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

Josh Howerton is the Senior Pastor of Lakepointe Church, one of the largest churches in the United States. Known for his thoughtful biblical teaching and willingness to engage difficult cultural issues, he has become a leading voice on faith, leadership, marriage, and Christian apologetics. Through his preaching, writing, and podcast appearances, Josh equips Christians to think critically, live faithfully, and navigate today's cultural challenges with biblical conviction. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: Go to https://helixsleep.com/SRS for up to 20% off sitewide. Go right now to https://sundaysfordogs.com/SRS50 and get 50% off your first order. Or, you can use code SRS50 at checkout. Get 30% off your first subscription order at https://armra.com/srs or enter code SRS at checkout. For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at https://Mengotomars.com. Try ZipRecruiter for FREE today at https://ziprecruiter.com/SRS and meet great candidates who’ll go the extra step for your job. Josh Howerton Links: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/josh_howerton Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/HowertonJosh X - https://x.com/howertonjosh Website - https://lakepointe.church Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  FX's American Horror Story returns for an unrivaled 13th installment with the iconic horrors you love to fear and an all-star cast reprising fan favorite roles. Light your candles, draw your pentagrams, and prepare for a supreme surprise. FX's American Horror Story 13. Now streaming on Hulu.

• 1:04Shawn Ryan?

  Josh Howerton, welcome to the show, man.

• 1:07Speaker 03

  Sean, right? It's an honor, my friend.

• 1:09Shawn Ryan?

  It's an honor to have you.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  It's an honor.

• 1:11Shawn Ryan?

  So, yeah, I've been, uh, you know, my chief of staff came from Dallas and she kind of put you on my radar. And I was, I was watching some of the stuff. Like, I don't remember how you popped up, but she had made a suggestion about you coming on. And I was like, he's already on the list.

• 1:27Speaker 03

  Well, dude, I think she's a former Lake Point member.

• 1:30Shawn Ryan?

  She is.

• 1:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, dude. Yeah, so that was a very cool connection, man. Well, and, you know, it's cool to meet the people you listen. I've been, you know, I've been watching you for a minute.

• 1:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  I appreciate you.

• 1:40Shawn Ryan?

  Well, thank you for saying that.

• 1:42Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 1:42Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, so, yeah, we got a lot of stuff to talk about today.

• 1:47Speaker 03

  I'm in, man.

• 1:47Shawn Ryan?

  I'm pumped.

• 1:48Speaker 03

  I'm in. Hey, before we get, can I give you something?

• 1:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  I gotta give you a gift.

• 1:51Shawn Ryan?

  Of course.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  So, uh, I appreciate what you've done for our country. This is a big deal to me. It took me a long time to find this. Here's what this is. You may have seen this. Have you ever heard of a Heart Shield Bible? You ever heard of this?

• 2:05Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  This is like, this make my eyes sweat a little bit. So here's what this is. I want you to hold that. So that's a 1943 Heart Shield Bible. And what that is, 1943, President FDR, he partnered with, I think, the Gideons. And they handed out these little pocket New Testaments to active World War II soldiers. And, bro, what they did is, here's why that thing, I don't know if the viewers can see. The front of that thing is plated brass.

• 2:35Speaker 03

  And the reason they did that is they designed it so that it could fit in the front pocket of a, of an active World War II soldier so that it could stop a bullet.

• 2:43Shawn Ryan?

  No way.

• 2:44Speaker 03

  And dude, um, so that guy, you'll see it on the inside, the one I found, that guy, there was a, I think, an Air Force Colonel that wore that into active duty. And Sean, honestly, man, one of the reasons I said, I don't, I don't do this, I don't travel, and I don't travel.

• 2:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:59Speaker 03

  I got kids and I'm focused. Uh, one of the reasons I said yes to this is just why I see God doing in you and through you. And, uh, the, the reason that that thing means so much to me, dude, that's, what that is, that's a prayer that the, that the president wrote for those soldiers to read that book.

• 3:18Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  And, uh, the reason I wanted you to have that is, uh, man, you know, I'm in it with you. There's that thing that above all, it would sit right over a soldier's heart. And there's that thing, above all else, guard your heart for from it flows the, flows the well, wellspring of life. And how do you guard your heart? I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not send against you. So, there you go, man.

• 3:41Shawn Ryan?

  Man, thank you. That's really cool.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  Thank you, thank you.

• 3:47Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  I, I thought it was pretty cool.

• 3:49Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. This is awesome, man.

• 3:51Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 3:51Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 3:52Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 3:53Shawn Ryan?

  Beautiful, beautiful.

• 3:56Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I got a present for you, but it's not that, uh,

• 4:02Shawn Ryan?

  sentimental.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Come on, man.

• 4:04Shawn Ryan?

  I got you a bag of gummy bears.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  I love gummy bears.

• 4:06Shawn Ryan?

  Full of sugar, red dyes, yellow five, all the bad shit, but they taste amazing, so. And they'll probably be illegal here in a couple of months.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  I mean, is there pot in those? I need to know right now.

• 4:15Shawn Ryan?

  No pot.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  All right, good.

• 4:16Shawn Ryan?

  Sorry.

• 4:17Speaker 03

  I can have it.

• 4:18Shawn Ryan?

  Sorry about that, but.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, no, that's good, man.

• 4:20Shawn Ryan?

  But just candy, just candy.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  All right.

• 4:23Shawn Ryan?

  But, uh, let me give you an introduction here. Pastor Josh Howerton. You're senior pastor of Lake Point Church in Dallas, one of the largest churches in the country. You're known for addressing difficult issues at the intersection of faith, culture, politics, and apologetics. You're also the host of Live, or of Live Free Podcast. You're a husband to your wife, Jana, and the father of three adopted kids. Welcome to the show.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  It's an honor, it's an honor, my friend.

• 4:51Shawn Ryan?

  So before we get started, you want to pray?

• 4:54Speaker 03

  I would love to.

• 4:55Shawn Ryan?

  You want to lead us?

• 4:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would love to, man.

• 4:57Shawn Ryan?

  All right.

• 4:59Speaker 03

  Jesus Christ, thank you for being the sovereign and loving Lord of all the universe. And thank you that for, from before the foundations of the world, you picked this moment for me to have the honor of talking to Sean and every man and woman that'll listen to this thing. Father, I pray that you would just, uh, you'd kiss it from heaven, there'd be an open heavens over the conversation. Uh, Lord, you would lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake in a way that would be a blessing to Sean, his family, and everybody that listens. I pray that in the crucified, risen name of Jesus Christ.

• 5:34Shawn Ryan?

  Amen.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  Amen.

• 5:35Shawn Ryan?

  Amen.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Amen.

• 5:37Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 5:40Shawn Ryan?

  All right, here we go.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  Let's go, man.

• 5:41Shawn Ryan?

  Here we go. So third generation pastor, correct?

• 5:45Speaker 03

  That is correct.

• 5:46Shawn Ryan?

  And you, you were here.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  I was here, I was here, dude. So my Papa, Jerry Howerton, my life hero, uh, he was, you know, kind of blue collar, Ozark Mountains kind of kid, and grew up, became a pastor. He was a little rural, rural church pastor all over Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan. I mean, all over the place. Drove a truck for a little while and became a pastor. And, uh, man, I miss him. Bet, one of the best men I've ever met. And then my dad, Rick Howerton, pastor as well. And, uh, he started a church, rubbed two sticks together, started a little church here in the Spring Hill, kind of around this area, the Bridge Church.

• 6:24Shawn Ryan?

  Well, yeah, that's like 15 minutes out there.

• 6:26Speaker 03

  That's right, man. So my dad started that church. And then I had, uh, one of the greatest honors in my life to step into my dad's shoes and, and pastor that church for about 10 years. And, um, was there for about 10 years. Lord did a really unique thing and then called us Dallas.

• 6:43Shawn Ryan?

  Right on. How did you, I'm just curious,

• 6:48Shawn Ryan?

  how did Christ come into your life? I mean, how did you, what, what built your faith? Did you just always have it? Or was, did something happen? Or, I mean, I'm a hard knocks guy. He had to slap me around a little bit. He still does it. I'm going through one right now. But, uh, but, um, but, uh, you know what I mean? But, but I like, I, I don't, I don't like it in the moment, but it, you know, it, um, it'll 100x my faith. You know what I mean? Every time it winds up happening. And to the point where it's not even faith anymore for me, it's fact. And so I'm wondering, you know, did you just, did you always have it because you grew up in it? Or are there any specific events that really just hit you? Like, okay, all this stuff that we're talking about, it's real.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  This is for real, for real. Man, honestly, I'd say both. You know, I'll just honor my parents. Uh, I got, I got, uh, make my eyes sweat a little bit. I got, I got good parents and they love me. And, uh, man, you know, I grew up in the 90s. I'm an 80s baby, but the 90s made me kind of thing. And, you know, growing up in the 90s, it was kind of like cool to be a pastor's kid and kind of rebel and, you know. I didn't understand that at all. Because I, like, every second of my life, I loved being Rick Howerton's kid, Pastor Rick's kid. Loved every second of it. So whatever they, the experience they had, I had the opposite. So I grew up, like my parents raised me, just like the word says in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  You know, I got a million memories. My mom sitting there and quizzing me on Bible verses, growing, you know, all the stuff. Uh, but I will say, there definitely came moments where it was like, so here's how I say it sometimes, like,

• 8:36Speaker 03

  what you just said is like, man, every now and then you'll go through it a little bit. And, uh, you know, you have those moments where, you know, you kind of get knocked flat on your back. But what you'll notice is, whenever you get knocked, knocked flat on your back, you finally look in the right direction kind of thing.

• 8:52Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  And, you know, when I look back at my life, there were moments where it was like, oh, like, I'm, I'm a, I'm a for real, for real sinner. And he's a for real, for real savior. And I, I'm, I need something, I don't got this. I need something a lot bigger than me. And so, you know, I think probably around college, you know, I had, had a couple head-on collisions with my own depravity. And I remember, I'll just, I haven't talked about this in a long time. I remember writing in my journal in college, like, where, you know, dude, you probably got the same stuff. I'm just like, just like you. You sin the same dumb sin for the millionth time? And, you know.

• 9:32Shawn Ryan?

  Thank God I didn't journal back then. But I didn't go to college but that age.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I, I remember, I remember journaling in college and I was reading the Gospels. And, you know, I think a lot of people think Christianity is, is like a bunch of good people telling bad people how to be good.

• 9:49Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  And, you know, it's like, you figure out real quick, that is not what this thing is. The whole thing is like, I'm not good. It's actually, you know, it's a bunch of forgiving nobodies trying to tell everybody about somebody who can save anybody kind of thing. You know? And I, I remember being in college and sinning the same dang sin for like a millionth time. And I remember reading about Jesus hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors. And it was the first time, dude, I haven't talked about this, uh, maybe ever. It was, it was like the first time in my life where like, it hit me like, oh, like, I fit right, prostitutes and thieves. I fit right in. You know? And, and I remember journaling and going like, man, it really dawned on me today that, you know, Jesus didn't come for a good,

• 10:33Speaker 03

  he came for prostitutes and, and murderers and thieves and, and race traitors and da, da, da, da. And I remember journaling and today I realize I fit perfectly into that category. And I honestly think that's usually the minute when, when somebody meets the real Jesus. Because you, you gotta, you gotta know you're a sinner to realize he's, he's a real savior, you know? So I had, I had a bunch of moments like that.

• 11:01Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 11:03Shawn Ryan?

  When did you know that you were gonna kind of follow in the family footsteps? That you were gonna become a pastor?

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Dude, you know.

• 11:12Shawn Ryan?

  How long have you been a pastor?

• 11:13Speaker 03

  You know, I started traveling around and preaching like in college. Actually, my youth pastor Jeff Carlisle, he stood me up to preach when I was like 16 in the youth group. And I just, honestly, you know, you probably seen the same thing. The difference between men that grow up and they become good men and builders and makers instead of takers and breakers kind of thing. It's usually they got other good men in their life. Like, that's literally the difference, you know? And I had a bunch of good men in my life and Jeff Carlisle was one of my youth pastor. And it was like I was 16 and he stood me up there and he was like, hey man, I want you to preach at a youth group. I don't know what I'm gonna do.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  And, you know, I just explained a verse that I'd read. And he grabbed me afterwards like, hey man, I want you to know like when you talked, everybody, everybody listened. There was like a little heat on that thing when he did that. And I just, people around me kept saying, hey man, we see in high school, the guys who maybe weren't on the same path that I was, you know, their little joke, they called me Rev, you know, kind of thing. Kind of half making fun of me a little bit, maybe. But it's just something everybody kind of saw in me, you know?

• 12:29Speaker 03

  And then there was, I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

• 12:32Shawn Ryan?

  How was your first, how was administering your first congregation? First time though?

• 12:37Speaker 03

  You know, honestly dude, not good, you know?

• 12:41Speaker 03

  So I was, I went up to, I went up to, it was Mount Washington, Kentucky. I was going to seminary, which for everybody that's listening, that's like post-grad, that's like Bible school. You're getting a theological degree.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  So I'm up there on Mount Washington, Kentucky, little rural, First Baptist Church up there, with sweetest people ever. Like, best experience ever, you know? I know some people have bad experience with churches, whatever that is, I had all the opposite, you know? And I was there for like three years and I grew it from like 150 students to like 120, you know? And honestly, it went okay, but you know, it's one of those things like the Lord was with me and I was figuring it out and just like you, you know?

• 13:30Shawn Ryan?

  Stop with it.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:31Shawn Ryan?

  Right on there.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, man.

• 13:34Shawn Ryan?

  All right, let's get into some hard stuff. This is a new question, I just, I started asking. I'm gonna ask everybody this question that comes on, that's kind of in a position like yours.

• 13:45Shawn Ryan?

  Why is Christianity the one religion that is totally acceptable to disparage?

• 13:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. All right. Can I give, let me, can I just give a starting point here?

• 13:56Shawn Ryan?

  Absolutely.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  I'm gonna show you something and I know you've seen it because it's right up there. So, do you remember this little thing? This is gonna blow your mind. You remember that little thing?

• 14:09Shawn Ryan?

  Oh yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  All right. So what that is?

• 14:12Shawn Ryan?

  We'll put it up on screen.

• 14:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. So what that is, is that is a chart of every cross-reference in the Bible. So what I want to talk about, I want to give a starting point. The answer to your question is, in large part, because that's exactly what the Bible said was gonna happen. So here's why, like, I'm always gonna go Bible, you know? I'm dumb about a lot of things, I try, I try to, I try to love the Word of God. So here's what it is, 16, that is every cross-reference in the Bible where the Bible references other parts of the Bible. There are 16,791 cross-references where parts of the Bible reference other parts of the Bible. And when you look at that dude, it kind of blows your mind a little bit. Well, I just want to point this out.

• 14:52Shawn Ryan?

  Did you say 16,000?

• 14:54Speaker 03

  16,791, from what I understand.

• 14:57Shawn Ryan?

  I thought it was 62,000.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  It may be six, actually, you're right. Actually, Sean, you're right. I think it's 67,700.

• 15:06Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I think it's 60.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  I was off by an order of magnitude.

• 15:09Shawn Ryan?

  I think, I do, I think it's 62,000 and some change.

• 15:12Speaker 03

  Okay, okay. It's in the 60,000s. But when you look at that thing, I mean, it'll blow your mind a little bit.

• 15:19Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  And if you were to see that and one person wrote a book that did that, that many cross-references and dovetails into other parts of the Word, you would look at that person and you would think, that is the greatest author who has ever lived, like goat. No one will, opus and masterpiece, okay? But that book was not written by one man. It was written by over 40 men across 1,500 years, across three continents, Asia, Europe, and Africa, in three different languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  It has one unified story, it has zero contradictions. Now listen, when I see that, like, that'll make my eyes sweat a little bit. Because there is only one way to explain that. And it's that that book over there, it was written down by men, but it was authored by the Word of God, by God Himself. So, when you ask that question, the response to the question, why is it the one thing that everybody can disparage? Well, man, like, when we open the Word, what we know is from Genesis 1, 2, and 3, we know immediately what Satan does after the fall of mankind,

• 16:46Speaker 03

  is he begins to wage war on the offspring that God is gonna use to redeem the world. So that's the storyline of the entire Bible. It's Word versus world. If you, you know, if you skip forward all the way to the end, you go to the book of Revelation. A lot of people, they get into Revelation and it's like, you know, they start reading and it's like, you know, Jesus looks like metal and his eyes are flames of fire and it's, you know, three-headed dragons eating babies and, and, you know, I think people start to go, I didn't know they dropped acid in ancient Rome, you know, kind of, what are they doing? What the book of Revelation is, is it's really, it's not, a lot of the book of Revelation isn't revelation about what's gonna happen in the future.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  It's revelation about what's been going on behind the scenes in the spiritual realm throughout all of human history. That's what a lot of the book of Revelation is. If you get to Revelation, chapter 12, you get this little vision of a dragon that represents Satan. And what it says that he does is he wages war upon the woman, which most Bible scholars go, man, that's the church, the Bride of Christ, and her offspring. So man, if you're going, why is Christianity the one thing that you can disparage? Is because the Bible says the whole world lies under the power of the evil one. The Bible actually calls Satan the little g God of this world.

• 18:10Speaker 03

  Actually, if you want, wanna get, this is kind of a little, it's really interesting. That actually, in the temptation of Jesus, Satan does this thing where he comes to Jesus and he goes, hey, I'm gonna show you all the kingdoms of the world. And he tells him, he's like, hey man, if you'll bow down and worship me, I'll give you all of these kingdoms. Now, what's really interesting is Jesus doesn't say, they're not yours to give. There's like this tacit assumption throughout the entire Bible that Satan is really over all of the world's systems. And that's why everything in the world aligns against one thing in particular, and it's Christianity, Christ, and Christians. That's baseline.

• 18:57Shawn Ryan?

  Sleep is one of the biggest upgrades you can make, but shopping for a mattress is usually a nightmare. You walk into a store, lay on something for five minutes, and somehow, you're supposed to know if that's the one you want to sleep on every night for the next 10 years. And that's why I like Helix. Helix makes the process simple. You take their sleep quiz, tell them how you sleep, what you like, and what you need, and they match you with a mattress that actually fits you. They have over 20 mattress models, so you're not trying to force yourself into one generic option. And the mattress itself feels high-quality, comfortable, supportive, built to last. And if you sleep hot, Helix has cooling upgrades too.

• 19:38Shawn Ryan?

  They ship straight to your door for free in the US and you get a 120-night sleep trial. So you can actually sleep on it at home and make sure it's right. They also back it with a limited lifetime warranty. Helix is the most awarded mattress brand, tested and reviewed by experts like Forbes and Wired. Go to helixsleep.com/srs for 20% off site-wide. That's helixsleep.com/srs for 20% off site-wide. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you.

• 20:12Shawn Ryan?

