176: How 10 Seasons In The NFL Shaped The Meaning Of Manhood | Heath Evans

I'm joined by Heath Evans, who spent 10 years in the NFL, built a career in broadcasting, and had every outward sign of success. But in this conversation, he reflects on the mission that changed everything. He shares how suffering exposed pride, sin, and self-glory, and how surrender led him to faith, obedience, and a new mission: discipling men and starting a non-profit serving fatherless boys. His testimony is a story about discipline, accountability, redemption, and what happens when your life stops being about you. CHAPTERS: 00:00 Intro 01:53 Chasing the NFL Dream 03:55 Rock Bottom at NFL Network 06:26 A Rescue Mission Through Suffering 10:36 Building Guardrails Against Temptation 14:59 Mourning Sin, Rejoicing in Christ 22:12 Faith, Salvation, and Surrender 31:09 The Fatherhood Foundation 34:23 Discipline Starts at Home 38:18 NFL Lessons in Leadership 45:21 Transparency Builds Trust 50:42 Accountability Sets the Standard 54:44 Creating a Selfless Culture 57:28 What Iron Sharpens Iron Really Means 01:13:17 Non-Profit for Fatherless Boys 01:20:43 The Legacy Club Vision for Bethesda Ranch ORDER MY BOOK HERE: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210 FOLLOW: Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 25% off FOR LIFE ⁠ https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/collections/performance-nutrition IG: ⁠instagram.com/nickbarefitness/⁠ YT: ⁠youtube.com/@nickbarefitness This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal [health or profession] advice. Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN) is not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. This podcast may not be republished without the written consent of Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN)

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

• 0:05Nick Bare?

  All right, ladies and gentlemen, today on the podcast, we have Heath Evans, who served 10 NFL seasons, starting in 2001.

• 0:18Nick Bare?

  After that, joined the NFL Network as an analyst. He is a loving husband, father to six children, two by birth, four through adoption, and a strong man of God that I highly respect. So Heath, welcome to the show.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Man, thanks for having me. It has been a pleasure getting to know you. The last 24 hours, blessed to be here, man.

• 0:43Nick Bare?

  Well, thank you. You know, I've, I've come across your content on Instagram primarily for the last couple of months now, especially since giving my life to Christ. And it has been, it has been a guide, it's been, you have been a mentor from afar. It has been very foundational. That has led me and answered a lot of the questions I have around what it means to be a godly man, but also a man who serves people, community, wife, children, family. So I thank you for that.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Well, and I thank the Lord for that. The man I was eight and a half years ago was not that man. But I thought it was. And I was like, kind of many man today and deceived. I had a form of religion, but denied the power of Christ thereof. And God was gracious. And He saved my soul and I've never been the same. And that's, that's the way it's supposed to be.

• 1:51Nick Bare?

  That's beautiful. Before we dive into...

• 1:56Nick Bare?

  You know, what your life looks like today. I want to go back a little bit.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00Nick Bare?

  Um, your journey and career in the NFL. What was that like? What were, what were you pursuing? What was driving you? What allowed you to be so successful in this sport that was your craft that you committed to?

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. People are going to get tired of hearing it today, but it was literally, even though I wasn't a child of God yet, I had not been saved. It was still God's common grace to me. Gave me great parents, gave me great coaches. I had a lot of great men around me that taught me how to be a mental monster and how to be mentally disciplined and, and even how to serve others. Um, I grew up in a Christian home, so most of my life from about eight to 38 looked like a godly man. It had, um, markings of a true Christian. But I just did them because I knew they were the right things to do. My heart really didn't want to do those things. I didn't want to love others. I didn't want to be sexually pure. I, I wanted to be

• 3:00Speaker 01

  the focal of, of every bit of attention. I didn't want other people to get glory. I didn't want God to get glory. Now, I thought I was doing it right, but those 10 years in the NFL were marked by trying to give God glory and being a team chaplain in New England and a team chaplain in New Orleans. And so a lot of people would have looked at my life and been like, no, he was a great, great teammate. But it wasn't until 38, you know, eight years post NFL retirement, where the Lord really kind of showed me who I was truly and, and who I needed to rescue me. And who I was, was not pretty. It was a selfish, self-centered arrogant man that had the, the world fooled

• 3:44Speaker 01

  and myself fooled. And then in God's grace, he, he showed me the love of Christ and that I needed a Savior. But I needed that Savior to rescue me and he did.

• 3:55Nick Bare?

  Did you rock bottom? What was, what was the pivotal moment?

• 3:59Speaker 01

  God's rescue mission for me was extremely painful. At thirty-eight, myself and about seven other guys, guys much more famous than me, Marshall Falk, Warren Sapp, Donovan McNabb, Ike Taylor, some, you know, first ballot Hall of Famers in there, were accused by one woman of sexual harassment at NFL Network.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  This young lady, about a year previous, had been fired from NFL Network. She tried to sue the NFL for wrongful termination. Her court, her case got tossed out of the courts in the LA County Court System for no merit. Give that about nine, ten months, the Me Too movement kind of rises up and gains steam and power. She files the same lawsuit with a whole bunch of people's names, and then, of course, the courts hear it. The nine, I spent the next nine months being paid to kind of be quiet by the NFL. I didn't know that at the time. I was just trying to be a good fullback and, yes, sir, follow your boss's lead. At that time in my life, I would have said I was a Christian. I just said I would have been a carnal Christian, or I was, you know, just not following the

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Lord. Well, my heart didn't want to follow the Lord. I loved all the sexual immorality I was in. I loved all the fame. I loved all the power. I loved all the, look at Heath. Well, through that nine months, I got to a point where the NFL called me and said, hey, if you don't sign these letters of non-disparagement covering the NFL and covering your accusations, we're going to fire you. I'm like, fire me for what? Y'all know I'm innocent. You've seen the text. You've seen the pictures. You've seen everything. And they said, oh, well, you know, when you turned over your phone to us, you know, that's an NFL phone, and you had naked pictures of yourself on your phone. I'm like, those weren't sexual. You've had those for nine months. Dude, fire me. You should have fired me nine months ago. They were fitness check-in pictures, literally, front, back, my private phone.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  I didn't know that was the NFL's phone. So that's how they used that, because I told them, I'm not signing anything. I'm not guilty. Y'all know I'm innocent. Put me back on air or fire me. So after five weeks of trying to negotiate with my lawyer to try to get me to take a payout and to kind of name my price to walk away and pay out my contract, they fired me very quietly. And through that very devastating moment, I hit rock bottom. And all the plans that I thought I had for my life financially, Corporately, all those things in about three or four months dried up. And I knew enough about God at that moment that, well, I can just run back to Jesus. My life's a mess, so let me just run back to Jesus.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  He's a good, loving Father, which He is. When I opened the Bible this time, which I had read numerous times, front to back, over and over, the way I was raised to, it came alive to me. And for the first time, I saw that I was a wicked sinner and that I was a liar and I was sexually immoral and I was an arrogant man and I was an inventor of evil and I was a gossiper and I was all these other marks of a man that needs Jesus. But I saw myself as that man for the first time. And the Lord, through His Word, kind of started asking me questions.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  First John kind of gives us a test of the true marks of a Christian man. Do you love God? Do you love God's people? And is it a burden to obey God? And I probably could have convinced myself that I loved God and that I had done some stuff, right? And I could have convinced myself, I've done all this, I've given all this money, I've done all these things for people. But when I got to the third test there in First John 5, I was like, Lord, it's always been a burden to obey you. It's been a discipline. It's just been something, oh, I do because this is what Christian men do. But the Scripture's clear about the heart, a joyful obedience.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  And the Holy Spirit just empowered me to be honest with myself for the first time. And I was like, and I don't love God. And I've never loved God's people. I've just used God's people to make me look better. My charity work was about me. My sacrificial work was about to get people to see, oh, look how sacrificial and intentional Heath is. And that last question just kicked my butt in it because I was like, man, I've always, I wanted to be sexually, I wanted to be prideful. I wanted the focus to be Heath. I, all these things that the Lord is supposed to change a man's heart, I'm like, I'm the opposite of that. And so by God's grace, the Lord's kind of like, yeah, but look at the last few months.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  That's not the case. You do love me. And

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Putting this world aside, which was namely just sexual immorality,

• 8:57Speaker 01

  didn't even really feel like a sacrifice. It had become a joy to obey Christ. And then, as I start to think through all the stuff of Scripture, I know, I'm like, holy moly, I've been born again. I've got a new heart, I've got, I've got new desires, I'm a new creation. And it just became so evident to me that, that Jesus had sought me, that His rescue mission had been set in place, and it was through great suffering. Kind of like my elder brother Christ suffered. I didn't suffer anything like that. But I got to partake in some of this suffering, which some of that was because of my own sin, had placed me in situations to be accused of some of that. But the other, as we were even talking last night,

• 9:39Speaker 01

  real betrayal from people that we have loved and served and cared for and done the right things by, and yet they turned their backs. And I felt that betrayal. But I couldn't take my mind off the fact of how much I had betrayed Christ. And that my sin, because of His love, caused Him to go to the cross and die for me. And that wrecked me. And that still wrecks me. And that's what drives me. I, by God's grace, love obeying God. I fail at it every day.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  But that was God's rescue mission for Heath Evans. I thought I was saved, but I'd never been born again. I had made the profession, I'd been baptized, I'd done all the good Christian things. But it was just another discipline, like you and I would discipline ourselves to do X, Y, and Z every single day. God changed my heart, and for the last eight and a half years, I've just loved walking with Jesus.

