Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper. You are live from the past. Hey. You're listening to Live From The Path. We're coming from the Pathway Studios here in Johnston proper. You know why this show is like a fine wine, bitch? No. Because it gets put on a shelf and left alone for years. Did you just did you just think of that? Yeah. I thought it was pretty clever after watching the opening that include both Boob and Dave Herrick. Herrick had been moved away for, like, seven years now. Yeah. Here's the deal. I I I I it it occurred to me at the start of the year. This is why I got don't if you guys saw the video I posted on Facebook. Mhmm. But, like, there's there's all you guys see Wagner check it out. I checked it out. There's so there's a lot of people who are like, hey. Big plan they're they're big goal people. Big plans 2021. They're trying to grab you in. And I thought, what are our big plans for 2021? I said, not a not a dang flipping thing. You even said something like, the intro's even all wrong. It's super old. I don't even care. I don't care. So

I feel like the only thing I'm selling here is some notion of consistency. Because either here, what we do is working or what we do is not working. Either way, I don't know that I have the brains to straighten it out. I think that's fair. So anyway, if you're if you're expecting like, hey, I'm checking out this Live From The Path program. Let's see if it's any better than it was three years ago, no. The answer is no. It is the same. I would like to be the Werther's original of internet radio programs where you could go years without having it and you're like, you know what? That tastes the same and I still like it. So that's us. You know, here's the thing. It's like the show will not change, but it might be just what you need at a given time. Yeah. And then you can drop it again. Like a Werther's original. Have you ever listened to a sermon from a pastor and you're like, man, this sermon is just awesome. I love it. Right? And then you fire up the next one, you're like, what happened? No. It's terrible. Yeah. Was like he was marionetted the last one. And then this one, he's back to his original self. You're like, can't take in another one. Know? He only had one classic. Classic. Yeah. And and frankly, you can listen to that same one two years later and you're like, boy, I don't know what I saw in that one. No. But here's the thing, you needed it right then. Whatever it is, the Lord used that imperfect fallible fool to deliver good news to you in that moment. And then two years later, you're like, I I don't know. See, Ben? That's what we're striving to be, that imperfect fallible fool. Feel like life from the past has got a little heavier over the years. Yeah. It's I remember back in the day when you were downtown at that where was that place? The the hub? Oh, was by the Marriott. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That place. And it it was a little lighter then. Yeah. You know? It's because existed back then. Yeah. Yeah. What were you, like, 12 on the radio? Wow. How long we've doing this? I was 28. Yeah. We'd have been twenty eight. Wow. There was a lot more underwear talk. Yeah. Lot of underwear talk. A lot more I think I was there for that one. Lot more mention of, like, gypsies

and some kind of rolling in rocks. I don't remember the whole story. Yeah. But at the end of the day, what's happened is is we've gotten older, and that Ben has gotten heavily into politics. No. And I'll stop it. You'll stop it. Are you the mayor? Boy, I do my best. Alright. Hey, you're listening to live. Now hold on. That's a lie. Because No. Was a lie. Last week, Ben was here and goes, you know what? Shoot. That is me. I need to stay off that news or whatever. You know? It's just it's too much. Taking up too much of my time. The next day, he sends me an article and says, look at this. And it has to do with someone that named her baby Hitler or something. I'm like, way to stay out of the news, Ben. You nailed it. It was 08:15 in the morning. He hadn't been out of the show for, like, seven hours. Alright. So to be fair, Dan's not here tonight. Happy birthday, Dan. But both Dan and I failed. Dan jumped right back into politics the next day. Yes. And then I went back to read news and trying to sort I have a natural inclination to wanna sort stuff out. I don't like to hear things and be like, boy, I'm being shimmied. And then I gotta go figure out what's going on. And I don't like to be shimmied. Sure. And I tell you what, this last week was a shimmied. Oh, the whole thing. It was a whole week of shimmied. Hey. We're not gonna talk about it. No. How we didn't we? We found some parameters. What did we say? No. You saw a foothold, you said, man, we could talk about that. What did say? We're so bad at it. Mike Hiltman. So you could a tributary