  As you guys know, once upon a time, I was a Navy SEAL and then I contracted for CIA. We were hunting ISIS, Taliban, terrorist organizations, China was there, Russia was there, the Iranians were there, and everybody's kind of collecting on each other. One thing I learned is how important encryption in protecting your data is. That experience has just always made me extremely paranoid about what's being sucked out of my phone, what information are people getting? I wanted something that could protect everybody. And so we turned it into an application. We call it the Glacier App. We have secure DNS. Now, what's secure DNS?

• 20:52Shawn Ryan?

  Well, very simply put, secure DNS keeps your phone from being exploited while you're browsing the internet. Just a couple of buttons, your phone's protected, you got yourself a burner number or more. You hit connect, done, you're protected. This is like the real James Bond shit, MI6, CIA-level stuff, made in the US. TheGlacierApp.com or just go on the App Store and look up the Glacier App. Take your privacy back. Download Glacier today.

• 21:27Shawn Ryan?

  It's a good answer.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  In fact, actually, can I go a layer deeper?

• 21:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 21:32Shawn Ryan?

  Keep going.

• 21:32Speaker 03

  So dude, I'll give you an example of this. So do you know who Raymond Ibrahim is?

• 21:38Shawn Ryan?

  I do not.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  Dude, you need to know who that guy is.

• 21:41Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  So Raymond Ibrahim.

• 21:43Shawn Ryan?

  Is he alive?

• 21:44Speaker 03

  He is. Raymond Ibrahim, he comes from Egyptian Coptic Christian family. I just had him on Live Free. And he's like, uh, he, he actually got famous around nine 11 because he's a doctorate in Arabic. He got a job at the Library of Congress. So he's back in the stacks. This is going somewhere, I promise. He's back in the stacks. So those are the books no one has access to. And he finds in Arabic transmissions from Osama bin Laden out to a bunch of, you know, terror cells or whatever that have never been translated. And then he like blows the whistle on, hey dude, here's what this guy is saying.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  This is what they're saying on BBC and CNN about why they're doing all this stuff. Here's what Osama bin Laden is actually saying. And it's, you know, it's kill the infidels and all this stuff. So he blows the whistle on it. That's where Raymond Ibrahim comes to fame. So anyway, he's on a podcast. He's like a, he's a leading scholar on intersection of Christianity and Islam. Very interesting. Okay. So Ibrahim's on the pod and off air, he tells me, he's like, hey, you know what actually pushed me to Christianity? I started studying the world and I noticed everything aligns against this one thing. And then he gives, dude, he gives this example, which I think a lot of people wonder about this.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  The example he gives is like, have you ever noticed that progressivism and Islam, they always seem to be on the same team, at least in America? You've kind of seen that?

• 23:20Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's kind of, in general, kind of tends to be, be a thing. Which makes no sense. Because you kind of got, hey, man, we're over here, you know, gay rights, women's rights, you know, freedom of expression, progressive. And then you kind of got Islam is kind of, you know, kind of oftentimes the opposite of those things.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  Well, if you start asking the question, why would this, the women's rights people kind of align with kind of the thing that, at least in many countries, that, hey, man, they kind of, you know, they'll, they'll do something to a woman that's not, not wearing a burka. You know, like kind of, hey, man, why, why are we doing, you know, Queers for Palestine? You know, that's kind of like chickens for KFC, you know? That didn't make sense. Well, the unifying principle is the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Anything but Christianity and anyone but Christ. And Ibrahim sees that and he's like, everything's aligned against one thing. There must be something to that one thing.

• 24:21Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. You know, do you know who Eli Crane is?

• 24:25Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 24:25Shawn Ryan?

  Eli Crane is a congressman out of Arizona. He was a Navy SEAL. He's a good friend of mine. And, um,

• 24:34Shawn Ryan?

  he's a huge fan of yours. He somehow, he, he must've saw the post where.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  That's awesome.

• 24:38Shawn Ryan?

  You were coming on. So he wanted, I wanted to wait till the end to ask this. But me and Eli bat the Israel topic back and forth.

• 24:49Shawn Ryan?

  Pretty consistently.

• 24:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:51Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, we just disagree. We have wildly different ideas of, you know, what this is and what the relationship should be and what's going on. And, and, um, but I, you know, I respect Eli. He's a really good friend of mine. And, um, so he wanted me to ask you about Islam and prophecy.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  Oh geez. Okay. All right. Just go with it? Just go for it?

• 25:15Shawn Ryan?

  Hit it.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  All right.

• 25:17Shawn Ryan?

  You already know, if you watch this, you know, we go to some dark, dark topics.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go. Okay.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  Well, quick caveat, I'm just going to start right here. Uh, I'm a pastor and what my heart beats for more than anything else is for everybody everywhere to know Jesus Christ and to love the Father. So my, that's my starting point. So before I say anything, I want you, Eli, and anybody else that listens to know, um, I love every person that calls himself a Muslim. And I hate Islam because it destroys people and eternities. And I can do both of those things. I can love a person and I can hate what I believe is demonic ideology. So let me just point some things out. So like some things that are interesting to me. And let me give a quick, I want to set this up.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  So like especially you, maybe you Sean, or maybe some people that are listening. You're going to hear some things here in a minute. And you'll be like, man, there's some real dark stuff in the world. Like in fact, I think a lot of the reason that you're seeing a resurgence of the purposes of God, a right, I, I think Sean, I think a rising hope. I think we got a chance to see something special, man.

• 26:31Shawn Ryan?

  I do too.

• 26:32Speaker 03

  I think, I think we got a chance. And I'm, I'm willing to pour my, my life out for it. I think part of the reason dude is in the era leading up to where we're at now, and I'm going to get back to what you just asked. I'm, I'm making my way there. Is the obviousness of darkness became so smack you in the face that people awoke, they, they awakened to the reality that there was a non-ignorable dark force in the world. And then dude, I think what a lot of people do, especially young men right now, is they're going, man, if there's a darkness, there must be a light. And that light has a name and his name is Jesus Christ.

• 27:18Speaker 03

  I honestly think that's a lot of what's going on. Now, that dovetails to what you're saying. I just want to point some things out that, you know, you or anybody else can think I'm an idiot. That's fine. You know, whatever. Let me point some things out. All right. So, um, uh, what, uh, what Muslims do in general, uh, what a lot of Muslims do is they trace their spiritual lineage to Ishmael. So we're going to do, we're going to Bible nerd out for a second and we're going to go, uh, we're going to do some Old Testament theology and then make our way forward. Okay. So we're, we're going to do a little Bible study real quick. So in the Old Covenant, God, God makes his covenant with Abram, who becomes Abraham. Okay. And he tells Abraham through you and your offspring. And it's very interesting, Sean. This is very interesting, just for, I'm, I'm a Bible guy. When it says offspring, it's singular.

• 28:03Speaker 03

  So in other words, you have, you're going to have one future offspring. And through that one future offspring, somebody out of your lineage, Abraham, is going to bless the entire world. Okay.

• 28:12Shawn Ryan?

  How do you know it's singular?

• 28:14Speaker 03

  In the book of Galatians, it specifically talks about that. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul calls attention to the fact that it says offspring. So Paul is, I'm, what I'm doing right now is I'm making the same point the Apostle Paul makes in the New Testament. And so it points that out. It's a singular. Okay. Now, obviously there's nations that come out of him and all of that stuff. So, but, but there's a, the specific promise is going to find its termination in one future offspring that I'll just pull my punch is Jesus Christ. Okay. So that's where we start. Now, the promise and the covenant that was given to Abraham, obviously he, he was going to have a child. Now, uh, the child, uh, he has to wait for a long time and he's waiting around for the promise to happen.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  And he takes matters into his own hands and, uh, and his wife, this is the whole deal. His wife Sarah gives him his servant, Hagar, and they have essentially a, a covenantally illegitimate child named Ishmael. Then later he and Sarah have a child named Isaac. So here's what you got. What you end up with because of he and Sarah's disobedience is you have one covenant, but you have two sons. And now we got a problem because now we got two sons. They're going to end up fighting, uh, and all of their offspring are going to end up fighting. Uh, in the spiritual realm, I believe it's connected to that over this one covenant. So then what you have is you have, uh, the children of the promise, who, who, those are the Jewish people historically.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  And then you have, uh, what Muslims do is they trace their lineage to Ishmael. So this is what.

• 29:49Shawn Ryan?

  The other son.

• 29:50Speaker 03

  The other son.

• 29:51Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  Okay. So now one covenant, two sons. Now you got a thing going on. Okay, you got that thing going on. Okay. Now, fast forward in Galatians 1:8, Paul says this. He says, but even if we or an angel from heaven. Now, this is really important. I'm going to give you two verses where he can connect some dots. He says, but even if we or an angel from heaven should appear to you and preach to you another gospel, let him be accursed. Bookmark that in your head. Then you got another Bible verse in the New Testament that says that what Satan does is he quote, "masquerades as an angel of light." All right. Now dude, I'm a, I'm a, you know, I'm a dumb rural Kentucky kid. But you start putting some things together.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  And in the, the 600s, what Muhammad says happens is he, now first of all, let me just say, I'm not like some Islamic scholar. I'm doing 30,000 foot big rocks. What he says happens is he wanders in a cave and essentially does this. He goes, man, man, I was in there and this real weird thing happened. I was in there and this angel of light appeared to me. And it, he started revealing to me a, another way to God that's different than the one that we've had. Now dude, all of a sudden I'm going, well, that's really interesting. Because 600 years before he's doing his thing, you got a Bible, Bible verse saying what Satan does is he masquerades as an angel of light. And then you have a speci, you have a specific warning

• 31:17Speaker 03

  that throughout history, that an angel from heaven may appear and reveal to you another gospel. Why? Because Jesus came and he said, I am the way, the truth and the life. And nobody comes to the Father except through me. And dude, I just want to say this and this gets me a little trouble. You know, you may have some experience with this. Every now and then you'll do something, the internet will get mad at you. That happens to me. And, uh, and you know, uh, one of the things that pastors don't have to try to be controversial. They just got to read Bible verses. And one of the things that Jesus said, that man, people, they just hate it. But it's man, I didn't say this. Jesus said it. And man, what kind of, I'd be a whore, I'd be a liar not to tell you what Jesus said. And he said, he was the way, the truth and the life. And nobody comes to the Father, Father, except through him.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  What he didn't say is I am a way, a truth and a life. And some people come to the Father, except through me or also through me. So then you got that. So you have the birth of Islam and it seems to me, man, like it's the fulfillment of exactly what was warned against in the scriptures. Now I'll give you, I'll give you two other things. Jesus said, I think it's in the Gospel of John. He said, the time will come, and he's talking about the end. Okay. I'm not a huge end times guy, but, uh, he's talking about the end. And he says, the time is coming when they will kill you and think they are offering service to God.

• 32:38Speaker 03

  Now, I think what a lot of people have done, especially in America for like the last thirty, fifty years, is a lot of Christians have been like, man, we're nervous about the rise of secularism and the rise of atheism, and people are just de-converting and apostatizing that kind of thing. But honestly, you take that verse that Jesus said real clearly, and what Jesus seems to be saying is it like the final boss, like when Jesus, like right before Jesus returns, the final boss, it's not going to be atheism, it's not going to be secularism, it's going to be some other religion that believes that killing infidels is offering service to God. Seems like that's one clear meaning of what Jesus said. Now, I'll give

• 33:23Speaker 03

  you one other one, and then I'll just point this out. In the book of Revelation, again, Revelation is peeling back the curtain on like, now, what's been going on in the spiritual realm throughout human history? One of the things that it says is John gets this vision of all the martyred saints, like that, all that means is just Christians. So, all the Christians that were martyred because they refused to not worship the Lamb. They're like, we're, that's Jesus, we're Jesus people, we're Team Jesus. And it doesn't just tell us they were martyred, it tells us specifically how they were martyred. And it says, he saw the souls of those who were beheaded. Now, dude, again, I always want to take this with

• 34:08Speaker 03

  a grain of salt. Like, I'm not a big, like, here's all the charts, and here's when Jesus went through all this stuff. But dude, I do want to have my eyes open with my Bible in front of me. And it is interesting to me, man, that I'm aware of, there is one major world religion, and one only, that doesn't just specify to sometimes kill people who have a different faith than you. It specifies how, and the Quran calls it striking necks is beheading. So, you got that. And then I'll do one last one. It's hard to do from memory, but I'll do my very best. In Islamic eschatology, so, that's, what eschatology

• 34:49Speaker 03

  means, it's two, it's two Greek words, eschaton means last, and hallogi means study of. So, study the last. In Islamic eschatology, like the end of the world, what it says is there'll be this figure that rises up called the Mahdi, M-A-H-D-I. And different, in the same way that in Christianity, there's like different sects of Christianity that view end-time stuff differently. And that's like, not my fastball, but, you know, is what it is. It's the same thing in Islamic eschatology. Different Muslims believe different things. But there's some really interesting things that they believe about the Mahdi. They believe that

• 35:32Speaker 03

  he will rise to power during global tumult. They believe that when he rises to power, he will unite the world in a one-world Islamic government. They believe that that government will be headquartered in Jerusalem. They believe that when he does it, he will slaughter the Jews. They believe that he will usher in a seven-year peace treaty in that area. They believe that he will ride in, they believe things like this, that he will ride in on a white horse. Now, dude, I just want to point this out. If anybody's listening, and like, hair standing up on the back of your head, and there's little alarm bells going off, I just want to point this out. If a little alarm bells are going off in your

• 36:15Speaker 03

  head because you read your Bible before, that's because a lot of the aspects of the Islamic Mahdi are the exact descriptions of the New Testament Antichrist. So, do I know that's what's going to happen? Nope, I don't. But I do have my Bible open, and I want to be a guy that's like, hey, man, I'm ready, I got my eyes open, I'm waiting. That's interesting to me.

• 36:39Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting, interesting. Is Christianity, is it, is it growing, or is it shrinking?

• 36:46Speaker 03

  It's globally growing, globally growing, if I understand correctly.

• 36:54Shawn Ryan?

  Because it seems like, but I've seen a lot of charts, and I think it's globally, I think it's growing, I think there's a resurgence happening. But, I mean, you see all these college kids getting baptized, and

• 37:05Speaker 03

  Right, that's the best.

• 37:05Shawn Ryan?

  You know what I mean? And I just saw another one, it was like, a couple thousand people, I think, got baptized on the beach.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  Yes, that's my buddy, Joey Martin.

• 37:15Shawn Ryan?

  What do you mean?

• 37:16Speaker 03

  That's my buddy, Pastor Joey Martin, his church, that's one church.

• 37:21Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, really?

• 37:21Speaker 03

  That's one church, Church 1122, shout out. One church, they baptized, I think it was almost 4,000 people on a beach down there in Florida. Yeah.

• 37:31Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  4,000 people. 4,000 people. I mean, dude, we're seeing, man, you know, I'm not a super emotional guy, but if there's one thing that makes my eyes sweat, is that, man. We are, I'll just say this. So, like, in my lifetime, Christianity in America has generally been declining. I'm 43, 1983. Feels like the tide's turning. And every pastor I talk to, man, I'm like, every pastor I talk to, it's like, more people getting saved than they've ever seen, more people getting baptized than they've ever seen, church attendance spike, like, tide's turning.

• 38:13Shawn Ryan?

  That's what I feel like. But then I see charts, and it says, you know, it's a decline.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:19Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know if that's real. Do you have any insight on any of that?

• 38:23Speaker 03

  Well, you know, I'm not a sociologist. What I can say is, so, you know, I don't like talking about stuff that I don't know for sure. What I have been told is that in places that have generally been characterized as the West. Can I ask you a question a second? Am I allowed to do that?

• 38:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:44Speaker 03

  All right. In a second, I want to ask you why you think the tide is turning. But from what I understand, places that have been generally characterized as the West, so you're talking about like, Eastern Europe, and North America, and Canada. From what I understand, in my lifetime, Christianity has generally been declining in the global, what's been called the West, okay? From what I understand, Christianity has been exploding in Africa, the Global South, Asia. That's from what I, from what I understand. So, you're hearing stuff about like, you know, Chinese house church movement, that stuff

• 39:28Speaker 03

  starts to explode, especially in the last 50 years, you know. I read something a few years ago, and I may get a detail wrong on this, that at current growth rates of Christianity in China, there will be more Christians in China in 50 years than Christians in America.

• 39:46Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 39:47Speaker 03

  So, now, listen, that's like,

• 39:49Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  So, there's stuff like, man, there's stuff like that that's happening.

• 39:54Shawn Ryan?

  Well, here's some stats. In 2007, 78% of US adults identified as Christian. By 2023, 24, only 62%, a 16-point decline in just 15 years. Among women, 18 to 29, 43% religiously unaffiliated in 2025, up from 29% in 2013. Churches were losing 1.2 million members annually before COVID. Disengagement has accelerated since. For the first time in American history, young people grow up with Christianity as one option among many, not the baseline assumption. So, you know, I don't, I don't, I mean, I just, but I live

• 40:38Shawn Ryan?

  in a, you know, this area is a little different than most parts of the United States. You know, this is, this is Tennessee, we're in the Bible Belt. So, everywhere you go, the first question is, you know, what church do you go to? And it's not like, it's not like that very many other places.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:55Shawn Ryan?

  But, I mean, you asked me, why do I think we're seeing a resurgence? I think we're seeing a resurgence because, I mean, I agree with you, the darkness. I also think that nothing makes sense. I think, I think the search for, I mean, there's never been more distrust in, in US institutions, world institutions, our government. We've been lied to a lot by pretty much both sides of the political spectrum. And I think people are looking for something that's concrete, and they're finding it in the Word. I agree. You know, I think, I think it's, it's that basic. I mean, we can't even figure out what gender

• 41:39Shawn Ryan?

  people are anymore. We can't, everything has turned out to be a lie.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  Dude.

• 41:48Shawn Ryan?

  These wars, lies, past wars, lies, government corruption, lies. Does it get fixed? No, it continues on, you know, and there's just nothing to really ground yourself in anymore, anywhere, except the Word.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  That's right. That's right, Sean. That's right, Sean.

• 42:09Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I, I think that's, you know, maybe it's a good thing all this shit's happening.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  There's a verse in, there's a verse in Hebrews 12, that says, what God does is, he shakes the things that can be shaken, so that only the things that cannot be shaken remain. And I think throughout human history, the Lord does that, where he just decides, like, hey, man, I gotta, almost like, I gotta flip, I gotta flip the monopoly board real quick, so that you guys see, like, hey, man, stock markets and institutions and ideas and ideologies, they're going to come and go. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today,

• 42:53Speaker 03

  and forever. I also think, I think, I think what you said, like, our church, you know, is especially just reaching, you know, a bunch of tons of young men, it's young dudes walking in with families.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  I think what we said earlier, like that's a little thing that's like a little bit of my theory. Is that I think Satan is so real and so evil. You know, it's like that thing like the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I've I've come that you might have life and have it the full. And I think he's so full of evil and hate. That in every generation, when he gets some momentum on the field, there's that thing I said earlier, the devil always overplays his hand. And I think a little bit of what happened in the last like 15 years is like, I think you nailed it like you made good theologian over there, Sean Ryan. I think what he did is we got to the spot where people are looking around and they're honestly like, like I'm just like normal, normal guys.