• 10:36Nick Bare?

  I'm curious how you would give advice to, to men, as I paint this, this scenario. Um, but before I get there, I heard you on a podcast describing recently, it might, it might not have been a recent podcast, but one that I recently listened to is between you and Vince Del Monte. And, you know, you, you have this community you've built for men, to serve men, to lead men.

• 11:07Nick Bare?

  And I heard you in, in this interview,

• 11:13Nick Bare?

  you know, you, you point people to, to go to your website, and if men are interested in, in being led and guided and mentored. To send an inquiry. If you are a female, a woman who inquires, you're not going to respond.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:31Nick Bare?

  And I found that bold and interesting. I was just curious and I just love to hear why. Out of just curiosity, to be honest.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Because my flesh is weak. And temptation is real. And Satan is real. And he is like a roaring lion seeking to leek and devour. And that devour is eternally. There's two truths throughout Scripture. That when Christ saves a man, he's going to hold him fast. But that man that's being held fast by Christ is going to be full of grace and power and want to make no provisions for the flesh. I'm not sure there's a man on the earth that loves his wife more than I love Chrissy. But I know I am weak.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  I am nothing without Christ. The very breath I breathe as I prayed for our teams this morning before we lifted like, God's gracious to give us air. Outside of Christ, I know who I once was. I know what that temptation used to do to me. I now see it as death. The sexual immorality that I used to enjoy, that used to puff me up to make me feel something about myself momentarily, used to be enjoyable. Now, because I see Christ rightly and I see Proverbs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, right? That I see this sexual immorality as death.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  But I know if I'm playing around with a line, I can easily slip. I don't want to tempt Satan to tempt me. I don't play around with idle time. I don't play around with idle parts of my daily schedule. Idleness is tempting Satan to tempt me. And I'm a weak man. In Christ, I can do all things. I can walk through any suffering. I can walk through any temptation. I can keep my mind fixed on the realities of Christ. But any man that knows what it is to truly be a sinner, any man that really has a simple understanding of what it means to fall short of the glory of God,

• 13:52Speaker 01

  according to Romans, we are not going to play with this line of temptation. And so for me, I have no business being in a one-on-one chat with a woman. I have no business, after my experience in NFL Network, I'm not going to step in an elevator with a woman, one-on-one. People can say or do anything, but for me personally, I'm never going to tempt myself to be tempted. And sin often looks beautiful until it's not. And sin is fun until it's not. And I've seen sin for what it is, and so I don't want anything close to sin even be anywhere near my life. And so, and heck, I don't have anything to teach women anyway.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  I'm going to teach my wife, I'm going to teach my daughters, but I ain't playing with sin. And that's one area of my life that we just don't mess with. But I'm also not going to keep arrogant men around me either, because I used to love to be arrogant. And so I don't want to be in a position where I can be tempted by sins that I used to love that sent my Christ to the cross.

• 14:56Nick Bare?

  Hmm, that's fair. What advice would you give men who have had a past of sin and a life that they're not proud of, and they struggle not to wear that previous life on their chest at all times?

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:18Nick Bare?

  It's like they're trying to navigate this new chapter. They're trying to move beyond, but they're constantly reminded by their previous mistakes and failures.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:29Nick Bare?

  And they've created that as their now and future identity. How do you get past that?

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Mourn it. Matthew tells us early in the Sermon on the Mount that if we mourn well, there's a blessing. Sin is supposed to crush us. Sin is supposed to make us feel this like, this burden that we have to run to Christ to do something with.

• 15:56Nick Bare?

  Is that the conviction?

• 15:59Speaker 01

  It is, but what's interesting is conviction by the power of the Holy Spirit will come in a current sin. So, uh, four or five days ago, Chrissy comes in, I was trying to explain something to her. I knew in my mind that my wife was not in the position to kind of handle what I was gonna try to suggest to her. But I'm like, I'm looking throughout the rest of the day. I'm like, I don't know. So I said it, right? I know my brat. She gets frustrated, a little overwhelmed with all that I put on her. And then I responded arrogantly. As soon as she walks out, like, I'm trying to finish something. So I've kind of grown in this discipline of like, I'm gonna confess it to the Lord quickly. I'm gonna finish this task that needs to be finished. I knew it was only gonna take me a few minutes.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  And then I got my butt up and walked in Chrissy's office. I said, babe, I'm really sorry. That's right conviction over current sin. Most Sundays, as we worship and as we pray and as we do these different things, I'm gonna reflect back on some of the most wicked things I've ever done. I'm also gonna kind of reflect back on Tuesday, when I was super impatient with Zeke. I'm also gonna reflect back on maybe Friday, when I let the schedule kind of get out of hand, and I didn't do the family devotions the way that I know I'm called to do them. And I'm gonna mourn those in a way that point me, that make me run

• 17:27Speaker 01

  to Jesus, cuz I'm not perfect. In the moment that I try to be perfect, I'm not seeing Christ rightly. I'm not seeing my need rightly. I love the fact that men know they're sinners. I'm scared to death for the men that can think they can go all week and never confess a sin. I would be humble and bold enough to say, brothers, if we're going through weeks and we're not walking in confession of sin, you're most likely not a real child of God. Sins are supposed to bother us. Sometimes the past, as we mourn them, but then what that should do, if we know Christ, man, we're gonna look at that cross. And we're just gonna rejoice because Jesus wasn't going to that cross with like,

• 18:12Speaker 01

  "I'm not really sure all the sins that Heath is gonna commit, and so I'm gonna just die for this random amount." No, no, no, Jesus knows the hairs on my head. And He knows every betrayal, every wicked sin that I was gonna love and really rejoice in for decades, He died for that. But He also died for the impatience that I have with my wife at times. He also died for the pride that's gonna come out at a church member because I'm just not thinking rightly at some point when I'm trying to counsel Him five years from now. And so when we rightly see sin and rightly see the cross of Christ,

• 18:53Speaker 01

  it will start as a mourning, but then it'll turn to a rejoicing. Because we know Christ knew us before the foundations of the world, and that we were dead in our sins, and that He brought us to life by this life, death, burial, and resurrection. And we're like sitting there thinking about the cross like, "Jesus did this for me." Yes, the bride is a corporate, like it is a body of people, of this countless number that Revelation tells us, that an innumerable amount of people like you and I that Christ died for. But we serve a personal Savior. He went to the cross for Nick Bear. And He went to the cross for Nick Bear so that Nick Bear can look at his life and be like,

• 19:37Speaker 01

  "My Savior doesn't even remember my sins. They've been cast as far as the east is from the west. I am white as snow. The blood of Christ was shed to wash me clean." Mourning of sin, when it's the Holy Spirit, will lead us to, "Man, I hate that I betrayed my Christ this way."

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Look how glorious my Christ is. And he is faithful. I'm unfaithful. Nick, if we were gonna look and count up our sins this week, just in how we love Stephanie and Chrissy. If, if the cover of, of human nature was pulled back and God really exposed you and I's hearts. Right? We like, we'd melt like wax before a holy God. He's faithful to the too often faithless. And that's the story of, of Christianity. It's a bunch of men that couldn't get out of their own way. And by God's grace, God gave them a new heart with new desires, made them a new creation, gave them new power.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  And those new appetites of their heart just grew more and more and more. I know I'm rambling here, but you look at the life of Paul. People always say, don't call yourself a sinner. I'm like, what Bible are you reading?

• 20:53Speaker 01

  I love the fact that I'm a sinner, not because it betrayed Christ, but it makes me know my need for Christ today. I believe John 15, five, like it's my favorite verse in the Bible. I can do nothing without Christ. Nothing. I can't breathe. I can't love. I can't lovingly discipline my kids. I couldn't encourage you. I can't, the, the Bible tells us that we need the Lord to open our eyes so that we can see the glorious things of Scripture. That, that we are like in our nature deaf to the beauties. Right? And so I need the Lord. And so this sin that we struggle with, right? It's to get us to feel this weight in light of a holy God that I can't, but Christ did.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  And then the more rightly we look on Christ, brother, our souls will flourish. And we will be the most joyful, powerful, happy people in the world. You will never meet a holy man or woman who's not happy because they know Christ. And they know their eternal security in Christ, and it is fixed because Christ died for his people. And he finished his work. Sin is supposed to make us look at that cross and be like, it's finished, not because of me, but because of the eternal love of Christ. And that love motivates a man that's been born again.

• 22:12Nick Bare?

  You know, I've never thought of it that way. That Christ went to the cross for me personally.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 22:19Nick Bare?

  A personal Savior.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:23Nick Bare?

