, I don't know, man, I just, I can't listen to that. So the second question is, affinity. What is it like? I'm drawn to what drives me nuts. And the last one is opportunity. And the question he asked there is, what's the open door or what's the greatest need? So notice this, but this is fascinating, because of Moses being raised in Pharaoh's court, two things, he's probably, he might be out of two to three million Hebrews, the only one that's bilingual. Number two, he almost certainly was out of three million Hebrews, the only one who had access to the Palace of Pharaoh. He was the only guy who had that opportunity. So you need to start asking yourself the question, what's the, the Apostle Paul says in the New Testament for a wide door of effective service has been open to me? You need to ask the question, what's the thing that's the door that's open to me? Or you might ask it like this, walk through your church and ask the question, where's the greatest need? 'Cause that was the other thing. Where's the greatest need? And I'll just tell you right now, it's his kid's ministry. I don't care what church you're in. It's like you need somebody to be spiritual, mom is in spiritual daddy's. It's all those kids, it's always where it's at. So those are the three. And then once you sit down and like literally, I'd encourage you to do it. Sit down, draw a little Venn diagram, three concentric little circles, the overlap. Okay, affinity, ability, opportunity. And whatever is the one spot in your life where all three intersect, boom, there's your calling. - Boom, boom, boom. - That's so good. Ability, affinity, opportunity. That's really good. Paul. - Now I was just gonna give us some advice, probably more of our younger people. 'Cause you may be not even, you may not even know yet what your abilities and affinity is are. So I would actually say, nothing has leaned into those opportunities. 'Cause you asked Pastor Josh earlier, like did he know from early age. We probably didn't know until we actually started preaching. I was listening to preaching. - That's the fact. - And so the same thing, I'd say, if you're on the younger end, if you're a man, middle school, high school, college, young adult, try some different things, see what it seems like God has His hand on and both you have a knack for, you have an ability for, and an affinity for, and then lean into that. So that was gonna be more for some of our younger people is that you actually might need to try to get some opportunities to help learn what those other two are. - Just get reps and figure out which pitches you can hit. - That's right. - You just gotta do it. You gotta even a whole bunch of reps, doing a whole bunch of different things, figure out which pitches you hit. - Yeah. Last thing I'll say, 'cause, you know, we obsess over the what, and then we forget about the who has called you, right? I think before you're called to an assignment, you are called to a person. Mark, even, when you look at the Gospel, is Mark chapter three, verse 13-14, it says, I'm just gonna read it. And Jesus went up the mountain and called to him, those whom he desired, and they came to him, and he appointed 12 whom he also named apostles, so that they might be with him, and he might send him out to preach. So the being with him comes before sending him out to preach. What happens often is we obsess over that what God has called us to do, and we oftentimes disregard the who God has called us to be with. And so ultimately, again, if you're young, trying to figure out, run towards Jesus, make sure you obsess over how do you get to know Jesus more, how do you pray more, how do you get in love with Him more, and ultimately, you will get more clarity about the what. Before we shift gears to have a conversation on the air war, Pastor Josh, we cannot continue right now before taking a moment. This week is your birthday. - You jerk. - You jerk. - And so, because we're in our 12th. - I know, I know, but this is important. - We're just gonna take a second too. First of all, I mean, happy birthday. - Happy birthday. - And before your birthday, we created a song for you that I'm gonna play. - You got it. - It's a very short song. - You got it, you kidding me. - This is specialized for you. Here it is, I'm gonna make sure we get it right. - So, happy birthday, Pastor Josh. - What? - Wait, hold on, hold on. - Are you kidding me? - I'm so, I'm glad, I'm glad it didn't play. - Why is my brother not working? - Jesus, this is the confidence. - This is the one. - Do you want a blue tooth on something? - I hope that did not give you the opportunity. - Okay, hold on, no. - Oh. - Oh my gosh. - This is classic. (upbeat music) - Happy birthday, Pastor Josh. (upbeat music) - What is wrong with you? (laughing) - It's so intentional. (upbeat music) ♪ Pastor Josh walks on stage with the grins so big ♪ ♪ First words out, let's kick this pin ♪ ♪ If you've got your bibles open 'em up ♪ ♪ Because we got bibles ♪ ♪ Versus for that, there's some body shouts ♪ ♪ Bro, literally ♪ ♪ And