• 43:54Speaker 03

  They're looking around and they're kind of going like, man, like who's gonna tell my son, he can't be a chick.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  Who, who, you know, who's gonna, you know, who's gonna, is that that kind of stuff? And honestly, you got to the spot where there wasn't many places in our culture left. Besides the church of Jesus Christ.

• 44:14Shawn Ryan?

  Even a lot of churches are putting that out.

• 44:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't like calling, I don't like.

• 44:18Shawn Ryan?

  Probably not in Texas.

• 44:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, dude, yeah, there are.

• 44:21Shawn Ryan?

  You can go to the Northeast and you can see, you can see it, you know?

• 44:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:25Shawn Ryan?

  Everybody's welcome. Everybody is welcome. Why do you have to say it like that? We know everybody's welcome.

• 44:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right, man. That's right. Yeah. I would not call those churches, but I understand what you mean.

• 44:38Shawn Ryan?

  I think another thing too, you know, is, and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not trying to get political here, but it just is what it is. I mean, I think that, you know, we've seen, and I'm guilty of it, you're probably guilty, I'm sure everybody's guilty of this at some point. But, you know, you, you, you know, we've just become so tribalized here and we've put our faith in, in men, in human beings. And, you know, you go on one side of the aisle and it's this guy's gonna save the country and da, da, da, da, da. 90% of it was fucking bullshit. You know, you go to the other side of the aisle, same thing. And so you got these two groups that were both.

• 45:18Shawn Ryan?

  Really, I mean, the majority, the statistics aren't lying, you know, the, the majority of both. Parties had been let down by the people that they stood behind and propped up. And it's, it's disheartening and, and you can see what's happening and what's happened. And it doesn't align with, with, with what people want, you know, there's some kind of, something's going on in there. I mean, I think there probably always has been, you know, it's just the limelight's kind of. On it, these younger generations are a lot. More skeptical than we ever were in the, in the, in the people, the poor us. And so. When you see how bad it actually is, I mean, where do you?

• 46:03Shawn Ryan?

  There's nowhere else to go.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's funny, it's like, man, I got a lot of thoughts on what you just said is, I think you're on to something. There's a reason the word says, trust not in princes.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  You know, there's like some things that I can hope that a human leader will do, you know? But at the end of the day, you know, I'm not gonna trust a king, I, I, I really gotta put something in, in a king of kings. You know?

• 46:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. You know, you're saying of like.

• 46:40Speaker 03

  At the end of the day, where are you gonna go? I, I think, I think that's what people, you know, with that, here, what it reminds me of, I, I love to know how this kind of lands on you. Is, you know, parable of the prodigal son. And you, you got the, you know, you got the kid who. You know, great, great dad, the dad represents God and he, he runs away and he spends all his money on. Parties and strippers and alcohol and, you know, whatever. And then if you read that, there's this little verse and everybody skips the verse that I think is the most important. Where he gets to the spot where he spends all the money and everything's, everything that he thought was gonna make him happy. And it just didn't.

• 47:23Speaker 03

  And so he, uh, he's out of money and he's. He's in pig slop, he's feeding pigs, which obviously for a first century Jewish guy is like a little no, no. And then there's one little verse that says, when he was feeding the pigs, it says, and then he came to his senses. And he started running back to the father. And a little bit, man, I, I feel like, you know, we got a bit of a prodigal nation. It's like, and a little bit where you said, where am I gonna go? I think that's what happened to the kid in the story. Is he woke up one day, he's like, where am I gonna go? And honestly, man, he went, oh man, everything else didn't work. But I know I can go home to dad.

• 48:05Speaker 03

  And I think a little bit in our country, I think everybody's going, man, we all, we honestly do, we tried everything else and it didn't work. And I think there's a little bit of people that's going, you know what I can do? I wonder if I could go home to my heavenly father. I think that's a little bit what's happening.

• 48:22Shawn Ryan?

  I think so too. Think so too.

• 48:28Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about forgiveness.

• 48:30Speaker 03

  All right, I'd love to.

• 48:33Shawn Ryan?

  How do we forgive? Here's a question for you.

• 48:39Shawn Ryan?

  Justice and forgiveness.

• 48:42Speaker 03

  Yes, not at odds.

• 48:44Shawn Ryan?

  They're not at odds.

• 48:45Speaker 03

  Uh, I know. Yeah, no.

• 48:49Shawn Ryan?

  How can you want justice? And still be able to forgive?

• 48:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, all right. Well.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  So, you know, this, let me just do a few things here. Uh, yes, yeah. So a few things. One, let me just get one thing out of the way. Because what I don't want somebody to think if they hear what I'm about to say and they're like, man, somebody abused me. Or like, you know, somebody committed a crime against me, somebody raped my daughter, whatever it is. And when they hear what I'm about to say, they think, oh, because I forgave him, I don't need to, you know, I don't need to call the authorities. That's not true. Um, justice and forgiveness, I don't got to reconcile them because I don't reconcile friends. In fact, what I'll get to in a second is that actually the foundation of, of true forgiveness.

• 49:44Speaker 03

  You know, Sean, you probably figured this out, you know, some things that you've been through in your life. Nobody makes it. Unless they learn to really and deeply forgive. Dude, they just don't make it, man. I just, I've seen a lot of things as a pastor. One thing I can make you a promise, nobody makes it. That doesn't learn to forgive. So let me just get this one thing out of the way.

• 50:09Shawn Ryan?

  What do you mean by that? Nobody makes it?

• 50:10Speaker 03

  So dude, what I mean is. Man, there's hardly anything that'll mess you up. More than not than clinging on to, so there's a verse in Hebrews, it talks about a root of bitterness. Hey, you make sure that a root of bitterness doesn't spring up in you. The reason it calls it a root is because roots always grow up into fruits, right? So dude, what I've seen. Like, let me just, okay, let me, let me do it like this.

• 50:44Speaker 03

  If, uh, if heaven is the place where everybody's forgiven. And hell is the place where nobody's forgiven. Uh, when we forgive, we pull heaven down into our lives. Uh, and when we choose not to forgive, we pull hell up into our lives. Now, you know, what I want to point out is there's this really weird. Connection in the Bible between satanic and demonic activity and unforgiveness. I'll just give you a couple of little examples. Um, so first of all, Jesus calls Satan, uh, Beelzebub. What that literally means, it literally translates to, um, Lord of the Flies. And the implication is like, man, if you get like a deep wound, like a flesh wound.

• 51:28Speaker 03

  What flies do is they get in there and they infest the wound. And then something that hurts you, well, now all of a sudden it becomes fatal. Because they get up there and they infest the wound in it. And so when Jesus calls Satan Beelzebub, what he's saying is, hey, man, every wound you got, if you don't, by the power of Jesus Christ, his blood and forgiveness, close that wound. Yeah, that is a wide open pathway for Satan's work in your life. Um, I'll give you another one. Um, in the book of Ephesians, it says, um, hey, don't let the sun go down on your anger. Why? Because I don't want you to give any opportunity to the devil. Uh, the book of James, it does the same thing, this weird connection between demonic activity and unforgiveness.

• 52:10Speaker 03

  It says that bitter people, it says bitterness is quote, earthly, unspiritual, demonic. So dude, a lot of people miss that, that there's like a really. Powerful connection in the Bible.

• 52:24Shawn Ryan?

  Can you say that again? Unforgiveness?

• 52:26Speaker 03

  Is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. All right. So they miss it. They do that. Apparently there is some in the supernatural realm, the spiritual realm. There's a way that unforgiveness, it's like a portal. Like straight in your soul for Satan and demons. I don't understand how that works. I just know that it works. To get in your life. And one thing that it'll do, man, is like, you know, I'm 43 and my life goal. I love being a pastor. I like teaching people the Bible. All that's awesome, man. My life goal is to finish my race, having been faithful to Jesus. I don't, I don't want to be one of those pastors. That somebody tells a story about someday, remember what that guy did, you know?

• 53:11Speaker 03

  I want to finish well. I want to be faithful to my wife.

• 53:16Speaker 03

  I, I want to sit in a rocking chair, uh, next to Jana, old wrinkly, holding her hand, watching our great grandkids play around in the backyard. And they love us and they love Jesus. So one of the questions I ask myself the most as I get, you know, I'm getting a little older every year, you know? Is if you watch people. There's some people who they get older and the older they get, the more cynical they get, angry they get, and they just get a little crusty. And then I'll see some other people who it's like, man, it's the older that guy gets. He just a little more joyful, a little more, a little more soft in the right ways and not the wrong ways, you know, just a little happier, you know, I don't know.

• 53:56Speaker 03

  And man, uh, when I meet people who are the second one, you know, you asked me a question, you've started to ask everybody, when I meet people whose age starts with like a six, seven, eight, nine, and they're just like old and happy and they got a joyful heart, I always tell them, hey, it seems like people end up this way or this way, what's the difference? Here's what I think the difference is, one person, they cleaned out all that junk in their heart throughout their entire life with forgiveness, and one of them didn't. And over the years, they just almost become like, just real slowly, man, it's real slow. In fact, if you let me Bible nerd out, you know, on a little thing, when you read, in, when you read in the gospels and it talks about people being quote demon possessed,

• 54:41Speaker 03

  that's a bit of an inelegant translation of what that is, it's literally, it's one Greek word, we make it two English words, it's one Greek word, the word is demonized, so kinda like we say fossilized, demonized, like in the same way that a fossil, it started out as this, but then very, very, very slowly over time, it was this, and now it's this. Honestly, man, a lot of times, that's how like demonic activity works in people's lives is, hey, it's slow, it's imperceptible, gets up there, maybe in a wound, something like that, and how, how that guy end up old, angry, cynical, crusty, there's like no love in

• 55:21Speaker 03

  his heart, it's all anger, you know, man, just very, very, very slowly, he didn't learn to clean it out with forgiveness, which brings me back to the beginning, demonic activity and unforgiveness, if hell is a place where nobody's forgiven, and heaven is a place where everybody's forgiven, every time we learn to forgive, Sean, you know, you pull heaven down into your life, every time you choose not to, you pull hell up, that's a, I don't think that's a question you ask me.

• 55:58Shawn Ryan?

  There are a lot of dog foods out there, and they all say they have the best ingredients, but when you actually look at a lot of them, it's still over-processed kibble, fillers, and ingredients you can barely pronounce, that's why I like Sundays, Sundays keeps it simple, it's vet-founded, human-grade dog food made with real meat, superfoods like kale, ginger, and blueberries, and they have no fillers, it's gently air-dried, so you get real nutrition without needing a fridge, freezer, prep, or mess, and Stanley, my dog, he actually eats it, I put Sundays down, and he's on it, that tells me a lot, clean ingredients, easy routine, and a happy dog, and if you have a small breed, Sundays just

• 56:43Shawn Ryan?

  launched Small Bites for Small Dogs, small air-dried nutrition, just in smaller eight-millimeter pieces that are easier for small dogs to chew, self-feed, and finish comfortably, make the switch to Sundays, go right now to sundaysfordogs.com/srs50, and get 50% off your first order, or you can use code SRS50 at checkout, that's 50% off your first order at sundaysfordogs.com/srs50, sundaysfordogs.com/srs50, or use code SRS50 at checkout. Looking for another way to support the Sean Ryan Show? Head to SeanRyanShow.com and

• 57:27Shawn Ryan?

  check out the latest drops from Vigilance Elite, we just released new gear, including this beautiful moisture-wicking VE Performance Hat, and SRS Campfire Mugs, and you guessed it, Vigilance Elite Gummy Bears, oh shit! Every purchase directly supports the show and helps us continue bringing you independent conversations without compromise, visit SeanRyanShow.com and grab yours today. I've been thinking about this for a couple of years, pretty hard about forgiveness, and

• 58:03Shawn Ryan?

  I, I think it's more of a, for lack of a better term, almost like it's kind of a selfish thing to do, because it's, really, you know, what I've figured out, is it's, it's, it is, it's for yourself, you know, which is what you're saying, I mean, you're healing, healing wounds by forgiving, and the more I do it, the more I figure it out, the, the better I feel, because you are letting go of shit, and, and it doesn't, you know, it

• 58:39Shawn Ryan?

  doesn't mean you have to, you know, be around this person, pray, you know, praise him, talk about him, but, I mean, it's just, it's just kinda like letting it go, am I wrong about that?

• 58:55Speaker 03

  Bro, you're, you're dead on, man, so, man, the path, like, if I'm a-

• 58:59Shawn Ryan?

  Self-cleansing process.

• 59:01Speaker 03

  A hundred percent, man.

• 59:03Shawn Ryan?

  It's really hard to do, but, in some circumstances, but-

• 59:09Speaker 03

  People who really haven't been through something, they don't realize this, you probably do realize this, I think very frequently, the hardest thing a man ever has to do in his entire life is forgive somebody, very frequently, now, when you say that, honestly, man, it's like, you, they're like, you, it's like you're saying Bible verses and you may not even know it, you know, it's like, so in Matthew 18, you're talking about, man, it honestly feels selfish, feels like it's for me, yeah, you know, like, there's, like, there's a reason we called the podcast, The Live Free Podcast, live as people who are free, only do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil, it's like, so in Matthew 18, Jesus

• 59:52Speaker 03

  tells this parable, and he, I'm a, you know, all 21st century, I'll, I'll do my best, is he tells this parable about a guy who like owes a moneylender, a bank, and it says like 10,000 talents, or something like that, but it, it's essentially a, a word that's like, this guy owed this guy the net worth of Elon Musk, like, that's what it's implying, he'll never, he'll literally never be able to repay it, and the guy's like, hey man, your debt's due, and he runs up, and he falls on his knees, and he begs, and he's like, man, would you plead, plead, plead, plead, please forgive me, and the guy, it says, out of, out of the kindness, this is how he forgives him, but then that guy, he turns around, and he finds somebody, and all 21st century it, he finds somebody that owes him, you know,

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  like, the cost of a postage stamp, and in Jesus' parable, he like chokeslams the guy, for real, he like starts laying hands on him, and he tells the guy, like, you know, pay me back everything you owe me, and, you know, I'm gonna put you in prison, you're not gonna get out till you pay the last penny, and honestly, man, I'm skipping ahead a little bit, somebody may hear that and be like, what, how could the guy that was forgiven, the net worth of Elon Musk, turn around and exact revenge on the cost of a postage stamp? Who would do that? And Jesus' answer is, you would, Jesus' answer is, hey man, I'm cutting to the chase a little bit, is the basis for us becoming forgiving people is

• 1:01:18Speaker 03

  understanding, I have been forgiven by God, more than he will ever ask me to forgive anybody else, he forgave me the net worth of Elon Musk, and every time I hold a grudge against somebody, I'm like, making them pay for the postage stamp, now, what's interesting about that parable, though, let's take it back to where you started, is, you're like, man, it kinda felt like, it's, it's selfish, in the parable, uh, when the guy is not forgiven, what he is, is it, it says that he's put in prison, and the implication Bible scholars think, what Jesus is saying is he's saying, hey man, do you know what unforgiveness is

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  like? It's like a prison, and do you know who's in the prison? You are, and you probably noticed this, man, the, the people who don't learn to forgive, what they do is honestly, they get stuck in time, and they spend the rest of their life responding to something that happened ages ago, and they live the rest of their life out of that one event, well, that becomes a prison.

• 1:02:32Shawn Ryan?

  But I think there are definitely different degrees of, or maybe levels of forgiveness, you know, I mean, forgetting, forgiving somebody for, I don't know, stealing a water bottle out of your refrigerator is a little bit different from forgiving somebody that raped you your entire childhood, you know, and, and so-

• 1:02:52Speaker 03

  It's mid difference.

• 1:02:53Shawn Ryan?

  You know, it's, it's, it's-

• 1:02:56Shawn Ryan?

  Some, sometimes it's more challenging than others and, and you know, so how do you do it? You know?

• 1:03:02Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:03:03Shawn Ryan?

  How do you do it? How do you do it when?

• 1:03:07Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:03:09Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you're, you're a popular guy, you're borderline celebrity. People are using you.

• 1:03:16Speaker 03

  Sermon on Celebrity, I always like to get in there.

• 1:03:18Shawn Ryan?

  People are using you, people will abuse what you can, what you, what you have. You know, and, and the same with me. And I mean, it just is what it is, you know, there's no getting around that.

• 1:03:31Speaker 03

  I've seen people do that to you.

• 1:03:33Shawn Ryan?

  So.

• 1:03:35Shawn Ryan?

  You can forgive them.

• 1:03:38Shawn Ryan?

  And I have forgiven them. And you probably have too. Then it keeps happening.

• 1:03:43Speaker 03

  It does.

• 1:03:43Shawn Ryan?

  By the same people.

• 1:03:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:46Shawn Ryan?

  And every time it happens. It's a little fire comes up, you know, and it's, you get pissed.

• 1:03:52Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:03:53Shawn Ryan?

  And then you start thinking about.

• 1:03:56Shawn Ryan?

  Things you probably shouldn't be thinking about.

• 1:03:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:59Shawn Ryan?

  And so. My question is, is that, is that?

• 1:04:05Shawn Ryan?

  Forgiveness, did I really forgive them for the original thing? And I've distanced myself and I've, I've come to peace with it, but then it happens again.

• 1:04:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:13Shawn Ryan?

  And then it happens again, and you have no control over it happening.

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  No, you do not.

• 1:04:19Shawn Ryan?

  So how do you deal with that? How do you deal with that with forgiveness?

• 1:04:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:23Shawn Ryan?

  Something I personally struggle with.

• 1:04:26Speaker 03

  Welcome to Team Human. Yeah.

• 1:04:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, hey, hey, brother, me, I'll kind of just get this on the table, me too.

• 1:04:34Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:35Speaker 03

  I just like, I, I just want to be super honest, man, I, I need the same grace I preach every week. Me too. In fact, you know, there's no reason for me to go into it on, you know, here. That is, that's one of the hardest, most consistent fights in my life, you know, it is. So let me just, you know, let me say a few things. Actually, can I, can I tell you a story about what it looks like? Let me start here and then back up answer. So. Every now and then, you know, and you know, when I became a pastor, I knew what I was signing up for, you know? Uh. So every now and then I'll say something and you know, the internet will get mad at me.

• 1:05:14Speaker 03

  That, that'll happen. One of the first times that happened to me, dude, I didn't know what was, what was going on and. Yeah, honestly, the first thing you probably, you probably remember the first, one of the first times it happened to you. The first time that happens to you, it's pretty disorienting, you know? I was a young pastor and, uh. And man, you know, I remember I was taking a long walk and I remember thinking like, man, is my, maybe I wonder if my ministry is over. Like I was getting, I was a, I won't go into it, I was getting crushed. And, um. And I, I came home and I was like, man, I wonder if my ministry is over and I honestly wonder if I've ruined everything and. Man, how, how, how am I going to provide for my family, I kind of. And, uh.