  I'm just being honest, like I've always thought of Christ going to the cross as this generalized blanket of I'm giving my life for the sins of everyone from now and for the future, not knowing these sins intimately and these people personally.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:52Nick Bare?

  And it makes me feel the weight of the cross even more.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:57Nick Bare?

  But I've never thought of it on a personal intimate level. I thought of a relationship with Jesus as a personal relationship.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:08Nick Bare?

  But not Him going to the cross in such a way.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  As you continue to grow in Christ, which I know you will, because He promises to make His people holy, the things that you're going to discover in Scripture that make your heart burst for joy. I know what it's like to have your first child, right? To hold these babies. I know what it's like to, in purity and the marriage bed that God's created is to hold our wives in just beautiful intimacy, right? Like, these are just like the tip of the iceberg things, right? Bro, I'm telling you, the more you learn of Christ and what He has done for you and what the Bible says, how God has loved you before time.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  When you read the Gospel of John, you get to verse 12, and it tells us by the will of God, you and I were saved. It starts to build this account that men like Nick Baer and Heath Evans, that in worldly measures have accomplished a lot, can take no credit for their salvation. It starts to humble us quickly. In John 3, Jesus is talking to Nicodemus. Nicodemus is like the Michael Jordan of preachers to the Jewish people. He's the ruler of the Jews at the time, right? He is the dude. Jesus is talking to him about things of heaven, things of the kingdom.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Nicodemus ain't got it dude. He's like huh? Born again? Am I gonna crawl back up in my mama? Jesus is telling him, hey, did you have anything to do with your first birth? Nicodemus is like, no. Yeah, you didn't have anything to do with your second birth either. It was by the grace of God. Verse five, six, seven, and eight there in chapter three. Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit. And the wind blows where it will. You have no idea where it came from. That was me at thirty-eight. I had professed faith as a young boy. And had lived faith in a lot of ways. But my heart had never been born again.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  And Jesus, the good shepherd, left the others and came and got me. The story of salvation is always intimacy of an eternal God that needs nothing. He is self-sufficient, supreme in all his ways, sovereign over all, comes and rescues a people to show his love, to show his glory. Now, here's the thing. God doesn't need glory because he needs nothing. The scriptures are abundantly clear. He was completely happy in and of himself, the three-in-one triune God.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  But to display his love, he came to save a people. And that people is man you. As you keep building through the gospel of John, you're gonna see these statements that no man can come to God. No man can come to the Father unless God draws him. So you see these statements in John seventeen where Jesus is praying this high priestly prayer.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  He says, "I'm not praying for everyone. I'm praying for those that you've given me." The real gospel leaves no man a place to boast. I can't look at my friends that I love dearly that don't walk with Christ and be like, "Why won't you just choose Jesus?" The Bible's clear why they don't. They are slaves to their sin. They are sons of Satan, according to 1 John. They are bound by their fleshly desires. Their nature only knows sin. They need God to intervene.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  This gospel offends many people. Many people will call this gospel arrogant, but it's the gospel of the Christian man's life. "I did nothing, and he did everything. I loved my sin, and he gave me a heart that makes me hate sin. I love him, and now I love people, and I will give my life to boast in Christ rightly, and to take a lot of verbal abuse for the gospel that we preach." Your boy Chad, he preaches the same gospel.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  This is the gospel that humbles. Any gospel that gives a man a place to say that "I did something" is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus ain't a halfway crook. He didn't go halfway. He didn't come to make salvation possible. He came to save His people. And that salvation humbles men like you and I, and makes us live for Christ, makes us love our wives, because when we look at our wives, right? And we can see them in all their beauty, it'll make us see Christ, and then we will want to lay our lives down for our wives the way Jesus laid His life down for us. And it'll allow us to love and care for souls in a way that no man can, and it's but by

• 28:38Speaker 01

  the grace and power of God. So Nick, I'm gonna tell you here in front of the world today, and everyone that listens.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Christ didn't come to die to give Nick Baron opportunity. No, Christ came to die to save your soul. Cause from eternity past, he loved you and he set you apart. And Ephesians 1 says that before the beginning of time, in love, he predestined you to you, for you to be his son. As we get eyes to read the scriptures, you have to do a whole bunch of mental gymnastics to make Christ's salvation anything other than what I just told you. The problem with my salvation from eight to 38 was I thought I chose Christ. And I did. I chose him every time I needed to recover from an injury.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  I chose him every time I wanted a Super Bowl trophy. I chose him every time I got into a little trouble here or there. I chose him every time it served me. At 38,

• 29:42Speaker 01

  I received Christ because I saw what he had already done for me. And that sealed the deal. And there's nothing greater than the fact that Christ died to bring me into right relationship with my Creator. And there's nothing that has ever satisfied or ever could satisfy my soul more than that. The things of Christ that he gives me, my wife, my kids, everything else, they pale in comparison to being able to stand before a holy God and know that he calls me son and that he is pleased with me and that he loves me and that he disciplines me because he cares for me and that nothing and no one can pluck me out of his hand. Not even my sin, not even my betrayal, because he's gonna hold me fast.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  I ask men all the time, what's the difference between Judas and Peter? Judas betrayed Christ. Peter betrayed Christ. Before Peter betrayed Christ, Jesus told him, when you return, when you're done stabbing me in the back three times, when you return? How did he know he was gonna return? Cause Christ knew he was gonna bring him back. That's the story. There are no godly men. There are no great men of God. There's just a great God and he holds his people fast. And the men of God can't boast. They boast in Jesus. And so we pity other people that are caught in their sin. And we love them with the word of the Lord because we know that the word of the Lord is the only thing that sets a man's heart free.

• 31:09Nick Bare?

  I'm curious, you know, growing up and you speak to a lot of men now.

• 31:16Nick Bare?

  And I know you have a nonprofit for fatherless boys.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:23Nick Bare?

  Which I eventually want to talk about in this conversation.

• 31:28Nick Bare?

  But what was your relationship like with your father growing up? What values did he teach you?

• 31:35Nick Bare?

  And how did that shape the man you are today?

• 31:39Speaker 01

  I don't even know where to begin. My dad's a rock star. He's a stud. Born in a different generation, a marine, custom home builder, tough as nails, hardest worker I've ever seen.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Did all he could to love me and my sister. Loves my mom well, not perfectly.

• 32:00Nick Bare?

  Your parents still alive?

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, still married, fifty three years, something like that.

• 32:07Nick Bare?

  That's incredible.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. And both my parents have these wicked sinful pasts. And God radically saved both of them and they've been born again. And I grew up in this godly Christian home with all the great, everything a kid could ever need to truly walk with Christ. Oh, I had times 10.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  My father laid his life down to serve his family. And I don't even know where to start, Nick, man. He taught me how to eat. He taught me how to train. He taught me how to take physical pain and put it to the side to do what you know you need to do. I mean, he taught me so much. He taught me to give your life to the word of the Lord. Cause it's the only thing that's going to satisfy your soul. He taught me what it's like to get up early in the morning and hey, we're going to start our day with the word of the Lord. He had this saying that he would tell all the people that he would disciple, no Bible, no breakfast. He's like, how are you going to be such a fool to feed your physical man if you're not going to feed your spiritual man? This, this soul is going to live forever. This body here is going to burn up.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  So don't, don't be a fool and feed your body all this protein and good stuff. If you're not going to feed yourself the word of the Lord first and. It always just stuck with me of like, it's just such a picture of like, man, we need Christ. And so I'm gonna go to the word of the Lord and I'm gonna have my soul filled every morning. But my dad was, listen, there's no perfect dad, but he was the perfect dad for me. And so from a foundational standpoint, he taught me how to be a man. And by God's grace, he's taken kind of all the lessons that he's taught me. And then as I've matured more in the scripture, um, and some of the tender natures of Christ that he has instilled in me, that foundation has just flourished.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  And I expect whatever the Lord uses me and empowers me to accomplish, I expect my sons to take that standard, that foundation, and just continue to grow on it. And that's biblical truth that we see that each generation should pass on the riches of Christ. And then we just keep growing and growing and growing. So from each generation, Lord willing, these heavens men will truly be men of God and not cultural men.

• 34:23Nick Bare?

  You were sharing some of these stories last night. Now I'd love for you to expand on some of them because I found them interesting. But do you think you would have ever made it to the NFL if it wasn't for the way your dad was pushing you when you were younger?

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Not a chance, not a chance.

• 34:37Nick Bare?

  Can you share the burger story?