don't worry, don't forget to check out ♪ ♪ Lot of free he'll say ♪ ♪ One second in the presence of God can change everything ♪ - That's real life, bro. Come on, guys. ♪ We're a kite caught in a hurry ♪ ♪ Kano red ♪ - Why? Why? ♪ Is it happy birthday, Pastor Josh? ♪ ♪ Now let's kick this pin ♪ (laughing) - He's been watching this music. - Thank you for that spiritually enriching 50 seconds. - 80s baby, but 92, am I honestly? - Hey, honestly we mess around here a lot. - Happy birthday. - Thank you, thank you. - You're a great pastor, great friend, husband, father. We honor you for that. - Yes, thank you, man. - And now, let's go ahead and say now. (laughing) - All right, let's talk about this. I want to say this again, okay, I want to finish about this. So first of all, Trini, will you toss that graph up? I think what you're starting to see, bro, I keep saying this over and over again. If you're looking at things in our culture right now, the tide is turning. I wanna let that sit. The tide is, something is happening that I have not seen in my lifetime that is now 43 years. - That's right. - That is something I have not seen, okay. Now, you all wanna say this is gallop. So what you're seeing right here, Americans who say religion is quote, very important in their own lives. Now, some trends that are not awesome, you see some things that are not awesome. A lot of those lines are down and to the right. All right, now, look at that green line. There is something that is happening right now among men, especially young men. And you're seeing a massive jump. It went from in like a two to three years, 28% to 42% according to you out. I just wanna say that again, 28% to 42% are jumping from religion, not super important to religion, super important. And in America, the vast majority of them, like vast, vast majority is Christians. Something is happening, something, there's a sea change happening underneath the service with men in particular, young men. Now, this is a whole different podcast and you know, you don't get mad at me on the internet before I get a chance to explain everything. Usually what happens, the way that God is designed the world, is things will happen in a man or men before they happen in the rest of society. That's just how God's made the world. You can call that whatever you want, toxic whatever, that's just how God made the world. So I'm hopeful about that. Now, what's interesting to me, I'm getting ready to show this to you. You're starting to see stats start to trickle up into like pop culture and above the surface, where now you're starting to see the stats become stories. So while I was, I watched these while I was working out on vacation with Jan, I best vacation over a second. And there were two dudes that are like very high profile podcasters that both said something really interesting. So it says, first clip, I'm gonna show them back to back real fast, then where it shuts this thing down. First one is a guy named Andrew Huberman, right? Am I pronounced that right? Huberman. I'm, Jan, I listen to him, I know I listen to him because he's a health guy, right? - He is a neuroscientist. - Yeah, all right, that's not my thing. So do listen to the next guy. But he's apparently like pretty, pretty big. - He's got a big podcast, yes. - Okay, so explain real quick who this guy is before I do this. - Yeah, so the first clip, if we're gonna watch the Andrew Huberman, he's a-- - He's a Huberman. - Huberman Huberman, yeah, you know. - How is Jason Huberman? - Huberman. - Huberman, there you go. Thank you, Jason. Neuroscientist and professor of neurobiology at Stanford School of Medicine. So he's got his own podcast, the clip we're about to watch right now. He's in a different podcast called Modern Wisdom, hosted by Chris Williamson. And this is a podcast basically on self-improvement philosophy and psychology. - Okay, now what you're getting ready to see here is while I was on vacation, he essentially, if I understand correctly, like had his coming out as a person of faith and moving towards Christianity, all right? Now check this out, I wanna explain a couple of things here, but check this out. And Trinne, I'm gonna have you stop it at a certain point. know, it's my, you know, I love teaching science. I love learning and teaching science. I hope that's obvious to people. I, um, but it's my one wish for, for people that at some point in their life, they at least explore the possibility and, um, and get morning sunlight. But the, um, he's not for that. You know, open to faith and get morning sunlight. I just hit 50 recently and, and I will say, um, if I look back on my life, I, I, sure I wish I had done certain things differently. I mean, who, who doesn't? Right? This notion of like no regrets, like, yeah, I wish I'd made certain decisions, not others. Um, but by and large, I'm very, very happy with the decisions I made by and large. And I was happy to discover resistance training and running and neuroscience and, you know, cuddle fish and ferrets. I had a pet ferret and, um, I