• 1:05:56Speaker 03

  Dude, I, I walked in the door. And, uh, I smelled, I smelled something. And as soon as I walked in the garage door, my wife, Jana, was there with my three little adopted kids. Uh, and they all yelled at the same time. Welcome home, dad. And, um. And they, they, you know, they brought me in to the kitchen. And Jana had all the, like she'd cleaned up everything, it looked spotless in there. And she got these candles out and she lit them on the table. And, uh, she had cooked like my favorite, my favorite meal. It like takes a long time to make, my little favorite meal. And I was like, man, what is going on? And she said, um. She quoted a verse from the Sermon on the Mount.

• 1:06:43Speaker 03

  She said, Jesus said, Josh. Uh, blessed are you. When people revile you, insult you, slander you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for great will be a reward in the kingdom of heaven. And then she said, so tonight. We feast.

• 1:07:05Speaker 03

  And, uh, we prayed, uh, Jana made me. We prayed for some of the people who, you know, they were just, you know, teeing off, you know? Yeah, can I just say something to you? Without Jesus. There is a zero, I'm just telling you right now, dude, a zero percent chance. That we can be like that. So. You asked the question, how do you do it? And man, it, it, you know, this is not you. But if somebody's listening and, and, and you don't, you don't know Jesus. I'll be honest, man, I don't even know what to tell you. I, I really don't, I, I don't know what to tell you. Uh. Because if I did not believe. That ev, two things.

• 1:07:51Speaker 03

  That every single sin. Will be fully. Recompensed for. Either. And I'm skipping ahead. Either, uh, that person that committed that sin against me. Will become a Christian. And at that point. Their sin was paid for by Jesus dying on the cross, a gruesome, horrific death.

• 1:08:12Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:13Speaker 03

  Or they won't become a Christian, I'm gonna say something really straightforward. And I'm not trying to be a jerk, uh, this is just like, this is just Bible. Or they won't become a Christian, they'll die and they'll go to hell and they'll pay for that sin forever. One way or the other, that sin's getting paid for. If I didn't believe that, man. In addition to the second thing. The reality that I know, dude, I know down to the deep. The deepest parts of my bones. I know I've been forgiven more. Than the Lord is ever gonna ask me to forgive anybody else. If I didn't believe that, I don't know what the heck I'd do.

• 1:08:47Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  I don't know what I'd do. So. Like I'll give you a, you know, this, like. This honestly deserves a lot more time. But if somebody's like, how do you do it, man? I'll give you a quickie, here's a quickie.

• 1:08:59Shawn Ryan?

  We don't need a quickie.

• 1:09:00Speaker 03

  Alright.

• 1:09:01Shawn Ryan?

  We need, we need the, we need the real deal.

• 1:09:03Speaker 03

  Alright.

• 1:09:04Shawn Ryan?

  Like here's an example. You know? I, I, I can't stand being used. I don't like being used. Tried the church thing, that. Felt like that was getting ready to start happening. Then we do a Bible study. Couple of families. Cause I, I. In privacy, you know, we wanted in privacy. Things start getting leaked. Personal things.

• 1:09:32Shawn Ryan?

  I call a lot of shit out on the show, a lot of evil. Pisses a lot of people off. Pisses evil off. They had to hire security, I've had to double that security, I haven't had to triple that security. I've had to move. Now I have to move into a gated community. Because people can't shut their mouth and stop leaking shit.

• 1:09:54Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:09:55Shawn Ryan?

  And every time it happens, I forgive them. I'll never do that Bible study ever again. Ever again. Because of that.

• 1:10:02Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:10:03Shawn Ryan?

  It put my family at danger. It continues to put my family at danger. But they get something out of it. Leaking personal shit about my personal life and my personal family.

• 1:10:15Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:10:16Shawn Ryan?

  When the whole thing was set up for discretion.

• 1:10:19Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:10:20Shawn Ryan?

  How do you forgive that?

• 1:10:21Speaker 03

  Hmm. Hey, first of all, man, you know, I'm a nobody. I'm sorry.

• 1:10:28Shawn Ryan?

  Hey, it's, I mean, it is what it is, people are gonna people.

• 1:10:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:33Speaker 03

  That's a good way to say that.

• 1:10:35Shawn Ryan?

  But.

• 1:10:35Speaker 03

  People are gonna people.

• 1:10:36Shawn Ryan?

  You know, but how do you, you know what I mean, how do you forgive that?

• 1:10:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:39Shawn Ryan?

  You try to move on, but it just keeps happening.

• 1:10:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:10:43Shawn Ryan?

  And that's just one of a hundred examples and I'm sure everybody's dealing with shit like this, you know? So one way or another, the thing that keeps happening.

• 1:10:51Speaker 03

  Literally everybody, there's a few things when you preach on them. You know, every single time it's gonna, you know, whatever you want to, you know? People are gonna talk about it, they love, they, they need it, the view council, like it connects forgiveness, hundred percent hit rate. Hundred percent hit rate, cause of what you just said. So man. Let me say a few things.

• 1:11:11Speaker 03

  Um. Number one. The chat, if somebody's gonna sit down, I'll just give listeners homework, if you're like, hey, man. What do I do? This thing happened to me, what do I do? What you need to start doing is study Matthew, chapter 18. Matthew 18 is where Jesus starts walking through, Jesus essentially does a Bible study. On what to do when your brother sins against you, okay? So there's a few things, I'll just, I'm gonna rapid fire these and, and just, you know, do my best here. He starts the passage saying, if your brother sins against you, there's a few things there. Number one, if, hey, you need to make sure, did somebody actually sin against me? Or was it honestly, was I just offended, cause, and I'm not talking about you, by the way, these, these are just generalities.

• 1:11:54Speaker 03

  If your brother sins against you, the first thing I gotta figure out is if. Did they really sin against me? Is like an actual Bible sin that, that occurred? You know, or honestly, man, am I, am I just being a little sensitive? You know, it's really just my feelings, if your brother sins against you. Number two, it says, if your brother sins against you. The second question I gotta ask is. Man, is this person a brother in Christ? Like I'm just telling you how I'm gonna pastor somebody through it. Is this person a brother in Christ? Okay, cause if not, man, me having a conversation about this forgiveness happening. That's really not the conversation I need to be happening, I need to be having a conversation about this, like you and Jesus, man, like you, y'all gotta get good. You know, so if your brother, if your brother sins against you, okay? Was it against me?

• 1:12:37Speaker 03

  I'm making sure this thing, what I don't need to do is take up somebody else's offense. And then I'm angry on behalf of somebody else, like we call that Twitter, you know, what are you gonna do? So then it says, well, the next thing you do is it says, go and show them his fault. You know, hey, I'm gonna go talk to you, man, man to man, I'm just gonna talk to you, here's what you did, okay? Now, you do all this stuff, you kind of walk through that process, if that doesn't work. Then it says, what Jesus says is, if that doesn't work. Then take two or three others, you know, let me take a few other brothers, like, hey, man. Would y'all come with me, we all, we all love each other, we all love Jesus, this is our little band of brothers. Let, let's talk about this thing together with an open Bible and open hearts, see if we can figure this thing out, reconcile. Let me pause and say this. There is a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.

• 1:13:21Speaker 03

  Forgiveness takes one person and it's always possible. Reconciliation takes two people and it's not always possible. Forgiveness can, like literally every time. I can forgive anybody of anything, because honestly, dude. That forgiveness, I have, just to put it in a straightforward way. I do not have a right. Not to forgive somebody who sins against me. Because Jesus paid the penalty for that sin. And he has commanded me. To forgive everyone who sins against me. So I wish it were different sometimes, I'm not allowed. Takes one, okay? But reconciliation takes two people. Takes two. You gotta wanna reconcile, they gotta wanna reconcile, and they gotta be willing to own what they did.

• 1:14:06Speaker 03

  Bend the knee, but hey dude, I messed up, I'm sorry. And then. You have to go, we're doing a little Bible study here, you gotta go to the book of Proverbs. And Proverbs gives, gives a taxonomy of three types of people. And man, Sean, just as, I, I think.

• 1:14:23Speaker 03

  I think there's a blessing on your life and like the fact that you'll even have a pastor. Like I saw you have Bryce on and some other guys, Jeremiah, some other guy. Like you're gonna have some people who try to take advantage of you and sometimes that's gonna be because the enemy's gonna work in it. Okay, so you're gonna have this, you know, you're gonna have this thing happen. It this like for, for guys who, man, for whatever reason, they got a lot of people who know who they are like you. This little thing from the book of Proverbs might be one of the most important things you ever internalize. In the book of Proverbs, there's three types of people, wise, foolish, and evil. And so when you're deciding whether or not you reconcile with somebody, and I say this, not just Sean Ryan, I say this to anybody.

• 1:15:07Speaker 03

  You gotta figure out, is this a wise person? I probably want to reconcile with a wise person. Is this a foolish person? Ah, question mark, cuz fools, fools can, can, can hurt you, right? Is this an evil person? You definitely want to stay away from an evil person. So I think you're gonna ask that question. Then I think what I'd say, if you're just going, hey, how do you do it?

• 1:15:33Speaker 03

  Number one, if you don't get like, do like down deep, deep, deep in your soul, the reality of the gospel. The gospel is the good news that I am not a staker in need of a life coach. I'm a sinner in need of a savior. And that God so loved the world, he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him would not perish, but have eternal life. That like, man, God so loved Josh Howardan, that he gave Jesus Christ, so that if Josh Howardan believes in him, Josh Howardan would have eternal life. If I don't receive that forgiveness. It's like in Kentucky, I grew up in Kentucky, might say it like this, you can't give what you, what you don't got. Can't give what you don't got. So one, I gotta start there, right? That now I'm gonna start there, now I'll do these others, try, try be a little more.

• 1:16:18Speaker 03

  Try not, not do a whole sermon here.

• 1:16:22Shawn Ryan?

  You can do the sermon then.

• 1:16:24Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:16:24Shawn Ryan?

  It's all good.

• 1:16:25Speaker 03

  I'm trying to respect you, all right, I'll do my best here.

• 1:16:27Shawn Ryan?

  There's no reason to speed it up.

• 1:16:29Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:16:31Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:16:33Speaker 03

  What most, what happens to most people, in my opinion, is honestly, man, they never fully realized what happened to them and is still happening to them because of what happened to them. And it's like, you can't forgive what you didn't identify. Okay, I can't solve a problem that I didn't define. Okay, if I can't define it, I can't solve it. So I got a buddy that recommended this, and I've been recommending it for years. Is that parable in Matthew 18? It says that when somebody sins against you, it is as if a debt has been incurred. That person took something from you, okay?

• 1:17:12Speaker 03

  So in your analogy, that person may have taken your ability to feel at ease and safe around pastors away from you. I hope the Lord redeems that. And I would just say to anybody, this is not, this is not about you, this is just about anybody. Anybody who receives a wound, anybody. Satan will get in there and try to capitalize on it, and that's the prison. Hey, because that thing happened to you, you can never, you'll, you make an inner vow, I'll never do that again. I'll never trust men again, because that dude did that to me when I was six. I'll never go to, what, what people don't realize, when you start using that type of language, that's prison language.

• 1:17:54Speaker 03

  All nev, in other words, bars have been erected between me and that thing, and I just want to give a gentle watch out to everybody listening. Sometimes that thing is a really, really good thing, that Satan's trying to use an old wound to keep you from ever getting that good thing again.

• 1:18:14Speaker 03

  So what you got?

• 1:18:15Shawn Ryan?

  If you're talking about, are you talking about my particular situation?

• 1:18:17Speaker 03

  I'm saying.

• 1:18:18Shawn Ryan?

  Cause I did say I'll never do it again.

• 1:18:19Speaker 03

  No, that's, I use that analogy, I'm talking about anything.

• 1:18:23Shawn Ryan?

  Doesn't mean I'll keep myself from the word, it would just won't be with that particular.

• 1:18:27Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:18:27Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:18:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, that makes sense. I'm saying, no, no, what, what I'm saying is typically when somebody is deeply wounded, and it doesn't matter, your thing, anybody's thing, and this is not what you're saying.

• 1:18:39Speaker 03

  What Satan will sometimes do, I'm preaching my little sermon here. What Satan will sometimes do is get them to make an inner vow, like, let's say a girl is abused when she's seven by her uncle. She'll make an inner vow, it's like a demonic reverse covenant, is what it is. I'll never trust men again. And what Satan is trying to do is cut her off from honestly, a lot of men that she's gonna need in her life to become the beautiful, noble woman of God. You see what I'm saying, does that make sense?

• 1:19:11Shawn Ryan?

  That's perfect sense.

• 1:19:12Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 1:19:13Shawn Ryan?

  Now let me ask you this, do you think that wisdom can come from people sitting against you?

• 1:19:18Speaker 03

  Oh, bro, yes. My gosh, yes, that's like.

• 1:19:22Shawn Ryan?

  Because if you, you know, with that comes experience, and while you may, maybe it would be foolish to say, I'll never trust another man again.

• 1:19:33Shawn Ryan?

  I think a lot of wisdom could be pulled from that, and maybe I, I will never trust this type of man again.

• 1:19:37Speaker 03

  Then go.

• 1:19:38Shawn Ryan?

  You can see through, you know, you'll, you know.

• 1:19:42Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of times, you know, you can just see right through people, you know, through experiences of things happening. And then you'd notice patterns that come with every human being that's like that.

• 1:19:55Speaker 03

  Yes. I strongly agree with that. That, that, that's exactly what the word means when it says that God works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And all things includes all the jacked up things. They'll, he'll redeem all those things. All right, so if we're going back to how do I do it? Man, this next thing that I'm gonna say is like for real, it's one of the hardest things you're gonna do. And it's one of these things, you can't do it in five minutes, like, it's gonna take like five hours, five weeks, or five months. But this thing has got recommended, and I've been recommended ever since. You gotta, you gotta almost like make a debt ledger.

• 1:20:37Speaker 03

  This is what Jan and I have had to do for people who have very egregiously sinned against us. And they were never gonna own it, they're never gonna own it, you know, this is what we had to do. So Jesus in Matthew 18 says like a debt. So what you do is you get a sheet of paper, it's a little exercise, and it's not fun. And you sit down, and first of all, you pinpoint who sinned against me. And I need specificity. What you gotta watch out for is they.

• 1:21:05Speaker 03

  You know, there was one time, you know, a lot of people want to think about this, because people do get hurt by pastors, see, you got, you got that story.

• 1:21:13Shawn Ryan?

  I wouldn't say I've been hurt by a pastor.

• 1:21:15Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 1:21:16Shawn Ryan?

  I would not say that, I don't wanna put that on anybody.

• 1:21:19Speaker 03

  There you go. But, you know.

• 1:21:23Speaker 03

  Well, it was something.

• 1:21:23Shawn Ryan?

  It's trust.

• 1:21:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, makes sense, makes sense. But what, you know, and I'm, I'm not, this is not a pity party at all. But what I will say, well, some people sometimes don't, don't realize is, man, you know, that pastors, pastors getting, get shot at, sheep bite.

• 1:21:41Speaker 03

  So there was one time I was, I went to counseling for a little bit when I was in Nashville, cuz I was honestly part of, cuz I was struggling with some unforgiveness. And this guy asked me, he was like, you know, hey, man, what's going on with you? And I was like, man, this, the church, I'm a pastor, the church hurt me, I'm doing this thing. And, and he paused, and it was, it was one of the most powerful things he ever did, is he stopped me and was like, hey, man. He, you know, he judo moved me. He said, well, hey, hey, wait a second, man, what do you mean by the church hurt you? I was like, what church, you sure hurt me, man, this is, we're going through this thing, and he said, well, wait a second, Josh, um, your church, I think my church at the time was a thousand people or something like that.

• 1:22:26Speaker 03

  Say, man, your church is a thousand, did, did all thousand hurt you? I'm like, well, no, shut up, shut up, no, no. He said, well, hey, man, here's what I want you to do, write down the names of every single person who actually hurt you. And I, I wrote down those names with Jana, and when we got done, it was seven people, you know.

• 1:22:48Speaker 03

  But, but what I think Satan had done is he had gotten me to transmit the pain that came from seven people to the church.

• 1:22:58Speaker 03

  So what you gotta do is it starts with getting like specificity. Who specifically sinned against me? I think step two, and it's not fun, is you gotta take inventory of what, what was taken from you. Right? It's like, I'll, I'll give an example that probably, probably a lot of guys that listen to this podcast, like, now you better watch out, this'll get you. Is your, your story is, one time, you stood at altar, and you said, till death do us part, and you meant it.

• 1:23:32Speaker 03

  And then one day you woke up and found out she didn't.

• 1:23:36Speaker 03

  And now, somebody else is tugging your kids into bed at night, all right? Well, heads up, man, that's gonna leave a mark. You're gonna need some, need to clean some things out. When you get to that debt ledger, what you gotta get down, okay, this is who sinned against me, now I gotta start going, I need to name everything that was taken from me. And dude, you gotta write down.

• 1:24:00Speaker 03

  You gotta write down like all the stuff like, man, it's hard for me to, you know, let's say this example I just used, it's hard for me to trust women anymore. That was taken from me. Man, I spent eight months of my life not sleeping good and drinking too much because of that girl. Hey, you know what's taken from me is half my income. You know what's taken from me is all the job opportunities that I would have had if I'd have been able to focus for that year on my career. Hey, do you know what was taken from me? The ability to, now I see my kids, you know, 50% of the time, I just lost 50% of being a debt. Like you gotta get down and like, and the reason I say that, man,

• 1:24:45Speaker 03

  is people who don't do that, like if you don't get like, this is, this is what's going on, what's taken from me, you can't cancel a debt that you never inventoried. And if you don't do that, like, okay, now, once you got your debt ledger, okay, and that's, that'll take you a minute, you have two choices of what you're gonna do with that. And the first one, they both suck, but in different ways. You can, one, you can hang on to it. I'm gonna keep this, I'm gonna keep this debt ledger for the rest of my life, you know? And everywhere I go, everybody's gonna know. The reason I'm pissy and angry and crotchety is, everybody's gonna know, is because they did this and I'm holding on

• 1:25:30Speaker 03

  to the debt. And actually, and I will say this, one of the biggest reasons nobody likes to talk about that people don't forgive, is because if they forgive somebody, they lose the excuse for why they act like they do.

• 1:25:48Shawn Ryan?

  It's a damn good point.

• 1:25:50Speaker 03

  It's like, if I forgive them, I don't got an excuse anymore for why I'm angry all the time, and why I don't trust nobody, and why I'm cynical, all that, you know, it's like, you gotta watch out for that, man, you know? So, you got that, you know, either you can hold on to it, but that comes at a real big price. It costs you the joy for the rest of your life. Or, I think it's the book of Colossians, you can do this, and it's not easy, but it's the best thing that'll ever happen to you. It says that what God did is he canceled the record of debt against us with its legal demands, nailing them to the cross. And what you can do is you can take that debt ledger, and I'd encourage

• 1:26:34Speaker 03

  you to like, actually like physically do something like this, like me and Jana, Jana burned hers. She took it out to our fire pit and burned it. I got, we got an old cross on our property that we built, it's got some sentimental value to me. Sometimes I'll walk out there and I'll literally just like, old school, late 80s youth camp, like I'll nail it, I'll nail it on there. But you've got to make a decision to cancel that debt. And just say, okay, Jesus, I'm trusting that either you paid the penalty for this sin on the cross, or that person will pay the penalty for it in hell. But what I know

• 1:27:15Speaker 03

  is it's not up to me. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, declares the Lord. Not, not up to me.