• 34:40Speaker 01

  So, um, at like 13, 14, my dad made me kind of sign my life away. He said, hey, uh, are you serious about going to the NFL? And I'm like, yes, sir. And he's like, well, I wouldn't be a good dad if I don't help you reach all your goals. So if you're serious, you need to sign this contract. I don't know how to necessarily get you faster, but I know how to make you stronger. And I know how to make you bigger. We're gonna eat, we're gonna work out, and then you're gonna go to church. You're gonna talk to Ken Stone. Ken Stone played in the NFL for 11 years. He's gonna help you get faster. You're gonna do everything he tells you to do to get faster. And then I'm gonna make you eat. We're gonna work out here, old garage, rusty gym, you know, weights, bars, all the stuff, right? And so there was numerous times, numerous nights where my dad would let me get upstairs and get in bed. You know, I'd have my two egg sandwiches. Mom would pack me five sandwiches.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  I'd have one after, you know, first hour weight training and then I'd have three at lunch and then I'd have one sandwich before practice. And then my dad would pick me up and we'd go to Wendy's right after practice. He'd stuff me with a few more burgers and we'd go home and have dinner, have two servings of dinner. And then right before bed, he would make me two Costco burgers and get the frozen patties out. He'd make me two burgers and then like these sawdust protein shakes that I grew up on. They didn't, they weren't like BPN shakes back in the day. They didn't taste good. Um, and every once in a while, I'd just be lazy. I'd be a little punk and I'd go upstairs all quietly and I'd get in bed. He'd wait to see the lights are off and he'd be like, hey, son, I'm, I love you, Heath. I'm, I'm really proud of you. You worked, you worked really, really hard today and you know, there ain't too many kids putting in the, in the work like you're doing. You know,

• 36:06Speaker 01

  just go on and go to sleep without eating your burgers. You know, those, that kid down the street, he'll get your scholarship to Florida State. It's okay. Night, night, buddy. I love you. You know, like mocking me, but lovingly.

• 36:17Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  He would push me in such a way, I would hate him in the time, right? I wanted to go to bed. It's nine thirty, ten, whatever it is, but I'd get my butt up and go do the right thing because he just, he found a way to kind of lovingly, mockingly, kind of just push those buttons to, to get me to do the things. Cause he knew every day mattered. He knew every night, every meal, every rest, every bit of hydration, every practice, every weight, every rep. And so he taught me that like, you can't be living in the future, right? You have to live in the now and you have to discipline yourself now. And it's, it's easy to practice the habit, the habit of quitting. It's hard to be a winner. It's just really easy to be a loser. It is. It's hard to be a winner. And so from early on,

• 37:01Speaker 01

  whether it was an extra rep, and I mean, he used to leave like 350 pounds on my chest at times because he was telling me I was just being a punk. Like he's like, you did this last week. You did more reps this week. If you did it once, you could do it before. I remember I literally got a rusty old bar about to roll on my neck. He's like, I don't care. Find a way to get it up. And those things created a disposition in me that when I look across the line and see a Ray Lewis, who's far more talented, far more powerful, faster, all the different things, right?

• 37:33Speaker 01

  We just find a way. Well, yeah, he's better. Who cares? How am I gonna find a way? And that was kind of the story of my career from really high school to college through the SEC and then the NFL is just find a way. And there was never a level, never a place for an excuse. And if there is a true mentality based on how God's built man, we can accomplish great things, right? Doesn't mean that we're gonna do it for the glory of God, but the way God has built us, we are wonderfully created. Like, we are freaks of nature at its fullest extent. That's meant to bring glory to Christ, and praise God it does now. But without Brian Evans, man, I wouldn't be half the man that I am. It wouldn't even be close.

• 38:18Nick Bare?

  I want to talk about what it means to be a man.

• 38:24Nick Bare?

  But I think before we get into that,

• 38:28Nick Bare?

  I'm curious, of the 10 seasons you spent in the NFL,

• 38:33Nick Bare?

  what were some of the key takeaways? What did you learn?

• 38:37Nick Bare?

  And I know now you look back at those years and it was sin, it was prior to being born again. But what were some of the positives?

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:46Nick Bare?

  That you left the NFL with?

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Oh, so many, so many. The hardest coaches were the best coaches.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  The toughest environments were the most fun, the most enjoyable. I'd been in the NFL 40 years and had spent a little bit of time of my fifth year with Nick Saban, the first year he took the Miami Dolphins job. And when I got to New England with Belichick and Brady and Bruski and Vrabel and all the boys, like, you know, you've been in the league 40 years. Like, you know football. I knew nothing of football. I knew nothing of real leadership, team leadership, right? I'd grown up around a real awesome dad, and so I knew things about masculinity and how to lead a home, but in the sense of like, building a team and how

• 39:31Speaker 01

  You create long-term like just dominance, right? I knew nothing. And I knew nothing about really studying the game. And so what I realized after the Lord saved me, and it's kind of been unique. I've formulated this leadership training that has by God's grace blessed so many. But everything that was a success in the league, everything that worked to build championship mentality, championship culture, championship plays, all those things are biblical truths that Belichick or Saban or Sean Payton, not knowingly, but they've just stolen from the word of the Lord. Belichick built a 20-year dynasty on selflessness.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  He built a 20-year dynasty on serving others, on putting the team first, on being attentive. When we would walk in the New England Patriots facility, every single day, we had these four kind of marching orders. It was do your job, right? Work hard, be attentive, and put the team first. People are like, oh, this is easy. No, no, those are impossible unless you are super intentional and super sacrificial. Work hard. It's easy to work hard for a few minutes. But when you're in December and it's eight degrees outside and you've got a third-degree separated AC joint, right?

• 40:59Speaker 01

  You're grinding through a season. Then how hard is that, right? The watchfulness of scripture about of just kind of even our enemy, right? But even watchfulness over our own souls, you know, 1 Corinthians 16, 13 and 14, shows about just to be watchful, to be alert, to stand firm in the faith, right? Well, this is like a man standing on a tower, kind of guarding all his sides with great intent, being aware, because we know that we're potentially under attack at all times, right? This attentiveness to the degree that it was taught in New England cost you everything. Like it cost you every bit of mental stamina. It cost you every bit of mental discipline, right?

• 41:42Speaker 01

  And then the last one, to put the team first. Well, I want my touchdowns.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  And I want my catches. And I want glory. So how do you get 53 alpha dogs, right? How do you get Tom Brady to lay it down for the betterment of the team? How do you get junior sayous, the late great? How do you get Randy Mosses to lay it down for what's best for the team? Well, you build a culture out of how powerful that truth is. Well, we know that has truth because that truth comes from scripture, that this life isn't about us. It's about Christ. It's about others. And when we, even for the unregenerate man, the unsaved man, even when he lives the life of sacrifice, doing good for others, there's pleasure in that. And there is reward at a soul level for that that sustains for a time.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  And so as I kind of, by God's grace, started to learn the scriptures more, and then I started looking at all these different traits that these great coaches, I mean, like, who gets to play for Nick Saban, the greatest college coach ever? And then Bill Belichick, the greatest, it's him or Phil Jackson, right? In the sense of like, what you're gonna, who are the best coaches that have ever coached any sport, right? Sean Payton now showing how good he is at Denver without Drew Brees and what we did with the Saints, like, all the things that they taught us that had power, that pushed us to this levels of excellence and greatness, all scriptural, all truths that you can find in the Bible.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  And so I've been able to extract that to teach my boys, to teach the men that God gives me, and to ultimately lead that way so I can practice what I preach and then get to reap the rewards and the benefits of doing things God's way. All truth comes from scripture. Science is always going to prove the Bible eventually, but science is never going to catch up with Christ. He's too glorious. He's too powerful. He's too mighty. His riches are unsearchable. And so when we see truth and we see something working, we can always find it in scripture. And then we just need God's help to put the right heartbeat, because it's really, I want to win. I want my sons to be studs.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  And a lot of times, Nick, I want him to be stud so that the world will look at me and be like, "What a good dad he is." That's a wicked heart. That's a selfish heart. God convicts me of it. "Lord, please forgive me. Lord, help me to raise these boys to know your glory," right? Because I know when I get praised, that doesn't satisfy my soul, right? But I do know when the Lord does these awesome things through his truth, he gets the glory, and he gives us the rewards. And that rewards is this Jeremiah 29:11 heart that the soul just flourishes, that he wants to bless us, he wants to prosper us. That's not with money and wealth and cars and big businesses. That's a man that can lay his head on a pillow at night

• 44:45Speaker 01

  and go to sleep peacefully, not because everything's peaceful around him, but because he knows his God controls everything around him. And everything that that man faces is for his good and the glory of God. That's the happy man. That's the powerful man. And that's the man that's birthed and sustained out of the truth of Scripture. And God showed me all these leadership things. This is God's eternal truth. Of course it works. But is God going to get the glory for all the Super Bowls and all the rings and all the greatness that comes out of it? For most people, he doesn't get the glory, but he'll get it in the end.

• 45:21Nick Bare?

  What were these coaches doing, these winning coaches, that facilitated this culture that you speak about? Because I can only imagine how hard it is to lead a team of type A, alpha, high-performing, just warrior dogs. What are these coaches that are so good at what they do, tactically doing to facilitate this culture that wins?

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Many things, but transparency and accountability. First transparency.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Dysfunctional doesn't look dysfunctional to the dysfunctional. Let me explain that. I don't want to say it one more time. Dysfunctional doesn't look dysfunctional to the dysfunctional. Nick Heath, Bill Belichick, Saban, Sean Payton, we all have areas of dysfunction that we can't see. We have chinks in our armor that need to be replaced or re-engineered something, but we can't see them or blind to them. So if we're not transparent men, if we're not humble men that have other men that have full right at any time to speak into our lives at any time about our dysfunction, our sin, our shortcomings, our weaknesses,

• 46:47Speaker 01

  we're far weaker than we think we know, right?