over to your river of politics again. That's what's trying to happen here. Wagner won't have none of it. He told me already. I wanna No. I don't wanna talk about politics. I would like to talk about to the to the people of the Lord Jesus. Okay. Okay, so can we talk about that? How do we sort this ignore the political

surroundings and like what do the people of the Lord Jesus need to do directly? That's a great question. That's my question. Okay, so we were just talking about that before the show started and Wagner was about ready to get on a roll and tell us what the folks need. Oh, I was on a roll. You guys had already said 5,000 words like a second before you even started talking. We're the handlers. We're like the guy that follows Mike Tyson down the ring with the belts and stuff. Yeah. Champ Pumping up the crowd. The champ is here. The champ is here. And then you're

the Mike Wagner. Appreciate it. Zero pressure. These are all compliments here. I was telling these guys, I am a simple man. Like, I came into church, into church life, into following Jesus through music. I was a singer in a band. I'm actually a pastor now. But I didn't come from a deep theological background. I came from just strictly praise and worship, trying to learn a lot more. Anyway, I was reading in your parking lot tonight, Romans one, two, three, and what struck me was end of Romans one, before we get into a list of things that we probably shouldn't be doing, and we get into Romans two when we get a list of reasons we shouldn't be judging, we get a reminder from Paul that says something like the reason that God gave these people over to these depravities was because they stopped worshiping. They stopped honoring God. And it just got me thinking about all the people I love who are arguing and fighting over all the things they don't think people should or shouldn't be doing, or politicians did or didn't do, or someone they voted for won't let happen, or someone they voted for will let happen. And it feels like we've gotten sucked away from our purpose. Like, I genuinely believe that part of the reason I was made was simply to give God glory. And I don't think that's a little thing. Like, some people say, oh, all you're supposed to do is is praise a deity. Absolutely. Like, I was built to be in that piece of the relationship, to recognize the glory of God, to recognize the beauty of God's handiwork, and then to shout a sound of praise back, not just to God, but to anyone who can hear that God is good, that God is holy, that God is love. So where I'm at with all the craziness we've seen in the last week, whether it has to do with, like, local news, national news, local health, national health, global politics,

is we've simply forgotten what our place is and what our purpose is. We've gotten really smart, and now we think that we own, like, what God's will is rather than just saying, my job is to offer you praise, to love God, to love people. Right? Condense the law down. What does the law say? Like, love God with everything, love people. And so my primary act should be, how can I give God glory? How can I give God glory today? And I think if more of us did that and more Christ followers just did that, what's your response to these things happening in politics? What's your response to the national election? You know what I did today? I fell down on my knees and I prayed, then I sang a song to God because God is good, and I tried to find a way to get somebody else to sing with me. Do

you feel like people have a hard time believing that that will fill them? I do. I do. And you know what? I'll be honest, for a long time I doubted that it could too. I think it's an as much as I don't want to say it this way, I don't know how to say it any better, that it's an experience. Now when I say an experience, people think like, oh, so I have to try something or you want give Like it a LSD. Well, yes. Or acid or like, you know, or we're we're getting people into that kind of like mountaintop y kind of like, oh, faith. Where, oh, it was a big experience. But what I'm talking about is something different, like surrender. Right? Like, maybe I don't have very much power. Actually, yeah, I don't at all. Like, maybe I am just a blip on the map. Yeah. I I really am, like, a snap in time. And yet for some reason, a god desired to know me, created me, and whatever means that God decided to do so. I don't even care about that piece. I love science, but I don't care how you Yeah. Got

Right? But I have been made. And Scripture seems to say that my primary purpose is to love God, like is to be in that relationship with God. And how I do that? I just try to honor God. I try to give God glory imperfectly. And I feel like if my response to, you know, what do you think about this person then? How could you have voted for that person? Why are these people doing these terrible things with their life? And how can you let these people into your church? If my first response was, that doesn't sound like praise. Like, that doesn't sound like a conversation that's going to bring God a ton of glory. Like, first, let's do that together first. And when that's done, if we still have energy and bandwidth and God says, yeah, now let's work on some other things, great. But that's always number two for me. Maybe it's because I'm simple. Like, but that's that's the life I came out of was I found no purpose in overcomplicating the steps toward either salvation, toward righteousness, or toward making someone else or myself right. I found no purpose in that. But I got grand purpose, and I feel like my life means something when I just say, I'm just gonna give God glory. And I know that that doesn't mean I can ignore the problems of the world. It doesn't mean I can ignore injustices. It doesn't mean I can be a part of terrible