• 1:27:22Shawn Ryan?

  What about forgiving yourself?

• 1:27:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. Man.

• 1:27:28Shawn Ryan?

  That's probably the biggest one of all.

• 1:27:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, when people say forgiving themselves.

• 1:27:40Shawn Ryan?

  That's a big ledger.

• 1:27:42Speaker 03

  It's a big ledger.

• 1:27:43Shawn Ryan?

  For some people.

• 1:27:44Speaker 03

  Uh, it's the biggest one. Biggest one. I had a guy write me from prison a few years ago after listening to a sermon, and I was talking about the grace of God and how God can redeem anybody, you know? And he said, he said, he wrote me a letter, and he was like, hey, man, I want to believe that, but you don't know what I've done. And now, what I would say to that guy, actually, what I did say to that guy is, hey, man, that's actually not the problem. The problem is you don't know what he did. Uh, because Jesus Christ went to a cross and, and he paid the penalty for your sin for you. Man, what about forgiving yourself? There's this really interesting thing that happens, the longer somebody walks with the Lord, where the longer they walk with Jesus, there's this weird

• 1:28:28Speaker 03

  thing that happens where, um, the better you are, but the worse you feel. You know, it's a, it's a, it's actually a weird thing. I think John MacArthur, an old dead pastor, said that. And, uh, it's interesting, um, if you watch the life of the Apostle Paul, uh, a lot of people miss this because the books of the Bible are not in chronological order of like when they were written. Uh, they're in a different sequence. But if you line all the books up in the order that the Apostle Paul wrote them, uh, he starts, uh, by referring to himself as one of the apostles. And then he goes a little farther and he says, well, I'm the least of the apostles. And then he goes a little farther and he

• 1:29:12Speaker 03

  says, he calls himself the least of all the saints. And then, and I think the last letter he ever wrote, he says, this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Jesus Christ died for sinners of whom I am the foremost. So, it's almost like a reverse testimony. It's almost like he started feeling, and the reason for that is the longer you walk with the Lord, you sort of know him a little better, and, uh, and the more you know him, the more of his perfection you see, and the more of your imperfection you see, and you feel that gap. So what happens is that gap gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Here's what I should be, and here's what I am. And honestly, the longer you live some

• 1:29:56Speaker 03

  life, you sin some more sins, it's like the gap gets bigger and bigger, you know? You've done some stuff and seen some stuff. But what happens is the longer you walk with the Lord, the gap gets bigger and bigger between you and what you should be and what you are. But if we're really understanding, we're looking to the cross and we're understanding what Jesus did for us, what really ends up happening is your understanding of the grace of God to you, and what Jesus did for you on the cross, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So John Newton, who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace, he, uh, he was involved in the slave trade, uh, I think when he got saved, if I remember correctly,

• 1:30:39Speaker 03

  and had a pretty radical conversion, and it bothered him for the rest of his life.

• 1:30:44Speaker 03

  Uh, at the end of his life, um, he had his, uh, he had, I think he had a little dementia.

• 1:30:51Speaker 03

  And, uh, at the end of his life, one of the last things he ever said was, though I am old and my memory is fading, I remember two things very clearly. I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior. And man, if somebody's going, how do I forgive myself? Man, honestly, what I would say is you gotta get your eyes off yourself. And it's really not about what you've done, uh, it's about what he did. And there, oh, this last thing, I'll just say this. There's a little bit of me that just wants to, to just gently, gently, with a pastoral heart, look at a guy that says that and be like, hey, man, who do you think you are? You know, do you think you're a better sinner than he is a

• 1:31:33Speaker 03

  Savior? I don't think so, man. I don't think so. So I think you just gotta go back to the cross over and over and over again and know, hey, that thing was nailed to the cross, and I really am free. I really am.

• 1:31:49Shawn Ryan?

  The original question was,

• 1:31:54Shawn Ryan?

  how can you forgive?

• 1:32:00Shawn Ryan?

  Still want justice, but not be overcome with vengeance?

• 1:32:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right. That's good. This gets into a, um, it's something, it's called, uh, it's called, the theological term for it is sphere sovereignty. I'm gonna be a little nerdy for a second, if that's okay. Um, so in the Bible, uh, God has established three institutions that when they work like they're supposed to work, it's good for people and it's good for societies. And the three institutions are the family, the church, and the state. And all three institutions have different roles. Okay? So, you know, kind of the image that theologians have used to just babble, be babble, you know, babble nerd

• 1:32:44Speaker 03

  for a second, is what they'll say is, you know, uh, uh, you know, you got the, uh, the rod, the keys, and the sword, is what they'll say. You know, the, sort of the image, that's the logo of the family is the rod. You know, hey, we're, we're good fathers, discipline their children, raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Uh, the image of the church is the keys. That's Jesus when he talks to Peter, I give you the keys to the kingdom, whatever you find on earth will be found in heaven, whatever you lose on earth will be lost in heaven, that kind of thing. Keys. It's about ordinances, you know, uh, helping people understand, helping people be saved, and then helping people understand that they are saved. Okay, keys. And then, uh, the image for the state is the sword. That comes from Romans 13. And it says that the government, uh, the human

• 1:33:29Speaker 03

  governments, as very imperfect as they are, I think we agree on that, uh, that they have been instituted by God, that actually governments are a good thing, uh, you know, you know, uh, uh, bad governance is a real bad thing, but a world with no government is a real bad thing, right? And what it says is, uh, uh, that God has, uh, the, one of the roles of the government is to quote, bear the sword and be vengeance to the wrongdoer. So, you, to get back to this question, how can I forgive somebody and still seek justice? Well, here's what you do, okay? Romans 13 is the passage where it talks about the role of the government

• 1:34:10Speaker 03

  is the store, is the sword. It's to bring justice on the wrongdoer. What's very interesting is right before that, in Romans 12, it says this, you're actually alluding to it, it says, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. In other words, don't seek vengeance. Don't ever do that. What it's acknowledging is there's a difference between the role of an individual and the role of the state. So you as an individual, my job is to love you, to forgive you, to release you from your debt. Like, I'm not walking around trying to take vengeance on you. It's actually wrong for an individual to try to do the job of the government. Okay? They're, okay. So I can forgive you, but then it's still a good,

• 1:34:52Speaker 03

  godly, and just thing for the government to do its job to try to bring justice on the wrongdoer. So man, honestly, it's fully appropriate for somebody that like commits a crime against somebody, for you to forgive that person, and then call the police and be like, hey, man, this person just did this and report them. Those things are not in conflict. Does that make sense?

• 1:35:13Shawn Ryan?

  Does make sense. Does make sense.

• 1:35:17Shawn Ryan?

  Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?

• 1:35:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:20Shawn Ryan?

  Why did he have to do it?

• 1:35:23Speaker 03

  That's.

• 1:35:24Shawn Ryan?

  He's God's son. He's God's only son. Why didn't God make another son? We got a lot of questions here. I mean, I just don't, it's.

• 1:35:34Shawn Ryan?

  I don't fully understand why it had to happen. If he is God.

• 1:35:41Speaker 03

  Why couldn't he just forgive?

• 1:35:42Shawn Ryan?

  Exactly.

• 1:35:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, dude, yeah. Man, that's like my favorite question to answer ever. All right. So. The Bible says. That God did it that way so that he could be both, let me say it and then explain it. So he could be both just and the justifier of the ungodly. All right. So just and justifier. All right. So. The, my favorite way to illustrate this is, is by a story. Okay? So best illustration of why God had, why Jesus had died on the cross of ever heard. All right.

• 1:36:18Speaker 03

  It goes like this. Once upon a time. In a far off kingdom. Uh, there was a king who was known by everyone in the kingdom. To be the most just and loving king who had ever lived. Uh, but then it was discovered that somebody was stealing from the king's treasury. And so the king, being a just king, he sent out an edict. That whenever it was discovered who was stealing from the king's treasury. That that person would receive 10 lashes. Well, the theft continued. And so he issued another decree. When it's discovered who's stealing from the king's treasury, it'll be 20 lashes. Theft continued, 30 lashes. Until finally, the king issued a final decree, and he said, when it's discovered who's stealing from the king's treasury. It will be a sentence of 40 lashes. Now, the problem with that was.

• 1:37:04Speaker 03

  That 40 lashes was a death sentence. And so the theft continued until eventually it was discovered. That none other than the king's daughter. Was the one who was stealing from the treasury. So then. A question began to ripple through the kingdom. What will the king do? Some thought he would forgive her. But then how would he be just? Uh, some thought that he would issue the sentence. But then how would he be loving? Well. It was decided, the king sat down and decided, you know what? The sentence is just, the punishment must fall. And so the decree stands. And so one day, the entire kingdom was gathered. And in front of everybody, the king's own daughter was marched up to the podium.

• 1:37:50Speaker 03

  In front of the entire kingdom, and she was bent over the podium. And the back of her shirt was ripped open. And the executioner stood there. And he began to. Raise his whip. To land the first slash. And as soon as he did, the king yelled, stop.

• 1:38:09Speaker 03

  And there was a silence that fell. And the king strode forward. And he took off his own shirt. And he bent over. And he wrapped his body around his own daughter. And looked back up over his shoulder and he said. Now hit her.

• 1:38:25Speaker 03

  And the executioner objected, and he said, but king, those lashes. They'll fall on you. And he said, the sentence must stand. It's just hit her.

• 1:38:36Speaker 03

  And so 40 lashes fell. On the body of the king. That protected the body of his daughter. And the king died in the stead of his daughter. And what happened, Sean, in that story is the king was both just. Because payment for the sin had to be made. And the king was the justifier of the ungodly. She went free because he took the penalty. See, the reason Jesus had to die on the cross. Is because God is just. And so payment for sin has to be made. Like, if somebody walked into a courtroom. And a judge just went, you know what, man? You raped that girl when she was young. But you're real sorry. And I have the power to do it. You're forgiven.

• 1:39:21Speaker 03

  Nobody would think. That was a just judge.

• 1:39:26Speaker 03

  So penalty for sin had to be made. But God is love, so he made the payment himself. That's what the Bible means when it says, for the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Okay? So it's a substitutionary sacrifice. In my place, condemned he stood.

• 1:39:48Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:39:50Shawn Ryan?

  It's a great explanation.

• 1:39:51Speaker 03

  Does it make sense?

• 1:39:52Shawn Ryan?

  Makes perfect sense.

• 1:39:53Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:39:54Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 1:39:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:56Shawn Ryan?

  You want to take a break?

• 1:39:57Speaker 03

  Let's do it, man.

• 1:40:00Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of guys think getting healthier means adding more and more things to the routine. More supplements, more tracking, more protocols, more complicated systems. But the older I get, the more I think it comes down to getting the fundamentals right. And supporting your body at the source. And that's why I've been using Armora Colostrum. Armora Colostrum is a bioactive whole food with over 400 bioactive nutrients. That help support gut health, strengthen immune health, fuel performance, and support overall vitality. Colostrum works at the cellular level, so you're supporting the systems your body already relies on every day. I've been using Armora Colostrum, and I've noticed a difference in how I feel overall.

• 1:40:44Shawn Ryan?

  Especially with recovery and feeling stronger through demanding weeks. It's pure, potent, natural, and clean. It's also physician founded, which I like, because this is something I'm putting into my body every day. And I want it to come from a brand that takes the science seriously. We've worked out a special offer for my audience. Receive 30% off your first subscription order. Go to armra.com/SRS or enter SRS to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's A R M R A dot com slash SRS.

• 1:41:19Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Josh, back from the break. We just wrapped up forgiveness, but I did have one more question. Is there anybody? Or anything you're struggling with to give forgiveness? You got any? Any stories on that? Anything going on right now?

• 1:41:35Speaker 03

  Dude.

• 1:41:36Shawn Ryan?

  Cause I think we all struggle with it.

• 1:41:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:38Shawn Ryan?

  Tough. It's, it's hard to do.

• 1:41:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. Man, you know. Um. Probably not, you know. You know, I don't know if there's anything I'll, I would want to put on air.

• 1:41:50Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 1:41:50Speaker 03

  You know, there's probably, probably like you, maybe something I could be transparent about.

• 1:41:56Speaker 03

  Being a pastor is, is a, it's a weird thing. It's a, it's a peculiar, it's a peculiar life. And, uh.

• 1:42:05Shawn Ryan?

  Why do you say that?

• 1:42:06Speaker 03

  It's just a, it's a weird life, man. It's like.

• 1:42:10Shawn Ryan?

  What's weird about it?

• 1:42:11Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:42:13Speaker 03

  Well, you know, uh. Uh, you, you know, everywhere you go. Um, probably similar to you. At least where you are, people, people know who you are. Uh, and they have extremely strong opinions about what you do. And, uh. Uh. And then you kind of talk, you know, you get on top of that. Man, my job. Is to say, to open the word of God. And then do my very best. To apply it to your life. And man, you know, sometimes that's going to get up all in your.

• 1:42:44Shawn Ryan?

  Do you let those opinions get to you? Does that bother you?

• 1:42:47Speaker 03

  Not as much anymore. Not as much anymore. However. Uh, there are people. Who, over the years, and it, well, usually it'll last for like, this is weird. I've kind of talked about this publicly. There are people. Who, for whatever reason, might be a personality type, might be something else. Who they'll just decide they hate you. And they'll just, it's almost like a dog on a, they'll like latch on and like. They make destroying you their life calling for a few years. And you know, man, it's like that affects. I'll give you an example. Uh. Here's how it affects me. Like, this is a debt ledger kind of thing. You know, like, I preached a sermon.

• 1:43:31Speaker 03

  A couple of years ago. They got into culture on political applications.

• 1:43:37Speaker 03

  That year. Uh, our home insurance application was denied. Uh, they got it, we were threatened by multiple people. Uh, lawsuits. Uh, they got ahold of Jana's, my wife's cellphone number. And just spam the cellphone. They posted our address. That's probably, that happens to all, everybody, this public. They posted our address a million places. A million stories, like, you know, it's like, every time to open the internet. It was, he's a, he's a pedophile. He's, I mean, like insane. You know, you know. Stuff. Uh. Posted, you know, pictures of our. Uh, of our kids playing in our yard. On the internet. I mean, it's like.

• 1:44:19Shawn Ryan?

  Privacy violation.

• 1:44:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:44:21Shawn Ryan?

  And it's like. What did you get out of that?

• 1:44:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:24Shawn Ryan?

  Why'd you do it? Did you get something? I hope you got something out of that.

• 1:44:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:28Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I know you didn't.

• 1:44:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, they don't.

• 1:44:30Shawn Ryan?

  Where like, you, you think your friend gives a shit that you?

• 1:44:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:34Shawn Ryan?

  Saw my kids playing out front? They don't. They don't give a shit.

• 1:44:40Shawn Ryan?

  And then they do it again.

• 1:44:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:44:42Shawn Ryan?

  And then they got to pretend to be your friend or that, you know? That's kind of like some of the stuff that I was kind of getting at earlier. You know what I mean? And it's just, it's like. I just don't realize how much that like. It's not, it's not even. It's a, it's a safety thing.

• 1:44:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:57Shawn Ryan?

  And it's like, what, what did you get out of that?

• 1:44:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45:00Shawn Ryan?

  I know you didn't mean anything by it, but what'd you get out of that?

• 1:45:02Speaker 03

  Well, no, I think they do mean something by it sometimes.

• 1:45:04Shawn Ryan?

  Well, yeah, I mean, okay, I, I, I'm, I'm talking, I was talking about, you know.

• 1:45:11Shawn Ryan?

  People that don't mean you harm.

• 1:45:12Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 1:45:13Shawn Ryan?

  You know, but then there is the other side of it, but.

• 1:45:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, dude, when I got, you know, that year. We had some, I'm, you know, I don't. I, I think it's okay to talk about it. We had somebody like arrested on our property. You know, I was, you know. Our kids are coming home asking, why is dad on the news? You know, because they're, yeah, it's just like. Honestly, it doesn't bother me when it starts messing with my kids.

• 1:45:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:37Speaker 03

  Uh, that's a new ballgame.

• 1:45:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 1:45:40Speaker 03

  So, yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Dude, I want to go back to one thing you said earlier. You asked the question. It's like, man, the same thing will happen and it just, it just sends me. Like, I just keep feeling the same thing over and over again.

• 1:45:55Speaker 03

  One of the misconceptions I think people have about forgiveness is they think it's a one time event. There is a reason Jesus says, hey, man, you're going to have to forgive seven times, 70 times. And honestly, Sean, what I've learned is a lot of times. All of them are for the same thing and the same person. Like, I'm going to have to forgive.

• 1:46:14Speaker 03

  If somebody's husband cheats on them. They forgive him and they reconcile and they keep the marriage. That happens in our church. All the time.

• 1:46:26Speaker 03

  Then every time they see their husband talk to a woman even completely innocuously in the lobby at church, it's like just saying hi to somebody that's on their serve team. She may have all those same emotions shoot back up, even though he's not doing anything wrong. She's gonna have to forgive again and again and again for the same sin.

• 1:46:53Shawn Ryan?

  So you're saying every time somebody sees the perpetrator, it comes up again and you have to go through the process all over again?

• 1:47:05Speaker 03

  That thing Jesus said of, how many times should I forgive Jesus? Seven times? And in Matthew 18, Jesus goes, no, Peter, it's actually gonna be seven times, 70 times, 490 times. And what he's saying is infinite. And honestly, a lot of times, you're just gonna have to forgive the same one sin over and over and over, because it keeps coming back up in your heart. The reason that's important is people will live with false guilt. And they'll think, man, the fact that I still struggle with the anger on this, it means that I haven't forgiven. I must not be a good Christian. It's like, no, man, you're a normal human. And you're just doing the forgiveness thing over and over and over.

• 1:47:46Shawn Ryan?

  That's a good point. Let's go back to the comments. It sounds like, it sounds like people's opinions bother you.

• 1:47:53Speaker 03

  They, uh, you know, at this point, uh,

• 1:47:59Shawn Ryan?

  Do you, does that, does that, is that in your head when you're up there giving your ministry?

• 1:48:04Speaker 03

  Oh, gosh.

• 1:48:05Shawn Ryan?

  You know, is this?

• 1:48:06Speaker 03

  Not at all.

• 1:48:07Shawn Ryan?

  Good.

• 1:48:08Speaker 03

  No, not at all, man. The first few times, it happened to me when I was younger. It does. It did. No, like, uh, you don't become a pastor unless you like and care about people. I hope, you know, there's probably some psychopaths out there. Uh, so yeah, the, the, the default mode is you do, man. You want people to love and trust you. And the first time, you know, you get a little internet mob or whatever it is, it does mess with you. At this, at this point, it's just so, you know, there's always a little of the, you just kind of get to the spot where it's Galatians 110, for am I now trying to please

• 1:48:50Speaker 03

  man? Or am I trying to please God? If I'm trying to please man, I am no longer a servant of Christ. And you just sort of, let me just turn it off.