• 46:49Nick Bare?

  Is that ignorance out of pride?

• 46:53Speaker 01

  It's always pride that won't be transparent. The greatest thing that God's done for me was allowed me to see the cross rightly so that I didn't feel guilty or condemned over my sin. I would mourn it, but I don't feel shame over my sin anymore. I don't feel condemned. Christ died for me. God eternally loves me and nothing and no one can change that. And so I'm just the happiest dude ever. I hate that I've grieved God. I hate that I fall short of His glory now. But like the fact that the Lord exposed my heart to who I am and that's why I need Christ and Christ loves me anyway, that makes me not want to be that man.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  The prideful man isn't going to admit his fears. He's not going to admit his shortcomings. He's not going to ask for help. He's not going to have, like King David had Jonathan that had the ability to kind of speak into his life, this friendship. You and I were talking last night about wounds from a friend can be trusted. My best friend is also one of my pastors. He has come to me, I can't tell you how many times, something about parenting, something I said to Chrissy, even just joking, whatever it may be, that's like, hey, this isn't the attitudes, this isn't the heartbeat of a, of a godly man. Hey, don't, don't say that to your kids that way. It could make, it could really, right? But Barrick knows that like, I, I, I want to be a godly man. And I'm, and I'm blind often to the realities of, of my sin.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  And so I've opened the doors to many godly men that know at any point in time, at any time of the day, whether on social media, wherever, they can call me and be like, hey, this is not, this is not representing Christ well. This is not the marks of a godly husband, whatever it may be. But I've had to open that door with transparency. Belichick had a guy, he could stop practice. He could go in his office, whatever he wanted. And he basically had full, full authority to point things out that Bill would miss. Now, not everyone could do that, but Brady could go in his office too. Willing the Guinness, Mike Vrabel, Teddy Bruski, guys that would earn his respect

• 49:01Speaker 01

  based on, A, their ability, their performance, and their own leadership attributes over time. Um, you know, it took me probably two years to earn Bill's respect and trust, that he would then trust me in any environment or situation that he would put me in in a game. But Bill would listen. I remember when Randy Moss first came to New England, to watch the education that Randy brought Bill and Tom, based on what Randy knew defenses had to do because he was Randy Moss. And to sit Bill Belichick, at the time, three Super Bowl ring, one as a defensive coordinator with Giants, three as a head coach, just sit back, like with real awe and respect and listen to Randy.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  And then learn and glean and then move on and become even a better coach. Because he knew he didn't know it all. And that he had opened the door to further his wisdom. So that transparency is huge. Transparency is, is the key to transformation. If a man wants to go grow in Christ, he better be transparent with his sin, with his fear, with his shortcomings, with all his weaknesses. We've got to learn to kind of open up this onion more and more with the good, godly, right people so that we can get more wise counsel to grow and flourish the way that God's word equips us to. God's going to use people. He didn't need people, but he uses people to accomplish his goals. And so those are the things, but that does not happen without transparency.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  All those coaches had humility enough to open the door to right leadership, to right input, to right instruction, to right you're wrong and you need to change. That allowed them to be what they need to be. The second one's accountability. In New England, no one was held more accountable than Tom Brady. If Tom Brady threw an interception, no matter the scenario, he was ripped to shreds. And it went downhill. But it's the opposite of every other team I was ever on. The superstars in Seattle, my first four years, Mike Combin wouldn't touch. They never got coached. They were never called to the carpet. They were never held to accountable accountability.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  And so this level of like, kind of pick your poison from the head coach, you can't respect a man that way. So you can't ever possibly serve a man the way that we're kind of meant to in a team environment if you don't respect him. Now, sure, you can still keep doing the right things, but it's not from a heart level. And you're not going to meet one guy who spent more than two years with Belichick that didn't absolutely love that man. And it was the most relentless, hard place to play. I often say, it, it, it was the hardest place to play in the world and it wasn't anywhere close, but it was the most peaceful place to play.

• 51:50Nick Bare?

  What made it so hard?

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Bro, the demands, the level of excellence, the mental knowledge that you had to know about your team. Bro, we scouted the referees. What do the referees like to call? Do they call more holding? Do they call more pass interference? What will they get? Do they? Will they let your hands be on the outside? Or do you have to hold from the inside? Bill made us know everything. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday was a nightmare at times. Just the burden of information that his, his scouting staff and all the coaches would bury us with. But we knew the expectation and we were given the information to know. So then it just came back to the fact of, hey, you're going to put in the work.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Are you going to do the work to know everything that you're demanded, commanded to know? Well, guess what? Saturdays was like a part, excuse me, Sunday was like a party. They were the best days of the week. No one out prepared us. No one was more studied. No one was more prepared physically, mentally, emotionally. Man, Sundays were like, game day was the best day of the week. And then you get up and do it all over again. Well, most people chill all week, study a little bit, whatever. And then they're all anxious and nervous comes Sunday. Not our teams. Sundays were a party. It was awesome. And you've experienced some of that stuff where you have paid the freaking price. And then you go into performance time, whatever that thing is with your team. And y'all know you're freaking ready.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  And then you get to perform at a level of excellence because the excellence started a year ago, six months ago. For us, it was, every week was cyclical. You're going to pay the price. And boy, the price was heavy. The price was worth it because when you put in the work. Man, I have a saying, hard work works. Everyone has different talents, but hard work is never going to let a man down. If you're truly working hard, it's going to work to some level. I tell a story of me and Randy Moss. Randy's a freak of nature, right? He's like a unicorn with cleats, right? I'm like, these short stubby legs, I'm a quick burst and I'm going to block and do these other things. We both worked tenaciously hard.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  His hard work got him a first ballot gold jacket. My hard work got me 10 years in the NFL. Some people like, oh, they look at other men like, ah, this, this got this. Screw that. Hard work works and it works for every man if we're willing to pay the price. And in New England, that bar was set so high. Right, the intensity, right? But the intensity made the games fun. And then winning with a team that everyone was suffering well together. It was just awesome. In a worldly sense, there's just nothing like it. Getting to the mountaintop with a group of men that have all sacrificed for the betterment of the team is freaking beautiful.

• 54:44Nick Bare?

  Who is responsible for maintaining that transparency and accountability? Was it the coach or was it the quarterback?

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Well, ultimately, Bill is responsible for Bill, right? So he had to make sure his own kind of checkboxes were in place, right? No one's making Bill do anything. What made New England such a sweet place was, for a long time, Mr. Kraft, all business, it's Mr. Kraft, all football, all football. From every penny spent to every player signed, to every punishment, you name it, that was Bill. And it created this hierarchy that could work because Kraft is the businessman. But businessmen don't need to be mixing into football. We see this every year of the Dallas Cowboys, right? Like Jerry Jones needs to step aside. He's not the smartest football guy in the room and neither is his son.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  So they shouldn't be managing all football operational decisions for the Dallas Cowboys. You would have given Bill Belichick that roster two years ago when he got fired from the Patriots before he took the Carolina job. Barring injuries, Belichick would win multiple Super Bowls with that current Dallas Cowboys roster. But they've got the wrong people in place. So Bill's ultimately responsible for his own transparency, his own humility, his own leadership and the accountability of his team. But when you bring in the right people, the Brady's, the Breeze, Teddy Bruski's, the Mike Vrabel's, all the different things, the locker room kind of self-pleases itself because the standard has been set.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  When you live in a selfless environment and you're a cancer, you're gonna stick out like a sore thumb. We walk around this office today here at headquarters, right? Everyone's nice. Someone that's not nice, it's gonna take about a week for them, someone to be like, what's wrong with him? Because everyone else here is so just gracious and kind. Well, in New England, if you were selfish, and you weren't about the team's business, oh, you, you, you'll go stick out like a sore thumb. And then we're gonna get you up out of there. But Bill would get you up out of there before the players ever had to. But your life in New England would be miserable if you weren't selfless. If you weren't team first, if you weren't attentive. Bro, those older guys, they, they'd run you ragged. You'd be asking to be fired.

• 57:02Nick Bare?

  The culture pleases itself.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's got to.

• 57:05Nick Bare?

  The same thing happens here.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  It happens everywhere. Most cultures are just bad.

• 57:10Nick Bare?

  Yeah, high, high functioning teams, I found,

• 57:15Nick Bare?

  they function in the way they do because of the way they police the, the, the culture.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's acceptable?

• 57:21Nick Bare?

  Exactly. What are people willing to accept?

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:23Nick Bare?

  And walk by and, and tolerate.

• 57:28Nick Bare?

  So this is an area where I really wanna focus.

• 57:33Nick Bare?

  And this is something that I'm still learning. And it's how we read scripture, how we interpret scripture and how we apply it to our lives.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:47Nick Bare?

  And I briefly shared this with you while we were, we were training and working on this morning. I didn't wanna dive into it too much because I want your, I wanna hear your, your authentic response the first time during this conversation.

• 58:00Nick Bare?