atrocities or jump into weird cults or something just because I gave God glory. But it does mean I have to have my priorities straight. And I think the Christian church, the Protestant church, Jesus followers, by and large, by and large right now, I'm judging, I'm sorry, that in our United States Of America, like don't have our priorities in line. I think that last tack on is more true than we want it to be, is the Christchurch in Western culture really struggles with this. And it's because,

I was really thinking about this on the drive in, and then I was praying about it to make sure I didn't have it all goofed up in my head. But we really struggle with what freedom is. And we really struggle on the goal of freedom. Because you have Let's say you have a body of Christ, right? Let's even take your Sunday morning gathering, let's call it 20 people at your place, we'll call it 300, a thousand, doesn't even matter. Everyone in that congregation or in that community is submitting to Scripture and the Holy Spirit and spending time praising God. What we're not talking about is how to weasel whatever iota of freedom you want and make it acceptable. That's not a conversation we're having. Because, one, most of these things Scripture already it speaks to. God speaks to it. As a loving Father, He sets things and goes, this is what it looks like to follow me. I know some of you are gonna struggle here. I love you. Please come back to me. Please. Right? He's pretty straightforward on that. And secondly is when you accept the gift

of your sins being paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ, what you're saying is, Your will not mine. Yeah. And so when you show up and go, I don't like that, I want to fight This is the best part. I want to fight the other people in this church about it. Well, first of all, they don't hold any authority here. You know what I'm saying? God laid the lockdown. Jesus paid for the penalty. You need to do business with Him. You need to talk to Him about it. And at the end of the day,

He will speak to it. And what you need to help answer within your own heart is, is if God falls on the other side of this thing, do I lay my freedom down and go, okay. What if I don't even like it? And you can tack this up to big social issues and I can tack this up to how loud of a voice I wanna have in the goings on of America's business. And so if you have the opportunity, because you do in this country, to say what you mean and say what you want, and you have a freedom to do it without political persecution, And if God asked you to set that down, would you do it?

Would you do it? Would you set it down because he asked you to for his glory and your joy? I'm not saying he is. I don't know. You need to do business with God on that thing. Right? But, like, if he asked you to, like, honestly, would you put it down? Would you let it go because he asked you to? And if you wouldn't, I think you've got a real problem. And I think, honestly, I think that is a a mass majority of our problem. You find that in a lot of I I've I've been strolling strolling sermons, right, And like, I'm amazed on how many pastors are agreeing to speak on the tone of the country on their Sundays. I'm begging you, fellas. You're wasting your breath. You know the greatest truth to ever know, the greatest mercy available, the grace that solves all problems, and and and you know that. And you wanna talk about this? I feel like you're missing it. Right. It's it's like inspecting the plant species outside the temple of doom. Yeah. Right? The temple of doom got that sweet rock or whatever he's in there going after, and you know it's in there and that's what you came for. And instead you're like, dude, check out this Hibiscus.

Yeah. I didn't know they grew here. I think it's the South African hibiscus. Let's smell it. Let's see what feels in your fingers. Who cares? Don't you think that's in part because of what you just said a few seconds ago that the singular truth, like Jesus dying for my sins and then asking me to lay down everything else and follow him, is a much, much harder question to answer personally than should I vote red or blue? Yeah. What do I think about this thing or this thing? Yes. So I think that's the reason. Right? And these are the things that I need your guys' help to help me discern on the hard question that I will spend my life getting the answer to. I guess I don't think that we're gaining anything

diverting. You know what I'm saying? We were talking about this before the show started. Look at the way that Jesus answered most of the Pharisees' questions. They want exact answers to, well, a woman ends up marrying like 10 brothers, who ends up being her husband in the after? And he's like, first of all, that's not even what you wanna know. And second of all, let me tell you a story. Let's look at this thing. Let's look at the thing that actually asking about. And we're getting stuck. The Western church is getting stuck in these machinations of