• 1:48:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I was just gonna bring that up. I mean, it's interesting, you know, I'm kind of going through that right now. And, and I've never, I never thought that I was influenced by my audience, but really by anybody. And then, uh,

• 1:49:21Shawn Ryan?

  you know, and, and, and that's really important to me that I'm not influenced by anybody. And I always say what I, I always say what I'm gonna say. I don't let anybody dictate what I say, what my opinions are. I don't care, you know, but I do care. I did care a little bit, you know, and I would get the internet mobs and it would, it would hurt. And then I would steer away from certain conversations for a little bit until I felt like I was healed. And then I'd dive back in the fight, you know, and, and, um, and I realized that, um, what am I trying to say here? You know what I realized? I, ever

• 1:50:01Shawn Ryan?

  since I came to Christ, probably about, I don't know, three years ago, maybe, um, like fully committed.

• 1:50:13Shawn Ryan?

  I read this thing in the Bible once that said that many people, I'm not a guy that quotes scripture, so, but he was talking about many people will say they're doing things in my name and they aren't.

• 1:50:28Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:50:28Shawn Ryan?

  And

• 1:50:30Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:50:30Shawn Ryan?

  I kind of self reflected on that. That may have been like six months ago, maybe half a year ago or so. I'm like, shit, man, like, I feel like I'm, you know, he's always in my head, you know, I'm always trying to do the right thing. But then you get all these people coming up to you and they're like, oh, you're doing God's work. And you look at the comments and they're all like, oh, yeah, you're doing a great job, Sean. You look at the views and the likes and, and the negative shit too, you know, and, and, and you get pumped up, you know what I mean, by all these people? And, and then, and then it, I mean, for lack of a better term, it mind fucks you. You're

• 1:51:12Shawn Ryan?

  like, oh, shit, I am doing the right thing. But it's just a bunch of people

• 1:51:19Shawn Ryan?

  that don't know any better than me or you or anybody, you know, and, and just go on with the flow. And so you, you are, you, you, it tricks you into thinking that you're doing the, and I'm not saying I was doing the wrong thing. I think I've done some stuff that's wrong, you know, on here that I thought was right, that I was influenced by praise, you know, and I feed off the like, oh, well, if all these people think I'm doing the right thing, then I must be doing the right thing, right? But they don't know shit.

• 1:51:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:49Shawn Ryan?

  And I don't know shit. And so I just recently just cut it all off. I'm not on, I don't look at any of it anymore. I don't even look at the financials behind anything anymore.

• 1:51:59Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:52:01Shawn Ryan?

  Okay. Because I don't, I just don't want to be, I want to be totally uninfluenced and in touch with God as much as possible without man, human beings, getting in the middle of that relationship, you know, I really want to know, like, what do you want me to do here? What do you want me to talk about? What do you want me to do? Not what all these people, you know, six million people want me to do, want to know what you want me to do. So I cut it all off. I don't, I don't even have, I don't have any of it on my phone. I will watch YouTube and that's it on my TV, but I don't, I don't look at

• 1:52:44Shawn Ryan?

  any of that shit anymore. Let's see how it goes. It could crash and burn.

• 1:52:49Speaker 03

  I bet not.

• 1:52:50Shawn Ryan?

  But it feels pretty good so far.

• 1:52:52Speaker 03

  Dude, I think you're heading in the right direction. I think, I'd love to know what you think about this. You know, kind of what, what I learned when some of that stuff started happening is like,

• 1:53:06Speaker 03

  you know, um, there's a proverb that says, uh, whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, and a companion of fools will suffer harm. And it's kind of that principle of, man, over time, you and me, we will end up becoming whatever is like the average of the five people who are closest to us. Whoever those five people are, you extrapolate out five years, 10 years, that, that's who I'm gonna be. And so, you know, how I've kind of thought about it, I love to know what you think. How I've kind of thought about it is like, man, you know what I'm gonna try to do? Uh, what I'm really gonna focus on is assembling the band of brothers around me and, and getting, I, I care who that is a lot. Like,

• 1:53:51Speaker 03

  who are, who are those like five ride or die guys? That, that band of brothers, like, they know my junk, I know their junk, and when it hits the fan, that's who I call. And those are the guys that like, I got those guys. I got five or six guys. They know, we text multiple times per day. They're praying for you today. And that, you know, it's like, hey, man, what do you see in me? Am I missing it? And it's like, hey, I need you to, because I will say, there are some people who like,

• 1:54:19Shawn Ryan?

  Who are they? Who did you put around you?

• 1:54:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:54:21Shawn Ryan?

  Do they work with you? Are they part of your ministry?

• 1:54:24Speaker 03

  There are.

• 1:54:25Shawn Ryan?

  Are they the guys out the side there?

• 1:54:26Speaker 03

  There's a few, uh, some of them. Yes, actually, some of those guys do function like that. So our elders, we've got elders at our church, every year, I do the same thing. What do y'all see? I'll say, what I do every year is I'll ask that, first of all, they've got an open door. The key to this that I've noticed is you, you probably felt the same, is like, man, as a, and man, I, you know, I say this with humility, I hope that, you know, as your, as your platform grows, your notoriety grows, it gets harder to find people who will be honest with, with you. So then what I've noticed is I have to like deputize people. Like, I'm giving you authority to, to call me if I'm, if I'm breaking the speed limit. That's your job. Like, I'll say, I need you to keep me out

• 1:55:11Speaker 03

  of the newspaper. I'd rather be embarrassed in front of you than embarrassed in front of however many millions of people or whatever, you know. So for me, we got elders at our church. They're like, we're meeting constantly. And they know, like, hey, man, tell me, once a year, I ask those guys, what should I start doing? What should I stop doing? What should I keep doing? What do you see in my life? I've obviously got Jana. Uh, Jana should be number one. Uh, Jana, me and Jana take a walk. I'm not saying everybody's got to do this. Uh, I got a lot of problems in my life. I got a real good marriage. I got a real good marriage. Uh, Jana is a wise, very courageous, very godly woman. We take a walk at, we usually

• 1:55:52Speaker 03

  take two walks a day. So we usually walk about four miles a day together. And really all we're doing is it's just like, we're just, we're talking about Jesus, we're talking about life, we're talking about our kids, we're talking about ministry. And Jana will, Jana will tell me if she sees, if she sees something, Jana's gonna tell me. But she'll also be the person that if I were to ever like need to preach something that was difficult, it's like, I know this is gonna make people mad. Uh, if I flaked and I walked off stage, Jana will be the first person to be like, I love you, you flaked. So she'll, she'll, she'll speak into my life. She'll also put steel on my spine. She'll do that.

• 1:56:34Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 1:56:35Speaker 03

  And then I got, I got some of these guys out here. I got a group of pastors that I've been friends with for a long, long, long time that were on a group text. And we, we keep in touch. These are guys, a guy in Arizona, uh, there's a guy up in the state of Washington, uh, there's a guy over in Atlanta, those guys. But they, you know,

• 1:56:59Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it's interesting. I love it. And I do the same thing. And I've got,

• 1:57:09Shawn Ryan?

  Everybody's in, I mean, everybody.

• 1:57:15Shawn Ryan?

  Got four people in this building that have been with me since the beginning of this damn thing, or right at the beginning. One of them came before that, seventeen years old, when I was teaching tactics. He's been with me for ten years now. And these, these people are like my family. And, um.

• 1:57:36Shawn Ryan?

  So I have that. Now, on the flip, and, and I love them and they love me and, and.

• 1:57:43Shawn Ryan?

  We've been, we've been through a lot of shit together and we'll go through a lot more stuff. And I always take, you know, what they say into.

• 1:57:53Shawn Ryan?

  Into account and. But the interesting thing is.

• 1:58:00Shawn Ryan?

  They're also influenced by the success of this.

• 1:58:05Shawn Ryan?

  And so you can't a hundred percent.

• 1:58:11Shawn Ryan?

  Buy into everything that they're telling you because they are influenced. Their lives are influenced by this, so of course they're influenced by this. Same with your guys out there. They're influenced by the success of what you're doing. And so.

• 1:58:26Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:58:27Shawn Ryan?

  You have to keep that in mind.

• 1:58:28Speaker 03

  That's right. You gotta have the outside. But what that does, at least for me.

• 1:58:35Speaker 03

  Is when, when stuff hits the fan, which I pray is not frequent.

• 1:58:40Speaker 03

  You know, that the little axiom becomes for me, criticism should be weighed, not counted. So I, I'm not taking a poll of how many people liked it and how many people didn't like it. And if more people didn't like it than liked what I said, it was wrong. Now, man, we got Bible verses for that. Let God be true and every man a liar. Hey, man, I'm, we're gonna be in the minority on a whole bunch of stuff. We're, we're gonna stand on, stand on the word of God. And let God be true and every man a liar. We're okay with that. But when it hits the fan and I'm started asking people, man, what'd you think? Did I miss it?

• 1:59:13Speaker 03

  I'm, I'm not counting how many criticisms did I get? I'm weighing, who did it come from? If it came from Jana, I, I almost don't need to hear anything else.

• 1:59:27Speaker 03

  If it's one of my elders, I almost don't need to hear anything else. If it's one of those guys, it's like a ride or die. So that's how I kinda think about it.

• 1:59:38Shawn Ryan?

  There's a point where you realize you're doing the same things you used to do, but your body just responds differently. Same workouts, same effort, same discipline, but recovery takes longer. Energy isn't as steady and you don't bounce back the way you used to. And once you notice that, you start asking questions. Is it stress? Is it sleep? Is it age? Is it hormones? That's when guys start looking into testosterone and that space gets confusing fast. That's why I started taking Mars Men. What stood out to me is that Mars Men is designed to support healthy T levels, energy, stamina, and recovery without forcing hormones into your body. It's built around helping your body use more of what it's already producing.

• 2:00:22Shawn Ryan?

  And since taking it, I've noticed steadier energy, better recovery, and more drive throughout the day. It's not like a caffeine spike. It just feels more consistent. It's made in the USA, third-party tested, and has a ninety-day money-back guarantee. And that matters because if you're going to put something into your daily routine, you wanna know it's clean, tested, and backed by a company that stands behind it. For a limited time, our listeners get fifty percent off for life, plus free shipping and three free gifts at mengotomars.com. That's mengotomars.com for fifty percent off for life and three free gifts when you check out. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them.

• 2:01:05Shawn Ryan?

  Please support our show and tell them our show sent you.

• 2:01:11Shawn Ryan?

  My wife's the same. It sounds like our wives are very similar. You know, my wife, there are days that she just is like.

• 2:01:21Shawn Ryan?

  We can stop at any time. We don't need anything else.

• 2:01:27Shawn Ryan?

  And I think about that and I'm glad she's like that because. You know, if it's the other way, she would just want more and more and more.

• 2:01:35Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, dude, that tells me everything about your wife.

• 2:01:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:40Speaker 03

  Because what that tells me is she's into Shawn, not what Shawn can do.

• 2:01:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yep. She doesn't like this. She loves what I do. She doesn't like.

• 2:01:48Speaker 03

  Why didn't she like it?

• 2:01:49Shawn Ryan?

  She doesn't like the notoriety that comes with.

• 2:01:52Speaker 03

  Chill. She, low-key. Yeah. That's how Jana would roll if she could.

• 2:01:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:01:59Shawn Ryan?

  We were gonna do. That editing room over there with all the computers, that was gonna be our studio. We were gonna do a husband-wife thing and we did. Nine pilots. And they were wildly successful. And we, we deleted them all.

• 2:02:19Speaker 03

  Cause she didn't like the eyeballs.

• 2:02:22Shawn Ryan?

  She's like, we got kids. One person in the light is more than enough. And I don't want anything to do with it. And, uh. That's cool, man, because most women.

• 2:02:34Speaker 03

  Opposite.

• 2:02:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 2:02:35Speaker 03

  Man, I don't know, I don't know anything about her. That's a good woman.

• 2:02:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 2:02:41Speaker 03

  Is a, you know, Genesis, you know, pattern of marriage. And that's, this is one thing that'll get you in trouble a little bit. Uh, is, hey. In a God-honoring marriage, husband's job is to be a loving head and her job is to be a respectful helper. And there's nuances to that.

• 2:03:00Speaker 03

  But when it says helper. It's a, it's Evan, so the Hebrew is Evan Azar. It means necessary ally. And the implication is, man, God designed her for Shawn Ryan. And there's a whole bunch of battles that Shawn could not win if that woman was not at Shawn Ryan's side. And, you know, if you watch. Every man either marries a launchpad or a lid. And, you know, I, I, you probably feel the same way as me.

• 2:03:31Speaker 03

  There are guys that, man, dude, they're. They were way, way more talented than me and way, way better opportunities and that kinda thing. And a lot of the things that, that is one of the other things. I, there's a couple of things I can't talk about with my sweating. One of them's, one of them's Jana. The reason that we've been able to, you know, just see it happen, some of the things that happen is because I married a launchpad and not a lid. There's no way I'd go a tenth.

• 2:04:04Speaker 03

  As far as, as, you know, we, we've been graced to do if I had married Jan Howard in.

• 2:04:12Shawn Ryan?

  How'd you meet her?

• 2:04:13Speaker 03

  Blind date.

• 2:04:14Shawn Ryan?

  A blind date.

• 2:04:17Speaker 03

  Blind date. I was a. I was a senior in college. And I was single. Jana was, she got saved. She gave her life to Christ in college. She was the president of her sorority over there at Western Kentucky University. And, uh, so the, she went to college in the town where I grew up.

• 2:04:38Speaker 03

  So the guy that discipled me, and for listeners, all that means, like, when I became a Christian, it was an older godly man that I met with to like. And he showed me, here's how you, here's how you be a Christian man. That's all that means. He discipled me. The guy that discipled me, his wife discipled Jana after she gave her life to Christ in college. So then Jana's there and she's president of sorority and everything and they just. They just started asking her, hey, why are you single? You know? And she goes, I don't know. And they, they sat her down and, did you grow up in church at all?

• 2:05:13Shawn Ryan?

  Say that again.

• 2:05:14Speaker 03

  Did you grow up in church at all?

• 2:05:15Shawn Ryan?

  Catholic.

• 2:05:16Speaker 03

  Catholic. Did that, I don't, this is, this, I'm gonna show my ignorance real quick. Did they have like an old, when I was growing up, we had church directories where they have everybody's names and pictures and phone numbers. Did they have that?

• 2:05:29Shawn Ryan?

  Not that I'm aware of.

• 2:05:30Speaker 03

  All right. Well, in my old Baptist church, they had that. So they, uh, they were sitting there with Jana and they pulled out the church directory and started finding all the guys her age and they were like, what about him?

• 2:05:44Speaker 03

  They did, they did. And then, uh, and then they finally got to me and they were like, what about him? And she was like, nah, I don't know.

• 2:05:53Speaker 03

  And, uh. So they, they sent me an email. And, uh. His name, Jeff Carlisle, I mentioned him earlier, my youth pastor. And he was like, hey, man, I got this girl that you need to trust me. You need to meet this girl. And I'll be honest, man, the first time he emailed, I was kinda like, well, man, you know, I'm Josh Howard and I'm not desperate, you know? And then he sent me a picture and I was like, I'll be there next week.

• 2:06:21Speaker 03

  And I drove up to Bowling Green, Kentucky. And blind date and we dated for four months, got engaged, engaged for four months, got married fast as we could. Best decision I ever made.

• 2:06:33Shawn Ryan?

  What'd you like about her? What was the first thing that hit you?

• 2:06:37Speaker 03

  Well, first of all, she was very attractive. That's the first thing I noticed because I've got a picture. So I'm, you know, I'm gonna say that, first thing I noticed.

• 2:06:43Shawn Ryan?

  When you met her?

• 2:06:44Speaker 03

  When I met her. Oh, what, say it again?

• 2:06:46Shawn Ryan?

  What's the, what's the, what's, other than that, what's the first thing that hit you?

• 2:06:49Speaker 03

  Man, she loved, she loved the Lord.

• 2:06:53Speaker 03

  Awesome. Man, it was like in two seconds, like all she wanted to talk about was like. How she wanted to pour herself out for stuff that mattered. Uh, I figured out real fast. Uh, she obviously wanted to enjoy a great marriage. She wanted to find somebody that she could live and die with. Throwing haymakers for the kingdom of God. I figured that out real fast. And she was wise. She is a wise, wise person. Very wise.

• 2:07:28Speaker 03

  Her judge of character is ridicu- every, you probably had a few moments where you got betrayed by somebody and it's like, are you kidding me? Like, I knew you for eight years or twelve years or whatever.

• 2:07:40Shawn Ryan?

  She saw it.

• 2:07:41Speaker 03

  Ev- there has never been a time, a one hundred percent hit rate.

• 2:07:49Speaker 03

  That sound familiar?

• 2:07:51Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:07:53Speaker 03

  The Bible doesn't call him a helper for nothing.

• 2:07:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yep. Sounds like an amazing woman.

• 2:08:00Speaker 03

  She, yes, she is.

• 2:08:02Shawn Ryan?

  So these elders, do they have different opinions than you on topics?

• 2:08:07Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, they'll, we'll, we'll have meetings and now there's a, there's a great unity of spirit. But man, they, they love me and they love me enough to, hey, man, what do you, here's what we're thinking. We'll pray about it and talk about it and argue about it and then pray about it some more. Until we get consensus on a thing. That's very, oh, very, there's a very, very high level of trust and love among those guys. And those guys at our church, they're not, you know, like you said, hey, man, you gotta watch out when somebody's, you know, it's like their livelihood is tied to the success of the thing. That'll affect their judgment. These guys at our church, man, not every church like our church.

• 2:08:53Speaker 03

  At our church, they're, they're just, they're just godly church members. They're not getting a dime from the church. They're not tied to that, which gives them the ability to love, to love me enough and just like, hey, dude, here's what, here's what we're seeing, here's what we're thinking. Yeah.

• 2:09:14Shawn Ryan?

  Now, the guys I'm talking about, I mean, they could, they, you know, they, yes, there is that aspect, but they're also, you know, just to give them credit, they all tell me like, hey, if you end this today, it's, we're good with it. We just want what's best for you, you know, so I gotta give credit where credit's due. And like I said, I love those dudes. But I also like, um, you know, I like, so I like talking to Eli, you know, I brought up Eli Crane earlier and that's, you know, if you watch, you know, that's been a topic on this show, the Israel topic and, and

• 2:09:47Shawn Ryan?

  I always, I talk to him, every couple of months, we, we battle it out and, um, he hasn't changed my opinion, but you know, maybe one day he will. And I love it when somebody does change my opinion because it means, you know, you're growing.

• 2:10:00Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 2:10:01Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, but, uh,

• 2:10:04Speaker 03

  That's iron sharpening iron.

• 2:10:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:06Speaker 03

  That's what you just described. We got a Bible verse for that. That's right. That's great. Sometimes sparks fly when, when iron hits iron.