  You know, an example of that you see all the time online in the social space. It's a picture of a bunch of guys. And then they quote Proverbs 27 17.

• 58:14Nick Bare?

  As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Hey, me and my buddies, like, we're hanging out together. Iron sharpens iron. And I want to focus on this verse here, but I think we can apply it to a lot of scriptures.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  True.

• 58:30Nick Bare?

  We read the Bible, we read scripture, and then we apply it to our lives. We don't interpret it in the way that it's meant to be read and interpreted based off the context of

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 58:42Nick Bare?

  where it's placed. When you hear iron sharpens iron,

• 58:48Nick Bare?

  how do you interpret that based off of your understanding of the Bible?

• 58:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:53Nick Bare?

  And how do we apply it to our lives?

• 58:55Speaker 01

  Great question. You and I did it this morning in the gym. And I was, I was jacking with you in the camera. I'm like, I'm helping you guys get a couple of extra reps. You ain't helping the old man get some extra reps, right? So there is truth to this. If you and I train together every single day, there's going to be areas where I'm going to make you better. And then there's going to be areas where you make me better. And, and we're going to talk trash, and we're going to push each other. You're going to find my weaknesses. I'm going to find yours. I'm going to find your strengths. You're going to find my strengths. And we, because of just the way God has built us, we will make each other better. And that's good and right. And men should do that. But that's not the full depth of that verse.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  When iron is sharpened, it's hot. And it's being beaten to death, basically. And it's, it's being scorched in, in a way that, that makes it usable. And that's through pain. The, kind of the literary work of proverbs at times, right? A lot of times it's hyperbole, but hyperbole can never get to the extreme of really what Christ is communicating, right? It's just to give us a picture of like, oh, this is what it's like. So Christ doesn't really want us to cut off our hand to get into heaven. But if, but if our eyes are constantly leading us into lust, then we need to find a way to cut off every provision for the flesh so that our eye doesn't cast us into hell.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Ultimately, our heart is a reflection of our eye. Our heart is a reflection of our hand. But that, that methodology is to get us to see how important sin is and that we need to distance ourself from it. So back to you and I sharpening each other. If you and I were doing life together, then we're doing life together well, based on the full counsel of God's word, right? I'm commanded to constantly be taking the sin out of my own eye, the, the log, right? So I should see my sin like it's a freaking tree. And I should see your sin like it's a speck. So me before God, God, I'm constantly being impatient with my kids. Please forgive me. Please, please help me to just walk in tenderness with my children

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  so that I can reflect fatherly affection like you love me. And then that gives me a posture to come to you later that day. Hey, when you hung up the phone with Steph and, you know, I could hear you all getting into it, your last response to her, like, does Christ respond to you that way? Now, a prideful man is gonna be like, screw you Heath, get out of my office. I don't want this noise. A godly man that's walking with Christ is immediately, if the Holy Spirit hadn't already burdened him, the Holy Spirit's gonna immediately burden that man like King David.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  Nathan comes to him, tells a story of this man. David's like, kill that man. And Nathan's like, that man is you, David. And immediately, that boy's heart breaks with all his murder, all his adultery, all his sin. He is crushed into repentance. He penned Psalm 51, "Before you, Lord, have I sinned, and only you," right? He is mourning and loathing this sin, but he knows who his Christ is. That's iron sharpening iron.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  It's prayer. It's honor. Honor is never flattery. Most leaders flatter and they don't even know they're doing it. Flattery is a lie. I have intentionally tried to encourage you in the last 24 hours. I have no idea about all the ins and outs of your life, but I've seen God's great work in you. And I have seen you be very intentional and very sacrificial in ways that I think only God's men do. But if I was going to come in here and just try to blow smoke up your rear end and just even flatter you with true things, right? That takes no time on my part. It takes no prayer on my part.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  It takes no, hey, Lord, will you help me just to... Where Nick's hurting? Will you help me just to be able to pray for that? Or just speak to that? Or Lord, would you send someone else just to meet him at the point of his need today? Honoring is something that costs me something before then I can encourage you with that honor. And sometimes honoring you would be calling you to the carpet on areas that you're falling short. Right? But in godly relationship and ironing sharpened iron, it's this constant give and take. You know, Barrick and I, I'm a boy, I'm a pastor. We're in constant relational suggestions. Even just last week, young pregnant wife of his.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  Hey, you need to shut the work down for her. I know you're on a pastor's salary and all that. Screw that. God's going to provide. Get your wife out of work a few weeks earlier so she can enjoy these last few weeks of your first baby. Oh, yeah. Okay. Boom. That's ironing sharpened iron. I'm an older, more experienced man in ways. Had kids, et cetera. So I was able to speak something into him. That he was willing humbly to take, that wasn't sin in his life. But this give and take of knowing brothers and doing life together that starts with transparency. Where am I weak? Where do I need Nick to call me to the carpet? Where do I need Nick to call me on a weekly basis? Hey, have you done this well this week? Right?

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  That is true iron sharpening iron. It's costly. It's intentional. It demands transparency. It demands accountability. It demands two men giving their lives to the word of the Lord so that they can rightly know how to honor and wound with humility and tenderness when Nick needs to be wounded by a check from his brother Heath or vice versa.

• 1:04:54Nick Bare?

  I mean, it's similar to the characteristics of a high functioning team.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Nick Bare?

  Transparency, accountability.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:05:02Nick Bare?

  You had a post about this. That I have the copy here. And I think you, you, you described it very well. Because when I think of iron sharpens iron, I think of brotherhood.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Nick Bare?

  And the necessity of brotherhood. We were having this conversation dinner last night, but it's, it's a really dangerous place to be when you have a lot of yes men in your life. They're telling you what you want to hear. What they think you want to hear, not what you need to hear.

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:05:33Nick Bare?

  To check you. But I'll read your post because I think this summarizes it really well. Iron sharpens iron. It doesn't mean to find a group of men who comfort you in sin. That's not brotherhood. Real brothers love you enough to tell you the truth. They confront the compromise. They expose the excuse. They press you back to Christ. They do not leave you dull, soft, passive, or useless. They sharpen you for the fight. And yes, it will sting. Correction usually does. But wounds from a faithful friend are better than kisses from a flattering fool.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 1:06:12Nick Bare?

  Men, stop surrounding yourself with people who make rebellion feel safe. Find brothers who love Christ, love His word, and love you enough to say, that is sin. Repent, get back up, follow Christ.

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 1:06:27Nick Bare?

  I love that. And I was once someone who would use, me and my brothers are hanging out and iron sharpens iron just because we're in a group of friends together.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:42Nick Bare?

  Probably having conversations we shouldn't have, joking about things that aren't actually sharpening each other.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:49Nick Bare?

  You know, but I was on your website for Built Ready and you have these five pillars.

• 1:06:58Nick Bare?

  And those five pillars are discipline, truth, stewardship, belonging, leadership. And I look at belonging, the brother, no man finishes the race alone.

• 1:07:12Nick Bare?

  I used to be someone who prided himself in being a lone wolf. I don't need anyone else in my life. I'm gonna do this on my own. I'm faster on my own. And then I started finally realizing, I can't do all this on my own.

• 1:07:29Nick Bare?

  And I once said, you can go fast alone, but you can go so much further together.

• 1:07:36Nick Bare?

  And there's been evolutions to it.

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:07:38Nick Bare?

  And I realized, well, you can go further together if you're the right people.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:43Nick Bare?

  And for a while, I didn't know what the right people looked or felt like.

• 1:07:48Nick Bare?

  But they have to be rooted in the same values and beliefs and foundation in order to sharpen you.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:58Nick Bare?

  Because if not, you're just getting softer, duller, weaker, more passive.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we know, like, I seek wise counsel from men that aren't Christian. But in God's kindness, I have enough understanding of kind of what we call the full counsel. So from Genesis one to Revelation 22, that I can take the truths of these very highly successful men, right? And then often, it's the same blueprint. It's just for me, Lord, now help me accomplish this for your glory. Grow your kingdom, grow these businesses so we can reach more men. Do things for your glory, not Heath's. This truth, right? It can be applied. It's just the heart behind the application.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  If we're with the wrong group of men, we're just going to go faster towards destruction. And that destruction might come alongside a booming business.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  The wise counsel part, and you know, Chrissy and I don't do anything unless we are in agreement together. But in God's kindness to us, we have many successful worldly people to ask. And then we have

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  a full council of friends and pastors that are some just faithful pastors, so they're nowhere near wealthy, but they have given their lives to studying God's Word. And then we do have two men in our lives that are very financially wealthy, but they give their life away and they are great business minds saturated in the truth of God's Word. And so we are constantly, "Hey, Lord, who are you placing in our lives?

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  What purpose are they there for?

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  What season are we in? We just want to be intentional and sacrificial with all things. The iron sharpens iron is often,

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." I have a sweatshirt

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  that says, "I can do all things through a verse taken out of context."

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  If there's two verses that have probably been most butchered for what they truly mean in Scripture, it's probably your Proverbs 27 and then Philippians 4:13.

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  Philippians 4:13 about doing all things to Christ who strengthens me is not about winning football games. It is about loving our wives, right?