don't recommend a bulldogs and I have the, the, the amazing relationship to family and friends and I'm very blessed in my personal life and my romantic life is feeling awesome these days. And, and it's just like it's overwhelmingly positive, despite a lot of strain and hardship. But the one thing that I wish that I had done earlier was to stop resisting the voice in my head that said, you know, I think, I think there's a God and I'm going to pray. I kept pushing that away. I was like incompatible with my notion of what it meant to be, uh, scientists. It was just incompatible with, with things. I just kept pushing down and yet the same time wishing. Okay. First of all, uh, now I'm going to say, but first of all, he's been his whole life doing this thing. Hey man, it feels like faith is incompatible with science and being a scientist. Now, first of all, you're seeing a bunch of this. I and Hershey Ali. There's a bunch of different scientists and intellectuals. You're seeing the same trend in. I just want to point this out. So you're not, you're not old enough for this Carlos, but I'm going to be 43 for a second here. Okay. When I was growing up, that was like the dominant narrative. Yeah. Is Heyman like science and faith completely incompatible. One of the things that's driving what you're seeing right now is the exact opposite is starting to like it's leading in different conclusions. So if you go back Wall Street Journal Publishers article, I think it was Eric Metaxas few years ago, the title of the article was just science increasing and makes the case for God. When I was growing up, there was like a much more limited level of awareness and people felt like it let it in one way. Now it's the opposite for a few reasons. One, you're seeing guys like this, you got issues like fine tuning of the universe. That's the whole deal of, you know, astrophysicist is now. No, like it's just the, hey, the force of gravity, strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetic force. Like people understand if any of those little physics things or an infinitesimal fraction different, a universe couldn't exist. Yeah. Interesting little side note, somebody asked Christopher Hitchens before he died. What's the thing that's the strongest argument that you don't know what to do with? And he was, he said, hey, fine tuning the universe, keeps me up at night. Wow. It keeps me up at night. So you got that, you got complexity of life. It's just like, hey, dude, you know, 60 years ago, people thought cells were just sort of amorphous blobs. Well, it's like, bro, now they know like there's like a complex human city inside of every one of yourselves, protein delivery mechanisms. There's a human language written into the double helix inside of every DNA strand of your body. It's more complex than a computer programming language. Like, so guys like this, they're starting to get their heads around this stuff. What they're, here's, well, it all down. Here's why I think some intellectuals are starting to kind of go like, hey, man, as opposed to atheism, agnosticism, I've got to probably deal with guys like that are starting to realize, man, an atheist has to believe in at least six miracles. They got to believe in something from nothing, order from chaos, life from non-life, personal from the non-personal, reason from non-reason, and morality from matter. And for guys like this, it's becoming really difficult to believe that everything and everyone came from nothing and no one. Okay, so you're seeing this now. But watch what he says happen to him when he starts moving towards Jesus. Check this out, watch what he says before it. And the reason I'm my 50th birthday, I had to give an uncomfortable toast, because believe it or not, I'm somewhat introverted, especially in large groups. I'm happy to talk signs and talk like this with you, but, and I said it then, and I'll say it again now, like, I'm 50 and for the first time in my life and my entire life, I've experienced sustained times of real, deep peace, like just peace, like just like everything's okay. Everything is as it should be, not just some little mantra that you say when you're on the big surcoast. Okay, now notice that note that where I'm coming back to it. He says, first in my life, I'm experiencing real sustained peace. So I'll just toss this out. St. Augustine said this in his confessions. He said, you have made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. Wow. And what you got right there is you got a scientist who's like been all up here. I got to understand, I got to understand, I got to understand it. He's got a piece. What he's saying right there. But he's literally saying, I can't quite explain it. Yeah. I got this piece that surpasses understanding. That sounds a little familiar. By the way, in order to give the piece that surpasses understanding, you have to give up your right to understand. And you got this guy that's going, hey man, if God's the size of the Pacific Ocean and my mind's the size of a cocaine, there's probably