• 2:10:15Speaker 03

  And usually, a lot of times, those are the best friendships that take you the farthest.

• 2:10:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. He's a good dude. And, uh,

• 2:10:26Shawn Ryan?

  and I know there's, there's, there's no financial incentives behind him, you know, that are swaying his opinions. And, uh, I deeply respect that, especially, especially a man in politics, you know, so.

• 2:10:40Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, how many people are in your church?

• 2:10:44Speaker 03

  On a, a normal week now, you know, let's say here recently, thirty thousand.

• 2:10:51Shawn Ryan?

  How many? Thirty thousand?

• 2:10:54Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:10:54Shawn Ryan?

  Holy cow. Thirty thousand.

• 2:10:57Speaker 03

  I know, man, I know. It's, it's a lot of people. I know.

• 2:11:00Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:11:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:11:02Shawn Ryan?

  Did you watch my episode about the religion business?

• 2:11:05Speaker 03

  Uh, I was sent clips.

• 2:11:07Shawn Ryan?

  What'd you think? That, I got a lot, a lot of texts.

• 2:11:13Speaker 03

  Well, man, you know, there's, you know, I, I, I don't like commenting on stuff that I didn't dig in on. I know there's a lot of misconceptions about that kind of thing and, you know,

• 2:11:26Shawn Ryan?

  Are there some truths?

• 2:11:27Speaker 03

  It depends who you're talking about. So let me just, I'll, I'll shoot you real straight. There are some guys that are, you know, quote unquote pastors, they, man, it's like, that's not a good guy.

• 2:11:43Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 2:11:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. But, you know, the weird thing about what I do is like a lot of those guys that are like pastors of, you know, bigger churches, like I, I know all those guys, you know? And it is the thing that I'll, you know, again, this stuff never talked about publicly. The thing that can be tough for me is when a guy that I know, and I'm like, the, the internet mob, whatever, the public perception is this, and I'm like, I know that guy. I know what you're commenting on and I know how that is like a freakishly cartoonish caricature of this thing that actually happened, but because of the realities of the terrain, he's never gonna, he's never gonna correct the record.

• 2:12:30Speaker 03

  That's tough. That's tough to see, you know, uh, again.

• 2:12:35Shawn Ryan?

  Cause he's got something to gain off of it. That's what you're.

• 2:12:38Speaker 03

  What do you mean?

• 2:12:39Shawn Ryan?

  Is that what you're saying? Somebody, somebody that will start controversy to make themselves relevant, even though they know it's not true. Is that what you're talking about?

• 2:12:49Speaker 03

  So it can be, you know, and dude, I'm not talking about anybody. I don't have a name in mind. I might, but I'm not gonna.

• 2:12:55Shawn Ryan?

  Well, thirty thousand, it could be any name. You know what I mean?

• 2:12:58Speaker 03

  Oh, you're talking about church members.

• 2:13:00Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, I don't know. I thought that's what you were talking about.

• 2:13:02Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm talking about just like in public, when you'll see pastors get shredded, like, you know, like kind of that, that kind of vibe.

• 2:13:11Speaker 03

  I'm talking about when there's like this massive gap between like, dude, I know that guy and I know the real story on that thing.

• 2:13:17Shawn Ryan?

  Oh.

• 2:13:18Speaker 03

  You see what I'm saying?

• 2:13:19Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:13:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

• 2:13:21Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:13:22Speaker 03

  That can be tough.

• 2:13:23Shawn Ryan?

  When you're watching, okay, yeah.

• 2:13:27Shawn Ryan?

  When you're watching somebody that you know be defamed, is that what you're talking about?

• 2:13:31Speaker 03

  And I know, bro, that is not.

• 2:13:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:33Speaker 03

  That ain't what. And so what'll happen to some of these, these guys is because, you know, the incentive, you've, you, you, you just were mentioning, you've experienced this. The incentive structure of the internet is for people to be big game hunters. Who's got a big platform? If I can create that person, uh, if I can create controversy by attacking that person, I can harvest some of their platform for me, uh, which, and not in all cases, let me just really quick say, there are some people who abs, they are saying righteous and true things about people who are not good men. Absolutely. So let me just say that. I don't want anybody to get me wrong on that.

• 2:14:19Speaker 03

  Then there are other people, it's like, man, what's real interesting is, uh, you know, uh, you're, you're, you're saying this about this guy, that he's just doing all this for, for money or whatever it is. When, when actually what's happening is you have a monetized website and whenever you create a bunch of controversy, you drive a bunch of clicks to your monetized website, you know, it's, it's weird. It comes off weird.

• 2:14:44Shawn Ryan?

  What are some misconceptions?

• 2:14:48Speaker 03

  Man.

• 2:14:50Shawn Ryan?

  Anything in particular?

• 2:14:53Speaker 03

  So first of all, my big caveat is there are guys, and I'm, I'm not, I'm not gonna go there on, on public. There are guys that I don't know well enough, but when I hear about them, I'm like, that guy does not sound like a good guy. That guy don't sound like a guy. I've been, I've, I've been around some guys where I'm like, it's, the, it just didn't feel integrous to me. Ah, I think I'm gonna make my band of brothers, these guys over here, you know? So let me just say that. Um, but sometimes, man, the gap between reality and the, kind of the vibe of like, man, all these,

• 2:15:34Speaker 03

  all these big church pastors, they're all like, they're all having affairs and they're all just in it for the money and they're just getting, exploiting people and getting rich. I'm like, dude, that is, it's just not true, man. Like, here, let me, let me, I'll give an example of this.

• 2:15:50Speaker 03

  So, uh, uh, I was sixteen years old. God had just called me to ministry and I'm in high school. The pastor, and I'm gonna say his name, uh, the pastor of the, at the time, I believe the second largest church in America. The man's name was Bob Russell. He pastored Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. Okay. I'm sixteen years old. God calls me to ministry and my dad, because he was a good dad, my dad went, hey, Josh, so here's what you need to do if you want to be a pastor someday. You need to find good, faithful, fruitful pastors. You need to go get in front of them. You need to ask them intelligent questions. Uh, you need to write down everything they say

• 2:16:34Speaker 03

  and then you need to do everything that they said. That's the book of Proverbs. Step one of getting wisdom, get wisdom. You gotta go get it. Okay. So I was like, well, you know, who's the best pastor I've ever heard of? And I was like, probably Bob Russell. The problem was, he pastored a church that like in the nineties was a church of like twenty thousand people or something, which back then, like that didn't even exist back then. So I'm gonna confess a sin real quick. Uh, I was sixteen and I drove up to the Southeast Christian Church, uh, new members class. It was for people who were trying to become members of the church. Um, and the reason I did it is because I knew on a weekend, because there's twenty thousand people there, even though he's always in the lobby, I probably, I might not be able to talk to him,

• 2:17:19Speaker 03

  but I knew he taught the new members class and there was only a few people there. I was like, well, I'll go to that. So I sat through the whole new members class and then at the end I came up and I said, Pastor Bob, I am so sorry. I'm not trying to become a member of your church. I live two hours away, but God called me to be a pastor. Is there any way I could take you out to lunch?

• 2:17:39Speaker 03

  I'll only take forty five minutes of your time. I'll drive to you. I'll bring prepared questions. Uh, and I just want to ask you questions about how to be a pastor. And he said, uh, he said, you know what, Josh? If you'll reach out to my assistant, uh, you know, we'll see if we can set something up. So she set something up for, I think it was two years later, if I remember right. Now, that was probably a gentle way to see, is this kid gonna fall through? You know, I think it was like two years later. Now, I'm gonna give you a, I'm gonna give you a date. Okay. Bookmark this date in your head because it's gonna be important in a second.

• 2:18:13Speaker 03

  She set the date for, I think it was September thirteenth, two thousand and one.

• 2:18:21Speaker 03

  So, two years later, I'm in college and I wake up that day. And, uh, now remember, I just want everybody to remember, this is the pastor of the second largest church in America. I'm a 16-year-old nobody, even more of a nobody than I am now when he meets me. So that day I wake up and I drive five hours from Union University up to Louisville, something like that. And I get there and I sit down with him. And back then, uh, it was pre-iPhone. So you remember those little tape recorders that you could put on a table and you press the thing? I brought one of those. I still have the tape. And I sat there, at the time I was 18 then, and I put it on the table. And I had spent two years thinking of what are the 20 best questions I could ask a faithful pastor?

• 2:19:05Speaker 03

  And I sat there and Bob Russell, the pastor of the second largest church in America, he sat with a 16, then 18. He sat with an 18-year-old nobody, college kid, didn't even go to his church. He sat there for two hours, and, uh, two hours, and answered my questions. And I still have the tape. In fact, I'm at, uh, the story's not over, the best part's to come. In fact, to talk about what we said earlier about our wives, I'll never forget this dude. The last thing I did is I said, Pastor Bob, is there anything that I need to know that I didn't ask you? And he said, yeah, Josh, there is. You need to know that the most important decision you make for your ministry will not be what seminary you, you attend, or what first church you take.

• 2:19:50Speaker 03

  It'll be, but what woman you marry. I never forgot it, dude. I never forgot it. Mic drop. Alright, so, we finish, and then I drive him back in my little 96 Kia Sophia to, uh, his church. And I drop him off. And as I drop him off, his assistant goes, "Do you know what he just did for you?" And I was like, man, yeah, he spent two hours with me. It was amazing. That, it was ama, thank you so much. And she said, "No, no, no. Did he tell you what he did to meet with you today?" Now, I said earlier, it was September 13th. It was September 13th, 2001.

• 2:20:27Shawn Ryan?

  Two days after 9/11.

• 2:20:29Speaker 03

  Bingo. She sits there and explains that that morning, he had gotten called by the largest radio station in America, and the largest TV station in America, to do an interview, a nationally syndicated interview, about God and 9/11. And Bob Russell said, "No, because a righteous man swears to his own hurt and he does not change." And so, instead of talking to the entire country that day, he said no to that, so he could sit with an 18-year-old nobody, and tell him how to be a faithful Christian man, and grow up and try to be a faithful Christian pastor. Now, some of me looks back and I'm like, I think I would've done the other.

• 2:21:14Speaker 03

  But, what I will say, is those are the types of stories, sometimes it'll bother me, because all the, the, the, you'll hear these bad stories that go viral, and it's like, that story doesn't go viral.

• 2:21:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:29Speaker 03

  And there's a, brothers, there's a million, a million of those.

• 2:21:34Shawn Ryan?

  That's a cool story, man. I like that.

• 2:21:37Speaker 03

  In fact-

• 2:21:39Shawn Ryan?

  Somebody said that once, I saw this somewhere, I heard it somewhere, you know? You know who the most important person in the world to me is right now? You are.

• 2:21:52Speaker 03

  I like that. I like that. I like that a lot.

• 2:21:59Shawn Ryan?

  It means something, if you think about it.

• 2:22:01Speaker 03

  It sure does. And people feel that. They feel that from you. I'll, um... Sometimes when I, you know, I'm around these guys, and I, I, I won't use their names, uh, because they, they're the kind of guys, they wouldn't like it, but it's, it is weird because they're all my buddies, like, I know them. So I got, here, I'll just give like, maybe just a couple examples. So like, one, and it's, it's fun for me because all the names pop in my head, you know? Uh, one, one of the pastors of one of the three largest churches in America, nobody

• 2:22:45Speaker 03

  will ever know this, he asked his held elders to cap his salary years ago. They, they don't raise it. And he and his wife sit down every single year and they go on a generosity retreat. And they try to figure out, how can we give more? And they're now up to giving away 60% of their income, just to help people. And they give these little anonymous donations to people in their church, and they're never going to know it came from that guy. One guy was the pastor of, uh, I think, one of the two largest churches, maybe in American history? Maybe? Maybe? He wrote a book, at the time, he wrote a book that became, I think, one of the three or four bestselling books in Ameri, in world history.

• 2:23:28Speaker 03

  And what a lot of people don't know is what he did with all the money, is, uh, he reversed, first, he repaid the church every dollar that they'd ever salaried him. And then he and his wife sat down, and they figured out how to reverse tithe on the money. So they gave away 90%, and they only lived on 10. And he used that money to start a series of nonprofits that just helped the poor. Um, uh, this guy's name, I will say, I'm gonna brag on him, because he's, he's on our teaching team at Lake Point. There's a guy named Pastor Mike Bro. He pastored church of over 10,000 people in Lexington, Kentucky. I grew up listening to him as a kid.

• 2:24:06Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:24:07Speaker 03

  Now, he's on our teaching team at Lake Point, and I'm, I'm gonna brag on him, he pray, he may kill me, but I'm just gonna brag on him. That guy retired, stepped away from his church when it was like, I mean, peak, like, crushing. And he stepped away, and you know what he ended up doing? He ended up helping his daughter plant a church in a city in California, like, rub two sticks together, nobody's there. Help his daughter plant a church in a city that like, didn't have many churches. And you know what that guy does now? Every Thursday, he wakes up and he leads a little Bible study at a local Starbucks for recovering addicts. And he volunteers his Thursday afternoon to help widows repair their homes and mow their lawns.

• 2:24:48Speaker 03

  This dude, like, everybody would've been like, mega church pastor, like, now, and I could keep going, like, dude, I got, there's another guy who's, he sets aside, another, one of the pastors of the largest church in America. They set aside a large portion of their personal income to help families in their church adopt kids. And what they do is they set it up where every time somebody in their church is adopting, that person anonymously gets sent like, thousands of dollars. And they'll never know it, but it's from that guy, that's the senior pastor. And they've set a goal of funding at least 100 adoptions, like, you know, with, with,

• 2:25:31Speaker 03

  with, with, now, I could just, I could keep going on and on and on and on. But when people hear that, I think a lot of people hear that about, you know, these mega church pastors. And I think they go, well, man, Josh, yeah, but why don't I ever hear those stories? Because planes that land safely don't make the news.

• 2:25:47Shawn Ryan?

  That's a good point. Thank you for sharing that. I always notice when somebody goes the extra step. It does not have to be some huge thing. It could be someone following up when they said they would, giving you a straight answer, or taking a little extra time to make sure the job gets done right. That sticks with you, because it shows they actually care. And if you're hiring, that same thing matters. You don't just want someone qualified, you want someone who actually wants the job, and is willing to go the extra step. That's where ZipRecruiter comes in. Candidates can tell you in their own words, why they're interested in your job, which

• 2:26:30Shawn Ryan?

  gives you a better read on who is really paying attention. And ZipRecruiter has a new feature that shows you the most interested qualified candidates first, so you meet the right people faster. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates quickly, and no wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. Try ZipRecruiter, and meet great candidates who'll go the extra step for your job. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free, it's ziprecruiter.com/srs. That's ziprecruiter.com/srs. ZipRecruiter, meet your match on ZipRecruiter.

• 2:27:15Speaker 01

  FX's American Horror Story returns for an unrivaled 13th installment, with the iconic horrors you love to fear, and an all-star cast reprising fan favorite roles. Light your candles, draw your pentagrams, and prepare for a supreme surprise. FX's American Horror Story 13, now streaming on Hulu.

• 2:27:44Shawn Ryan?

  So, in a church of 30,000 people-

• 2:27:52Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sure everybody's wanting to get some time with you. They want your advice. They want some help. How do you determine? How do you determine who you personally? Give your time to because it's impossible to divide it up to 30,000 people. Plus you got. Three kids and a wife.

• 2:28:08Speaker 03

  I do, and that's my first ministry. Well, a couple of things I say is that's true in any church that's that's really over. You know, honestly, I don't know, six, 800 people. It's kind of the same thing. So what I'd say is a few things.

• 2:28:23Shawn Ryan?

  Do you give it to anybody?

• 2:28:25Speaker 03

  Give what?

• 2:28:26Shawn Ryan?

  Your time.

• 2:28:27Speaker 03

  To just anybody?

• 2:28:28Shawn Ryan?

  Who do you give it to?

• 2:28:29Speaker 03

  Do you give it to? Oh, do I give it to? Oh, of course. Oh, my gosh, yes, of course. Yeah, man, like what I've, what I've, so let me say a few, what I do now. Is what I try to have this motto of do for one what you wish you could do for all. So man, can I do it for 30,000? No, I can't always do that. I'm gonna, I'll talk about that in a second. But I never want to get to the spot where the shepherd doesn't smell like the sheep. Okay? So what I'll do is me, me and Jana, whoever it is, first of all, we're in the lobby after services praying with people. You know, I said like after every service every week, unless I preached you long and I can't get out there, you know? And we're just praying, praying with people. Anytime I'm not preaching, we just travel, I did this last weekend.

• 2:29:14Speaker 03

  We just travel all the campuses and we just get there early and stand in the lobby. And we just sit there and pray with people. It's like the dude, it's like the best thing. It's like my favorite. It's the best thing ever. Uh, do that stuff. Uh, one thing that I'll do, and then what I do is. So in, in, uh, in the book of Acts, when the church gets, it's the same thing, Sean. Well, you know. The first church ever existed, Acts 2, 2, you got 3,000 people. By Acts 3, it's, it's 5,000 people. There's indications later in the book of Acts that the church definitely grew larger than that. So you know, you, you, this is, this has been around since the beginning. And in the book of Acts, I think it's, uh, in the book of Acts. When it gets to the spot where the church grows to the spot where there were a group of widows in the church.

• 2:29:58Speaker 03

  That the pastors, the apostles themselves, they were like personally handing. Uh, all the food to distribute to the widows to help them. The church eventually grew to a spot where they were spending so much time doing that. That the Bible says they were distracted from two things, prayer and the ministry of the word. So then what they did, if you could read the book of Acts, is they essentially restructured the leadership of the church. They added a layer of leadership that we now call deacons. That's where that came from. That deacon word just means servant, you know? They did a leadership restructure, added a layer of leadership. And it uncorked a little. Kink in the hose. So that now, hey, man, these deacons are the ones. They're administering this ministry to you. So these guys can focus on prayer and the word.

• 2:30:41Speaker 03

  It's kind of been the same thing forever. So that's really what we, we try to do is man, um, uh, my job. As the senior pastor of church is not to personally do every aspect of ministry in church. My job is to be responsible as best I can, that ministry happens for every single person at church. It's like we have, you know, our team, we have hundreds of pastors that are trained. So. When somebody grabs me in the lobby, they're like, hey, man, uh, I need to meet with you. Well, one, I'll, I'll talk to you right now in the lobby. Let's talk. What can I help? We're like, pray. But one of my questions is, is I will sometimes ask, hey, man, which one do you want? Do you want help or do you want me?

• 2:31:23Speaker 03

  Cause if you want help, I can get you with a person that's actually more gifted than me for the ministry that you need. That's actually going to get you better help. That's why the Bible talks about how there's one body with many parts. Everybody, including every pastor, has different spiritual gifts. Let me get like, bro, you don't want me counseling you.