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  It can be about being faithful here for you every day to serve and love your team at VPN, right? But it's not building to a billion-dollar exit, right? It's, "No, I can do nothing." I tell my men all the time, "Christ only gives them possible commands."

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Like, if you have a heart that loves sin, right? Bible talks, can a leopard change his spots, right? Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Can a dead man raise himself to life? Can a man be born again? Can a blind man make himself see? Can a deaf man make himself hear? Right?

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  Even 1 Peter 3:7 commands you and I to live with Stephanie and Chrissy in an understanding way. Well, you and I don't understand our wives. We understand some things, but that command of Scripture is to get you and I to hit our knees, like, "Lord, I just don't understand this season we're in. And would you just give me the patience and the tenderness and the care for my wife to understand her in a way that I can serve her and love her and lead her well?" Right? Because all these things that I'm commanded to do for Chrissy, I can't do. And half the time, I don't even want to do them because I'm still selfish.

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  And so, when it comes to seeing Scripture rightly, Philippians 4:13 was written in prison. Paul's not a thriving businessman. He's not building a supplement company. He's not raising kids. He's not self-promoting himself. He's like, "No, I can suffer well in this prison cell, and I can write this adoring letter with great affection and great truth about Christ and Christ crucified to the Philippians, so that through the power of God's Word, they can read this letter that has been written by the power of the Holy Spirit, and they can understand it, and their souls can thrive."

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  This man's in prison, preaching the glories of Christ. And this is the picture that that verse needs to be taken in. It should give us great comfort that whatever season we're in, though the Lord has placed us there, and I can do all things that the Lord has commanded me to do today through His strength, because I have none. It's a humbling verse. It's not a "raise me up, look at me" verse. And that's how it's twisted.

• 1:13:11Nick Bare?

  Mm. It's very refreshing to hear.

• 1:13:17Nick Bare?

  I want to pivot the conversation a little bit to talk about

• 1:13:22Nick Bare?

  the nonprofit you guys run for fatherless boys.

• 1:13:28Nick Bare?

  And first of all, I want to know what it is, but why?

• 1:13:36Nick Bare?

  Why the need to serve fatherless boys? What is, what is the consequence of those boys not getting the attention and love and support they need? Of what's going to lead them?

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  Psalm 68, 5 says that God is a father to the fatherless and a defender of the widows. This is who God is in his holy habitation. At the core of Creator, holy, holy, holy God. He is a defender of those who have no voice, have no protection and have no provision. The widow has no one, biblically, the widow, there's no, there's no kids, there's no husband. She has no rights to land, she has no rights to food, she has nothing. And the word of the Lord says that he is a protector of that powerless woman.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  The fatherless is this picture, no protection, no, no provision, no, no one to, to do all the things that you and I do for our children.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  The doctrine of adoption

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  throughout scripture is simply this.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  We were slaves to sin, we were sons of unrighteousness, we were, 1 John says that we were sons of Satan. And we loved our sin and we practiced our sin. The doctrine of adoption is that Christ died for us and that Christ adopts us as sons and daughters.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  We were his enemies, we were living against him and he comes and he takes us out of our sin of slavery and makes us sons and daughters of righteousness, heirs with Christ.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Everything that Christ has with the Father, perfect union.

• 1:15:31Speaker 01

  We get covered in. We get protection. We get the Prince of Peace as our elder brother that promises us he'll never leave us nor forsake us. He has, if he has taken care of our sin, what won't he take care of? He will provide for our clothing, he will provide for our food. He is going to provide because he cannot not provide because he is found faithful from eternity past. And so this heart of the Father all throughout Scripture that rescues these people that hate God. And that's the story. When we look at Genesis 6:5, it talks about the heart of man being set on evil continual, continually.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  That their heart can't even, can't even think pure of good. And that's what the story of Scripture is about us outside of Christ. We love self. Romans 3 tells us that no man seeks for God. That we've been found unworthy from the tip of our tongue to the tips of our toes, that we're just sin. And it's this clear picture. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love in which he loved us, even when we were dead in our sins and trespasses against him, made us alive together in Christ. This fatherly affection adopts. You ever met an adoptive kid that got to choose his parents?

• 1:16:56Nick Bare?

  No.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  Me neither. This story of Scripture, this fatherly affection for people that don't deserve it. They weren't better, they weren't worthy. The Scripture says, "In our sin, we were unworthy." But God, being rich in mercy. Nick, this mercy that God showed me, I want to show to the faultless. God has overwhelmed my heart. With, "How could you love me?" I had it all. I had all the teaching, all the knowledge, all the parents, I had all this stuff. But I was so sinful and so selfish and so blasphemous towards this Christ that I knew in my head, but I did not love in my heart.

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  And as He made me new, I have been overwhelmed with this doctrine that I am a son of God. He will always protect me, He will never leave me, He will never abandon me, even in my sin. He will discipline me because He loves me, but He will never condemn me in my sin because Christ died for me. I want that love to be shown to these fatherless. You ask, "What happens to these kids if we don't?" The statistics are awful for boys. If they graduate through the CPS system, meaning they age out at 18, by the time they're 20, they will be dead, they will be in a gang, or they will be in prison. Period, the end.

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  Those are the facts. The state will try to cover it in a lot of different ways because they have screwed everything up for a long, long time. The lawsuits that are going on behind closed doors here in Texas because of the malfunctioning, dysfunctional CPS is heartbreaking. You and I would be in tears in a matter of moments if we just saw these cases. For girls.

• 1:18:44Nick Bare?

  Do you know how many kids are in the system?

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  Somewhere between 45 and 55,000 at all times.

• 1:18:49Nick Bare?

  In, in the US?

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  In the, no, no, no, in the state of Texas.

• 1:18:52Nick Bare?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  Just in the state of Texas. Chrissy and I, obviously we've adopted our four. Um, this is such a loaded conversation and I've already rambled so much about Christ, but I just, I want to be clear. For the girls, by the, if they age out through the system at 18, by the time they're 20, they're dead. They're being sex trafficked, or they're in some type of abusive relationship and addicted to either drugs or alcohol, or drugs and alcohol. We have talked to judges, we have known, I don't know how many CPS agents, our own experience with two older kids that were fosters momentarily, that they just didn't want to live under our rules and so they can kind of leave anytime they want.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  Call her my daughter, not gonna mention her name, but she is 19. She is pregnant right now with her second child out of wedlock. First baby daddy is serving 25 years in the federal pen for child sex trafficking. Baby daddy number two is in the penitentiary for what we haven't found out yet. We had one young boy that came into our home. He's now in a gang. Our own story of our four adopted kids, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, you name it, and the system failed them. Bethesda Ranch is to bring hope to the hopeless, to be a father to the fatherless.

• 1:20:14Speaker 01

  Our vision here in Texas is to take back the CPS system. 52 years ago, the church did this, and it did it well. The church got lazy. The church started building businesses and business empires instead of building the bride. And we've abandoned these fatherless kids. Now the state has it, and the state has no truth to build a system off of. And so these kids are being ravaged in every way possible. What Chrissy and I are building now by the grace of God is called the Legacy Club, that Bethesda Ranch. I have raised millions of dollars in the past for child victims of sexual abuse, that we would get them biblical, private counseling.

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  There was great success. We have kind of re-focused our attention around the fatherless to achieve a few things. I wish Chrissy was here because she's much better about being brief and concise and precise with this. The Legacy Club at Bethesda Ranch is this. On the Bethesda Ranch side, fatherless boys, ages 11 to 14, they won't be kicked out at 14, but they have to do our programs, they have to continue to graduate through, and then we will see them through college, and we will see them through early adulthood. We will mentor and be fathers to these fatherless kids. We're using sports as the mechanism to grab them. So football, basketball, and track. We are offering free education.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  These kids will be on our campus for every day from seven to about six. We will educate them, we will mentor them, we will disciple them, we will feed them, and we will give them sports-specific elite training. I'm talking about the training you and I do, the training that you get in the NFL and the SEC, all free of charge.

• 1:21:56Nick Bare?

  Is this happening right now, or is this what you're planning for?

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  We are in the process of buying land. I think even in the last forty-eight hours, God has, that owns all that land, has moved heaven and earth. Hopefully here in the next couple of weeks, we will have our hands on close to a hundred acres in Alito that God has just miraculously provided. So, in November, the Lord kind of gave me what I believe to be these next steps. When we moved to Texas, four and a half years ago, we had a big vision for the fatherless. We didn't know what, quite it was. We were praying and fasting. And we got busy going through the adoption process, so that we could be registered. We were going after the kids that nobody wanted, the kids that might burn down your house, or stab you in the middle of the night, or kill your dog.

• 1:22:42Speaker 01

  We tried to get many of those kids, the state just kept telling us, "No, no, no, no, no." We were given a call for our current four kids that are now Evans. And the Lord miraculously kind of walked us through that system. We were able to adopt them in about six and a half months. And after we kind of got them settled and have more time and attention to kind of further this mission, we had just been praying and fasting. And early November, I went downstairs after a long quiet time, and I gave Chrissy a big vision. And I expected her to be like, "No, go back to your study and keep reading God's Word. It's nuts." She's like, "Let's roll." And so, this Bethesda Ranch part, the thing about nonprofits are, during times of economic crisis, and for different reasons, they're very hard to fundraise for.