threatening to freedom and choice, and these are two things that as Christians, as I'm laying this all down, these light issues for you. Right? My choices are not better than God's choices. My freedom is on offer to be laid down as designed, whenever. And if that's not your current tact, then we have bigger heart problems to go after, right? Yeah, I think a great way, like framing the notion of freedom, think of I'm gonna paint with a broad brush just because it's the characterization, but like, if most from a conservative, and I mean conservative biblically, not necessarily politically, but like, they'll say, look, people are using their freedom that God gave them to do whatever they want and whatever they want to do is against what God wanted and so I'm upset. They're basically choosing something over

and above how God would say they should either live their life or who they want to be with or whatever. On the opposite side, like that is the exact same thing you're committing when you have a fealty to King Jesus, to give up everything that you think and say I think my goal is to submit myself humbly to the King that created everything and say whatever he says is right, whatever he says has to be good and submit myself to that. But the broad assertion from a a conservative side is basically to take, as opposed to humbly submitting to Jesus, it's to basically assert your opinion. Like how much effort we have to make sure that our particular voice

and opinion and thoughts are heard. It's an elevation of self over and above what it is to love and follow Jesus. And I think and that's the gap. Like when you starting on talking about Romans, like a couple of things jumped in my head. I think it's true, like Paul obviously wrote more than Romans one, right? So like For sure. Right? So like, you can't we can't take Romans one and go Although Paul said, I know is Christ crucified. It's not as simple as that but it is as simple as that. This is my second thought then, is that like, but that is the foundational notion. You don't get to speak on Romans two, three issues or three issues or four issues, and for heaven's sake, stay away from Romans nine, if if you don't have Romans one correct. Like if you can't if you can't face

the world on your knees in humble submission and prayerfully approach the world, that God singled out a particular people that, again, when we think of the nation of Israel as elect, they were specifically chosen as God's people for a specific purpose. And that's to be a nation of priests. Yeah. People who were supposed to be the mediators between God, between Yahweh God and the rest of the world who needed to know him. That's why God was always frustrated with them is not because he loved them more than everybody else that came to him, it's because he gave them and chose them for a specific work. And they blew it up, doing what? Much of what we're doing now.

Chasing their own national identity. Asserting their own freedoms to do whatever human behavior they feel like is either feels good or is brings them power or brings them glor. And like the the things that that we don't like when God steps into their to the nation and punishes them, it's always a humbling. It says, I gave you everything in the world. You had me and now you're rejecting me. You're missing the very thing. And the only way that you that God ends up back in his right position is through humbling. And that's exactly what we're talking about from Romans one. When you start to worship someone else or something else, you chose it. As opposed to the one thing and the only thing that deserves worship and praise

to your own glory for your own power generally or your own influence or whatever, you decided to worship something else. Because ultimately, all the something else's almost always point to you. They're almost always a worship of self in some way or another. Your desire, your choice for influence or decision for power, whatever it is, it always comes back to you and honors you as opposed to honoring God. And so but I think that is the right thought though is that like we've got a lot of people jumping the steps here. Like before you should remotely consider speaking upon some social issue or in the middle of an argument among Christians or something or other, like if you're not past worshiping the true King and

kneeling before him humbly and seeing the world as he sees it, wanting its redemption like he wants it, sacrificing for it as is necessary as he did, then you're probably not the right person for everything else that follows. Like we got to get that right first and we jumped the steps. We moved on to Double Jeopardy! And we didn't play the first round yet. And I think that's where we're falling on our face. Because if you don't get the first part right, you won't even know how to engage in the second part. And not that's why working. We're like, Oh, I've got to fight for these Christian principles within our culture. Well, skip step one and so the method of which you're fighting is not going to produce anything. And then you look at the same world and you go, Oh, they're hard hearted and blind. I'm like, Well, you skipped step one. God opens eyes and opens hearts through step one, through submission to him and longing that good news be spread. You move to step two. You move to behavior modification.