going to be some things that don't fit. Yeah. But man, when I get up in there, there's some peace I've never had before. Now, all right. So I see that clip. The next day, I'm working out in the little workout gym and I run across this. Now what you get, this is my favorite one of the two. What you're getting ready to see is a guy named John Linux. So he's in this clip. You're getting ready to see. He's like the 80 year old white dude. John Linux is the professor of mathematics at Oxford, who by the way, fun fact, before CS Lewis died, he gave a series of lectures about his Christian faith at Oxford. John Linux is just old enough to have attended those lectures. Okay. So John Linux, professor of mathematics at Oxford, is a Christian man. Yeah. He's on Stephen Bartlett's podcast. I know you love explain who Stephen Bartlett is. Yeah, Diary of the CEO, one of the most popular podcasts for interview format. And he's even just a great interviewer. My favorite. As killer. Other than the delivery podcast, that's my podcast. And his part is huge. Like it's absolutely enormous. Okay, Diary of the CEO. Now this one, I'm not going to interrupt it even once. I'm just going to let this clip play to let the force of it fall on you. All right. So he does, I listen to a whole thing. He does like a two hour interview with John Linux about faith. Bartlett's not a Christian, Linux is a Christian at the very end of the interview. This happens. In a world with so many challenges, what can we do to restore hope and trigger engagement? Give people a real basis for hope that transcends this world. And the only place I know where to find that is in Christ and in Christianity. John, thank you. One of the one of the most compelling arguments for God that you've presented and your way of seeing the world and being is not actually necessarily anything you've written in your books or not necessarily anything you've said. It is it is actually you and you have a certain peace and contentment that I rarely see in people that I interview, but I often see and I've almost always seen in the Christians that I've interviewed. And this is a interesting phenomenon for me. I interviewed Wesley Huff recently. Do you know Wesley Huff? Yes. He was the same Canadian. Wesley is a bright cookie. He was very much, he gave me the same feeling as you. He just feels like a really happy person. Very sort of content rounded well. There are many of us. But it seems to be a trend that a lot of the Christian apologists that I've interviewed have that anchoring that so many of us are looking for. There's a real sense of that. I sit in front of many people and of course they often ask me questions. I don't even understand, but in life that peace is very important to me. And also what we started with, when I look at you, I see someone who's of infinite value made in the image of God. And so what I say to you or think about you is hugely important to me and I wish you well. Thank you. Now listen, what you just saw is the reality that there are five gospels. There's not four. There's Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and you. And if you watch the interview, dude, it is fascinating. You got this guy towering intellect, professor emeritus of mathematics at Oxford University. You watch the interview multiple times the interview Bartlett asked him a question and he literally says, I don't know, literally. I don't know. That's tough. I don't know. Listen, he didn't have all the answers. He had something far better. A peace that surpasses understanding. And what everybody needs to understand when they watch stuff like that is that the only way to get real lasting peace is to know the prince of peace himself. And that is what those guys are responding to. And so what we got to do is watch stuff like that. And honestly, we just have to go let your light so shine before men that they may see your good. And I'm going to say spirit and glorify your father who is in heaven. That's what you see it. Amen, amen. Now, best regards. Would you pray for us? I'll be honor. Father, would you please make every single person sitting at this table in this room and listening to this podcast that type of man or that type of woman. Jesus Christ, I pray that you would be the Prince of Peace and the Presence of Peace to everybody that knows you and draws near. And Father, I pray that you would, that you would send us out like light in the darkness, like your word says, as sheep among wolves, but that everywhere we go, we would simply be people who know you and love you and enjoy you. And we just let people see that we know you and we love you and enjoy you. And our life just naturally says, come play. Father, I pray for anybody that's listening to this, that they don't know you yet, that they would bend their knee to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, and know that peace that we want them to know. And I pray those things in the name of Jesus Christ Himself, risen from the dead. Amen. Amen. Amen. The free brother. The free. [Music]