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  This is a very expensive thing to, to feed, and to educate, and to mentor. These boys will go through biblical discipleship every single year, how to think about God, how to think about themselves, how to think about work, how to think about women, and how to think about life, from a biblical worldview. And they will just continue to graduate through how to rightly think about these five things that will matter-of-factly dominate their life. If they think well on these five things, they will have a successful life. If they think poorly about these five things, they will have a horrible life. Statistics prove it out. What's the engine that funds that? We live in this longevity space where we have modern medicine and modern abilities to really help sustain life, strengthen life, to give quality of life to people that most people don't know about.

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  This wellness space is going to be an eight trillion dollar space by 2030. We are bringing a wellness longevity club that's kind of like a golf club to Fort Worth. My architect designer, who is a godly faithful brother, Jeffrey Duggan, has built resorts and hotels in 46 different countries. You can walk from the east coast to the west coast, all across the country, can't step on a state that he hasn't built a beautiful property on. Think St. Regis Resort meets Fort Worth Ranch, right in the heart of Fort Worth in Alito. This is a golf club with no golf course. It is a high-end buy-in for invitation-only members. That is a tax-deductible gift to Bethesda Ranch to build what we want to build for

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  this spot, for these fatherless boys. But inside this club, we'll be building a legacy of health that gets passed down not only to the children of these club members, but it's also looking across the field in the legacy of their financial well-being. They're getting the best gym, the best doctors, the best nutrition, the best everything inside this club-type atmosphere. They'll have their monthly dues, but their main focus is building the legacy in these boys that would never have protection, provision, nothing. They're fatherless, they have nothing. And so if we step up, or don't step up, these boys don't get provided for. And so we have kind of created an engine financially that will drive the ministry.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  And we want to duplicate these all over the state of Texas, and I want to get about 1500 of the most powerful men in the state under one roof. And I want to indoctrinate them with God's doctrine of adoption. And I want to teach them what's going on in this state for these children. And then we will prove with the toughest demographic, these boys that everyone says are foregone conclusions, we will prove what the Word of the Lord will do. If people see our children, they've been in our home about two and a half years, and God has done miraculous work in their hearts, mind, bodies, and soul, and we have no doubt if we get these kids on our campus for this many hours, every single week, God will do the transformation work that He does when they hear the truth and they're living the truth with men like you and I in front of them, caring for their souls, and disciplining them well.

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  God will do the miraculous work that He does. And we look back 10 years from now, 15 years from now, and we'll have

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  Six, eight thousand boys that have defied the odds, that are fathers, that love their kids, that are functional adults, that are active participants in society, that are the gym men. They're the, they're the standard men. They're not in jail at 18, or in a gang, and reproducing, and leaving more fatherless kids. It just leaves a further wreckage in society. So we're putting kind of our stake in the ground. We're saying, "Lord, we know what your word can do. If men will be faithful, if men will step up, if they will lead, children are built to follow." It's how God created them. They just need the right people to follow. And we've seen it in our own home, and I know the power of God's word. And so we're going to take the toughest demographic, and we're going to watch God do miracle after miracle after miracle. And we're

• 1:27:14Speaker 01

  going to send these boys out as functional adults that love God, and that love their wives, and that love their kids. And we're going to put it into this nonsense noise here, because in CPS, we were talking last night, you can't discipline these kids, you can't do anything. And you're defying the word of God. And when you defy the word of God, nothing but chaos and dysfunction happens. And that's what's happening in the CPS system now. And so, at Bethesda Ranch, Bethesda just means house of love and kindness. By God's grace, we're going to show God's love and kindness, starting with the boys. Eventually, the goal is to have all these kids. And we will house them. We will care for them. We will nurture their souls, as only God can.

• 1:27:55Nick Bare?

  So these kids will be moving from the CPS, the system, to the ranch?

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  These will be kids, once CPS gets their hands on the kids, CPS can just create nothing but nightmares. These will be grandma, that's got two, two boys, that she can't handle anymore, that she's running to school every day, and running to the ballpark and everything else, single moms, that maybe CPS is about to intervene, but the system hasn't gotten them in the system yet. These are the kids that we're going to be after. The CPS system is broken, wicked, it's dysfunctional. When you have children in your home, if, if you have... An expired can of jelly in your fridge, they can take your kids from you. If you have a cleaning solution left out on a counter and they do a surprise visit, they can take your kids.

• 1:28:45Speaker 01

  The rules and stuff that they do, along with the fact that you can't discipline these kids, you can't train these kids, you can't, you, to be a foster parent in the state of Texas and to do it biblically well means you have to disobey the state and kind of have your well-being at stake every single day. You're either going to obey the state and disobey the Lord and raise these kids in a wicked, ungodly way, or you're going to defy the state and hope they never find out. It is dysfunctional mess. We have to put a stake in the ground now and keep these kids from getting into the system. So our goal, if you could just kind of imagine putting up a wall of fatherless boys, kind

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  of starting in Alito in this southwest corridor of Fort Worth, that, hey, come here, you don't have to be a great athlete, right? But if you're interested in sports, we're going to train you in football, basketball or track. You train all those athletes the same at that age, right? We have to start somewhere. So this is the demographic that we're after. And then as we kind of prove proof of concept, which I know we will, then we'll invite more and more boys, probably expand it to different sports and then who knows what the Lord has.

• 1:29:55Nick Bare?

  That's amazing.

• 1:29:56Speaker 01

  But I know this, Nick, if we can get our hands on kids, God's word always works. We need God to save. We need God to change hearts. But we have watched our boys especially, when they are under the instruction by God's grace of a godly man, that's no nonsense, and they are forced to work and forced to do chores and forced to submit to good, healthy authority, their lives change. Men are attracted to healthy authority. Men want to be led. There's just very few leaders. And so if we can get these boys at a young age, get rid of all their stinking thinking, really put them in the paths of truths, watch what God does and he'll do it.

• 1:30:40Nick Bare?

  When CPS gets involved in a family and they take a kid out of the home, where are they housing that child?

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  There is a group of children that can range anywhere from call maybe 400 to 600 in Fort Worth. It's called CWOP, Children Without Placement. You're 15 and you're kind of maybe somewhat violent or a bad attitude. And they can't place you in a home, which is most likely what happens because most foster parents have other responsibilities of their own children, right? So a good kid or a baby or a three-year-old, most of the time can be somewhat simplistic to place. But the older a kid gets, there's just no place. And so they live in hotels down in downtown Fort Worth. And their doors are open in their hotel rooms and you have one armed police officer kind of patrolling each floor.

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  You've got a couple hundred kids on each floor and their doors are open. They're there 24/7. They can't force them to go to school. They can't force them to do anything. They're feeding them Hot Pockets and other crap food that's killing these kids. And that's what their life is. And they're just waiting to age out of the system at 18. What 15-year-old that gets removed by CPS, that hasn't had a good mom or dad, removed for good reasons, right? But he's grown up in a dysfunctional environment is going to choose to go to school. Very few. So they sit there and rot, watching TV, playing their Xboxes, all the other noise and nonsense. No instruction, no discipline, no love, no touch, no healthy affection, no care, no nothing. What does that do to a human soul?

• 1:32:19Speaker 01

  Well, we see it. They, they look for attention and affection and discipline in all the wrong areas. The girls run to these sexual abuse pimps, right? Boys run to gangs. They end up dead, prison, and this is the stories. And no one freaking cares because no one knows. And so we're going to run our big mouths and but we're going to put a plan in place where I know how to train in sports. I know how to discipline young men. I know how to raise young boys. And so we can take these truths of the Bible, give people, an extremely wealthy community, something to aspire to in the sense of a legacy of health for their family, all the while providing health for these boys that have never had anything.

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  They're just going to ask God to do the miraculous because that's what he does.

• 1:33:05Nick Bare?

  That's amazing, man. I love it. Well, for anyone who isn't following you online, they should for your proverbial day keeps the stupid away.

• 1:33:16Speaker 01

  I'm always preaching to me first.

• 1:33:18Nick Bare?

  I'll tell you, man, like you, you are such a strong communicator and your words are so well articulated and I mean, I, I constantly finding myself like re-watching your, your posts to transcribe them myself. And I reference them in, in podcasts and I share with the team here. So I love what you're doing. I love what you're sharing and it's powerful and I appreciate you, brother.

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  And I appreciate you, bro. It's been sweet getting to know you.

• 1:33:54Nick Bare?

  Yeah. Thank you for coming on. The dinner last night was beautiful. The workout, I'm glad I could smoke in the sauna for a little bit today.

• 1:34:01Speaker 01

  About burned my face off.

• 1:34:02Nick Bare?

  Yeah. But that was a great night. Good morning and it's been an amazing conversation.

• 1:34:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Love you, brother. Grateful for you.

• 1:34:11Nick Bare?

  Thank you.