And people's behavior is not modifying because soften. God has to soften hearts through that step one. And I think that's what we're missing. So does it feel It feels like we're the minority here, I guess. It's the Christian church. And maybe it's just because the squeaky wheel gets the crease. Right? Maybe just the people who choose to be loud are the ones that end up taking all the bandwidth.

And the humble people serving, you don't even hear from them. They're busy serving. They didn't come up. And so it's very possible that it is not as severe as it looks. It's very possible that there is plenty of God's people spending most of their time praying and serving about all these issues that are blowing up the news and the decisions that are facing America. And really, it's just the extreme parts

of our organization that are causing a big ruckus. But it goes back to that conversation we had, I don't know, six months ago, a year ago, something like that. We were talking about some of the abuse that was rampant within God's church. And a lot of people like to go, Oh, it was in this denomination. And the truth is, it was in God's church that I'm a part of. Right? And we allowed it. And we let this stuff go on forever. Wait a minute. I think that during that same conversation, Mike, that was when we were trying to talk you out of going down to like Kentucky and punching some guy in the face. Here's the deal. Because he was printing his face on underpants. Yeah, this is the thing. And it was not for protecting

the name of the church. That's not my gig. That's Yahweh's gig. And he does it fine. He doesn't need me in the middle of it, right? But it is protect exactly the problem that I'm currently struggling with, with the way that a lot of Christianity is being viewed with the way they're interacting with social media. Like, we talked about it last week when we were talking about rebukes. There's a couple people who I love and are friends of mine, and like, I owe them a conversation because I love them. They're acting foolish. Their love of people is gone. Their love of country is apparently at an all time high,

and their thought process of running it through God's filter of grace and mercy has been put out in the garage for a while. We're not using it. And the thing is, it's not to make them feel bad, it's to bring them back to where God has them. God calls us there anyway. He always did. That's all he ever called us to. And I wonder as Let's say you're seeing it clearly, and that we're looking out on the world and we're going, look, our boys, as members of God's church, are acting a fool. When is it time? Is it time to go find underpants, man, and go, look,

you're done. You're you're just done. We're not gonna go on a social media campaign. We're gonna take your your underpants faces, and you're done. And and that's it. It's time to stop now. Right? And and there's I I always I always think we can't do this because of Paul. And Paul goes, look, whether it's for their own gain or it's for the gain of heaven Isn't Christ being preached? Isn't Christ being But not. But he's not. He's not. But he's not. Right? We're preaching, well, underpants man. King something else. And whoever wants to be in charge of the governmental runnings of The United States and opinions about how groups of people are to act or not act, and that's what we're doing. And so at the end of the day, are the people that are speaking on Christ's church behalf

I mean, when does it become our responsibility to go, look, that's not scriptural. We stop this, fellas. Like, we just sit by and go, oh yeah, they're crazy. Oh, you know, they're blah blah blah. Is it ever our time to step in and go, we gotta shut this down? It's stop. Is there a biblical example for shutting that down? I mean, John the Baptist. John the Baptist. Jesus, I guess, he nailed the Pharisees for four books?

So here how do I how do I understand that, Mike? How do I blend this? Wagner says, I'm a like, let me humble myself in front of God. Let me honor who he is and let me invite people to come along with this. That's making disciples. That's a straight up that's the path to making disciples. But church sometimes needs a rebuke. How do I see those things together? You take Wagner's first point and then you tone mine back down, and go, you submit to God, you pray on that thing. And if he's called you to rub some sticks together Then you do it. Knock some heads, then that's what you're gonna do. Mhmm. If it's your idea in the first place without asking him, you're not the right guy. Yeah. Which makes me not the right guy. Right? Like, that's the first that thing comes to my head, I'm like, haven't even heard about Jesus, I think this is a great plan. I'm not the guy with grace and humility to go do something like that. That doesn't mean he won't send somebody else. Yeah, and I think, I mean, if

you roll it up here, this is not a political aisle distinction. This is, as a Christian, are you submitting your life to King Look at that. That's the whole thing That's in all it is. And like that's what I would say. Like if anybody were to come up and ask me, hey, button issue? Here's blah blah blah. Here's what I think or what do you think I should think? I would say, look, let's pray first and then where God has spoken, let's soak it in. And then you put those two things together and you tell me. Like,