• 2:31:42Speaker 03

  You know, when I, I used to do some counseling, I'm just not great at it. I'm like, hey, man, quit doing that. You know, and let me pray for you and here's a sermon to listen to it, you know? But we have people on our team who like. You know, I'm not the best preacher in the world, but God's given me some good ability there. We had guys in our team who are like. They are way more anointed and gifted to personally counsel somebody going through a really traumatic thing. Than I ever will be. So I want to try to get them to the pastor that can help, best help them. The last thing that we do is, you know, we just never want to get to the spot where the shepherds don't smell like sheep. So we constantly got people in our house. We lead at our church called a rooted group. It's a little discipleship group.

• 2:32:28Speaker 03

  And Jan and I, we usually lead at least one per year. Last time we just led a big discipleship group with 30 young adults. Just sort of random young adults, a bunch of kids sitting around our living room and we're just discipling. 30 kids in church. Or if I hear sometimes about somebody that's like going through it. Like I'll just, I'll just tell you, man, we had. One of my favorite church members in our whole church just died of cancer. He's hugging Jesus now. Kelly Gudrow. Best dude ever. Uh, for the last part of Kelly, Kelly's life. You know? I'm calling Kelly. And checking up on him. I'm praying with him. I'm seeing if I, hey, man, kind, what kind of, you know? And I, you know, we, we interacted almost every day for the last however many time.

• 2:33:13Speaker 03

  So what I try to do is do for one what you wish you could do for all and stay connected to the sheep. Does that make sense?

• 2:33:21Shawn Ryan?

  It does make sense.

• 2:33:22Speaker 03

  That's what I try to do.

• 2:33:25Shawn Ryan?

  Does make sense. And I get it. I mean. I'm not a pastor, but. Got a lot of people to watch this. A lot of people that want to come on here.

• 2:33:37Shawn Ryan?

  I look for the biggest impacts.

• 2:33:43Shawn Ryan?

  Biggest way I can make an impact.

• 2:33:47Shawn Ryan?

  Let's move into.

• 2:33:50Shawn Ryan?

  Passing the torch, being in.

• 2:33:54Shawn Ryan?

  How do you get your kids? How do you get young adults? How do you, how do you? How do you real, I mean, like I told you, you know, I grew up Catholic, went to church every Sunday, did the Sunday school thing. And. It never sunk in. It never sunk in until.

• 2:34:12Shawn Ryan?

  Till I got slapped around by God a little bit.

• 2:34:16Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, and then it sunk in. And, uh, but. You know? Hopefully not everybody has to go through what I go through. Cause it's tough. Real tough. And.

• 2:34:30Shawn Ryan?

  So how do you successfully pass the torch and get them to get it? Like really get it, not just sit there. You know, I mean, I. I'm still Catholic, you know, I bring my kids, but you know, bringing a, bringing a five year old to a Catholic mass is like torture.

• 2:34:48Speaker 03

  Good luck, sir.

• 2:34:49Shawn Ryan?

  You know, but I mean, how do you, you know, how do you, how do you get? The little guys engaged? How do you get them to get it without having to? Get knocked around?

• 2:34:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, one. Um, I don't want to give somebody a promise that's not a promise. So let me just say. Here, here's why I say that, like as a pastor, what I've learned. Is when I say what I'm about to say about how to do it. What you're going to have is hundreds of thousands or millions of dads, moms. Grandpas, grand, grandmas. That when I say what I'm about to say, they're going to get overwhelmed with regret of what they wish they did. And they're going to start blaming themselves. For their kid getting sideways or going prodigal or whatever. So here's my caveat.

• 2:35:39Shawn Ryan?

  It only works for you. You know what I mean? It's just one way. There's. There's a hundred different ways to do this. I'm asking how you do it.

• 2:35:46Speaker 03

  Okay, there, okay, that's good. That helps.

• 2:35:48Shawn Ryan?

  Your way wouldn't necessarily work on everybody else, but I'm just curious, you know? How do you do it?

• 2:35:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. All right, that's good. That's good. All right. My caveat for those people to dovetail. You making that point is I do not see a promise in the scripture. That if you do this 100% of the time, your kids will turn out this way. Okay? My example of that is Garden of Eden. Garden of Eden, you've got a perfect father. God's a father. That's pretty perfect. You got a perfect father. You actually have perfect kids. Adam and Eve don't got a sin nature yet. And you have a perfect environment, Eden. There's no, it's a perfect, so you have a perfect father, perfect kids, perfect environment, and they still rebelled.

• 2:36:30Speaker 03

  So I will just say, hey, man, give yourself some grace. You know, that kind of thing. Now. I'll tell you. As far as how I'm doing it, my kids are 15. 11 and seven. So I'll, I'll be honest, man. Jury's still out. We'll see. We'll see if I do my job. Uh, but I do know. Uh, I'm, I'm gonna give it everything I got.

• 2:36:55Speaker 03

  Let me, here's, uh, here's what I like, here's what my dad did that I'm like, that worked. And I'm doing it with my kids and I'm going, that seems like that's working. Okay. I say three things.

• 2:37:09Speaker 03

  Okay. Uh, number one, uh, your faith doesn't gotta be perfect. It does gotta be real. So like dude, I remember being a little kid growing up in church and my dad's sitting in the front row. And, uh, you know, we're, we're worshiping, they're singing hymns or whatever. And my dad's like, not a super emotional guy, but like, I remember watching dad and like just a little, his eyes would just start sweating just a little bit, you know? And I remember being thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and watching that and being like, that man is not just leading a service, that man is worshiping his God.

• 2:37:48Speaker 03

  And I remember thinking like, man, I want, I want to know who he knows. He, he, he knows somebody. I want to know his God, cause that's real. Like I remember, and there's a million times I saw stuff like that, like whoa, whoa, that's real. Okay. So it doesn't gotta be perfect. We're, we're gonna need grace, but it does gotta be real.

• 2:38:10Speaker 03

  Number two is, uh, what everybody tells you when, when you're younger, uh, you're a new parent is like, hey man, here's a secret. You know, here, here's a secret, Sean. Uh, you gotta get down in their world, you know? If they're into Bluey, you're into Bluey, you know? If they're into Cocamellon, you're into Cocama, you know, whatever it is.

• 2:38:31Speaker 03

  Now that strategy, that might be fine. Uh, I'd say until they're like six or seven.

• 2:38:39Speaker 03

  Uh, but eventually reality kicks in and oh, by the way, reality's undefeated. And, uh, I'm gonna say something with a bit of an edge to it, but like, again, reality's undefeated. Uh, kids are fools. We, like, we got a Bible verse for that. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. Kids are fools. Their default mode is foolishness. That's why they need moms and dads, godly moms and dads. Okay? So here's the thing, I don't need to get down into their world as they get older. Their world is full of rebellious, rebellion and foolishness. I don't want to get down in their world of rebellion and foolishness. Instead of getting down in their world, I want to pull them up into my world. So here's what I started to see, like my dad, he's a pastor, he's got a good band of brothers.

• 2:39:24Speaker 03

  I remember growing up, it's like every, I think it was Tuesday night. I remember growing up, their whole discipleship group was coming over. Bunch of couples that like, they were awesome. Like they were like, like actual normal people that loved Jesus and loved each other and had fun lives, you know? I'm seeing all them like opening that book and like talking about it and, you know, all that stuff. So then I get a little older and my dad started doing this thing and looking back, I'm like, I know what he was doing. I didn't know what he was doing in the moment. My dad started doing this thing where like the church staff who were all awesome, they would like go out for lunch. And my dad would be like, hey Josh, uh, you want to duck out of the thing you got today? Why don't you come to lunch, uh, with, with the staff today?

• 2:40:09Speaker 03

  So then here's, here's what's happening is now he's pulling me up into his world and his world was full of wisdom and righteousness. And he's pulling me out of my world of rebellion and foolishness. So then I'm growing up around all these people and I'm, dude, I'm growing up going, man, the people that I respect the most, I'm like, it's Jeff Carlisle. That's one of my dad's adult buddies. It's this, like I can, I can name all the families to this day. And what that did is I grew up sitting around at those lunches or at our home and going, you know, I want to be the type of person that can fit in with these people. Instead of looking at like foolish rebellion, rebellious kids and doing that thing.

• 2:40:49Speaker 03

  So like Hillary Clinton wrote that, was it a book that she wrote? I think called It Takes A, It Takes A Village, something like that. I can't remember. She, she wrote something. I can't remember what it was. Uh, that's a lie. It is, that's, I'll just tell you right now, that's a lie. Okay? Uh, because if the village that you're using to raise your kids is a bunch of like woke pagan secular Swifties or whatever. If that's the village, well, if the village is a bunch of pagans, they're just gonna help raise a whole bunch of other pagans. So you, you don't need a village. Here, here's what you need as a dad. You need a redeemed village. The Bible calls that a church.

• 2:41:30Speaker 03

  So it's like, I gotta grow up. What I'm doing right now, I'm doing exactly what my dad did. Like I'm, I was just like literally this week. Yesterday was our all staff meeting. It's so funny. I didn't even think about this. I literally yesterday did what my dad did growing up. My dad's awesome. Uh, yesterday was our all staff meeting. My 15 year old Eliana right now, she loves Jesus. She loves people. And there's a, there's like a, there's a little grace on her life leading worship, you know? She, she loves serving at church, doing that stuff. So yesterday I'm like, hey Eliana, why don't you, that's so funny dude. I, exactly what my dad did. I was like, hey Eliana, why don't you duck out of what you got today and come to staff meeting with me and your mom?

• 2:42:11Speaker 03

  So what's she doing? She's sitting around, I don't know, 400 pastors and their wives and people who love the Lord and they're, they're trying to serve him and, and that's who she's around. Well, what am I doing? I'm not getting down into her world. I'm pulling her up into my world. Okay? Uh, last thing I'd say is, uh, is, uh, and I, by the way, I got these from a buddy of mine named Josh McPherson. He's probably the best dad I've ever seen.

• 2:42:40Speaker 03

  Is whoever tells the best stories wins. Dude, this is a total, this is a total cheat code parenting hack, man.

• 2:42:52Speaker 03

  So what's interesting, if you go back and next time you read your Old Testament, you'll notice all these times where like God does like this amazing thing, parts of Red Sea or defeats AI or whatever it is. And then he tells all the people, hey, before you leave,

• 2:43:11Speaker 03

  will you guys please set up a big pile of rocks right here? And, uh, you know, and, and the Hebrew word is, there's a hymn that if, if you're listening and you grew up singing those old hymns, there's an old hymn called Come Thou Fount.

• 2:43:28Speaker 03

  And one of the lyrics of Come Thou Fount is here I raise my Ebenezer is what, what is that? That word Ebenezer, it comes from two Hebrew words. I said it, I'm just realizing I said it wrong earlier. Two Hebrew words, Evan Azar, which means stone of help. Okay? So what all those little rocks were that God said pile those up is he was going, hey, all throughout this little country, the size of New Jersey, where you're raising all your kids, um, every time you walk past one of these piles of rocks, God was going, hey, hey dad, what I want you to do is stop and you're gonna point at that rock and tell your son,

• 2:44:12Speaker 03

  man, when Papa was here 60 years ago, he was standing right there. And him and all his buddies, they marched around that city seven times, son. And you're never gonna believe what happened. The Lord gave us this promise. You don't gotta fight. You just gotta be still and I'll fight for you. And son, you're never gonna believe this, but our God is so powerful that when your grandpa was over there and did it, God conquered that thing. And so they grew up telling all these stories. So, so here, here's, here's the deal. God was wiring into how

• 2:44:52Speaker 03

  the, the culture was structured. He was giving all the dads and moms, here's all your story opportunity. So for me, growing up, like us sitting around the dinner table at night, you know, it's like, I was just constantly hearing all these stories. Dad would come home from work. And I was constantly just hearing all these stories about, man, this widow that somebody just gave her a car and I just, cause they out of nowhere. And this marriage got healed. Guys, that addict that we've been praying for, for three months, they just got free. And you know, I was just hearing all these stories. And it just, it just, it just gripped me.

• 2:45:32Speaker 03

  And the older I got, I was like, well, I want to be a part of the thing where all that cool stuff happens, you know? And it just rubbed off on me. So I, I think the thing I'd say that the, the just encouragement I'd give to, you know, guys who are in the thick of parenting like you and me. And all the, all the guys listening, trying to figure it out, doing their imperfect best, just like me. Is man, the most significant thing you do with your life, if you're a father, it's probably not gonna be something you accomplish. It's probably gonna be somebody you raise.

• 2:46:09Speaker 03

  So pour it all in.

• 2:46:10Shawn Ryan?

  That's cool. He said that. Turn in your replacement.

• 2:46:17Shawn Ryan?

  It's good stuff, man.

• 2:46:19Speaker 03

  That's what we're doing.

• 2:46:20Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 2:46:21Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 2:46:23Shawn Ryan?

  I've got one last question. It's a hot question.

• 2:46:25Speaker 03

  Oh, buddy.

• 2:46:28Shawn Ryan?

  Actually, I have one here, but I got my own.

• 2:46:30Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:46:33Shawn Ryan?

  What is your favorite miracle that Jesus performed in the Bible and why?

• 2:46:41Speaker 03

  Well, am I allowed to cheat and go resurrection, you know?

• 2:46:45Shawn Ryan?

  Let's do it. All right.

• 2:46:50Speaker 03

  You know?

• 2:46:53Shawn Ryan?

  Other than that one?

• 2:46:54Speaker 03

  Other than that one. Dang, man. Oh, that's fire. That's good. All right. This is shooting from the hip. If I had more time, I might think of something else.

• 2:47:07Speaker 03

  All right. I think it's when Jesus touches the leper and he heals him.

• 2:47:17Shawn Ryan?

  Can you go into it? Can you tell the story?

• 2:47:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, he heals lepers a few times, okay? And honestly, there's not much description to this miracle. But there's a specific time, or maybe a couple of times in the Gospels, where Jesus reaches out and he touches the leopard. Now, but there's a reason that like most people, it's not the kind of thing you see. There's a reason that's my favorite.

• 2:47:44Speaker 03

  Okay, might be my favorite. So in the Old Testament, there's all these laws about what to do with somebody that's got leprosy. And in the Old Testament, if you had leprosy, you were ceremonially unclean. And the kind of the rules were that if a clean person touches an unclean person, the unclean person makes the clean person unclean.

• 2:48:11Speaker 03

  So then, you know, what you would have to do if you had leprosy is in that time, you would have to stand, you know, according to tradition, maybe 50 paces away from somebody and you'd have to yell, "Unclean, unclean, unclean." So when I read that miracle about Jesus just walking right up to the guy, and you know, he's like, "Hey, will you make me clean?" You know, and Jesus is like, you know, "I will." And he touches him, "I will be clean." One, that guy that had spent his entire life having everybody stay 50 paces away, Jesus walks up and he's like, "Man, I'd really like to get right up in.

• 2:48:48Speaker 03

  I want to get right up where you are. I want to be close to you, brother. I get close to you." And then when Jesus touches him, it heals him. And for the first time in the entire Bible, instead of when a clean person touches an unclean thing, the unclean thing makes the clean thing unclean, Jesus works it backwards. And because he's clean, the clean thing touches the unclean thing and the clean thing makes the unclean thing clean. And it's like, it's a picture of what happens when you by faith and repentance reach out and touch Jesus Christ. And when you touch him, he makes you clean.

• 2:49:33Shawn Ryan?

  That's a good one.

• 2:49:34Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 2:49:35Shawn Ryan?

  How did the people react to that?

• 2:49:38Speaker 03

  Well, in different times, they reacted different ways. A lot of people did not like it when Jesus did healings. They did not like it.

• 2:49:45Shawn Ryan?

  Why?

• 2:49:47Speaker 03

  Because it messed with a lot of their traditions that had built up around the thing. In fact, one of the things that sets off the series of events that leads to the crucifixion of Jesus is him healing people on Sabbaths. They were like, "Hey, man, you ain't allowed to." That was like one of their little rules. What legalistic people do is they take the rules that God actually gave in the Bible, and then legalistic people add rules to the rules, and then they condemn you for not obeying the rules they added to the rules that actually God didn't make in the first place. And they did that with the Sabbath laws. I think they're called the targums. They did that with the Sabbath laws. They took one command.

• 2:50:31Speaker 03

  "Hey, don't do work on the Sabbath. Keep it holy as unto the Lord." And they had a bunch of rules about, "Well, what counts as work?" And then they added rules to the rules and ended up all this stuff. Well, one of their rules was, "Hey, no healing on the Sabbath," you know, which is real dumb. Like, God never said that. And so, one of the reasons that they got mad is, "Well, you're breaking our our little religious tradition. You're making us look like idiots. We said you couldn't do this and you're doing it."

• 2:51:00Shawn Ryan?

  I never understood that, you know, it seems, and I'm not well-versed. I read it, I don't understand half the stuff I read. But when I read, you know, the miracles that he did, it seems like the people were pissed every single time he performed one.

• 2:51:15Speaker 03

  Very frequently.

• 2:51:16Shawn Ryan?

  But I don't understand. I mean, like, he's doing unexplainable

• 2:51:22Shawn Ryan?

  things unless you have faith in God. And so, I mean, he's doing it right in front of them.

• 2:51:32Shawn Ryan?

  How are they pissed? How do they not get it?

• 2:51:35Speaker 03

  Well, I think two things. You know, I think, one, it was a threat to their fame and religious, sort of the power that they had. It's like, "Hey, quit busting up our thing. We're the ones that are in charge of all the stuff." So when Jesus kind of, you know, he kind of rolls in and starts breaking their thing. There's two things the Bible says about the Pharisees. Now, there's actually a time where Jesus pronounces woes on the Pharisees, and I won't be able to rattle them all off off the top of my head, but he gives seven woes. And it's essentially like, "Here's what's wrong with you," you know? You know, "You ask people to tie the tenth of this and you neglect the weight of your matters of the law, justice and mercy and loving your neighbor." And da, da, da, da. And he goes through like seven different things.

• 2:52:19Speaker 03

  But two things the Bible that Jesus says about the Pharisees is "They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." So, one, what they cared about, like, you're like, "Hey, man, why wouldn't they want people to have faith in God?" Because that really wasn't they cared about. That's not what they cared about a whole lot. What they cared about a whole lot was people thinking they were awesome.

• 2:52:40Shawn Ryan?

  Power.

• 2:52:41Speaker 03

  Yes. "They loved the praise of men more than they loved the praise of God." I think power plays into that. And they were like, "Man, what we really care about in their heart of hearts, everybody cheering us on and applauding us." And then it does say that they loved money. And so I think those two things, if Jesus rolls in and busts up their thing, that's a threat to their two things.

• 2:53:08Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 2:53:10Shawn Ryan?

  Well, it's a good miracle, but I liked it.

• 2:53:12Speaker 03

  I liked it too.

• 2:53:13Shawn Ryan?

  Like how you told that. Well, Josh, it was an honor, man.

• 2:53:17Speaker 03

  Josh, it's my honor. Thank you.

• 2:53:19Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 2:53:20Speaker 03

  I appreciate you.

• 2:53:21Shawn Ryan?

  God bless you.

• 2:53:22Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 2:53:35Shawn Ryan?

  No matter where you're watching The Sean Ryan Show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please like, comment, and subscribe. And most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review.