here's the thing, is that like he gave the Spirit. The Spirit is the helper to kind of sort these things out. I would submit to you that a lot of the division that we're finding within Christianity and that expresses itself in politics is a lack of that first step, is a lack of humble submission to King Jesus. Like here's the thing, there are things in Scripture that are hard in this day and age. There are things in Scripture that are easy to walk away from and say, But that isn't really it's not the common thinking. We've moved on past this. That's not my place to move on past it. It just isn't. Because in humility, however easy it would be to say, We've moved on past this and like, let's just go where the winds are blowing. Like, my humble submission to Jesus and trust in his word says it has to be right. It has to be right, even if I don't like it. There's all kinds of things that I would prefer that he say, Hey Ben, it's okay to do white lies. It's okay to gossip because it's fun. It's cool. It's okay to stay mad at people. Yeah, it's okay to not forgive.

Or even just a couple times, even if you go with the old Jewish practice and just say, Look, at least three. Give it three. Right, and after that they're done. Yeah. And Jesus looks at the Jews in front of them and he goes, let's do seven in a day. And I'm like, you know, we don't really do that anymore. It exposes me to too much potential harm. It makes me take other people's problems upon myself. It causes me to enable behavior if I forgive a man who has to and I have to do it seven times a day. Psychology has moved beyond Jesus. We don't do this anymore. Now like, pick your poison. When I say things that Scripture doesn't align with, everyone's got the thing that pops into their mind either because they care about it personally or someone else has made them care about But like one way or another, it pops into your mind. Here's what I'm telling you, humble humans gotta do the best they can with what they have in front of them. I think the spirit will sort some of this stuff out. I think human certainty is a risk, like where we're like we definitely know. There's all kinds of things where I will preface a phrase and say smart people who love Jesus disagree with me here. Because it's generally true. There are smart people who love Jesus who will disagree on something. And I feel like we're gonna keep pursuing it in prayer and God will move things together as they have to move. But like I think our gap is that

we're missing that part. Like I'd rather spend ten years in humble submission in prayer and study before I decided to pick a fight with somebody about something. Unless God says, Look, this is it. This is clear. This is a rebuke. Go tap for that man. Do you know why I would probably say 75% of the current Western church will disagree with you? Why is that? Because they have never tried it. Because they didn't do it. They've never done it. Yeah. And because they

don't have a king. Right. They don't. Right. They don't. That's the thing I've heard you say tonight that I know I still have to work on, right, is not just submission to one who offered me salvation, not just submission to one who created the cosmos who has all the power, but submission to a king means I have none. And I think we wrestle with that Western culture period. Self sufficiency, what we have made for ourselves, our achievements, like we've proven it. Like look what I've done, I made it. Our culture exists because we gave the finger to a king. True. We don't like authority. Right. Right. So now we bring people into churches, love God, love God, and God is the king, like the only one with power. And we wonder why it's hard for people to,

not just to accept that, not to devote themselves to that, but to even understand it. Oh, sure. It makes no sense in our context. It made much more sense, I think, to the people of Jesus' time when they had like authoritarian, like thumb down, like wrath, not just God's wrath, but you know, like Rome come through and just wipe you out. Like that, okay, I understand kingship. You know, like now, I mean the levels of authority in our culture are more than we could count in the two hours we have left. Like, just start thinking through your own life. Like, alright, so maybe a boss and their boss and their boss, but ultimately they submit to like some governmental authority, local or state, and there's a global one above that, maybe military, maybe something else. I mean, we have no reference for just one king. Just one. And I know I struggle with that. Like, I try to find, like, well, I know you have the power, Jesus, but can I pray about this thing so that I can have a little bit of power, too? Like, I really feel passionate about this. Like, can you just give me a little bit of that power so I can be sure about this thing and do good work? Yeah. Do really good work with you. It's in line with what you'd want done. I'm just asking, can I be your man on this deal? Because I feel like I'm good at that. Like, I can do this. And even I love how you said a minute ago, you were like, and because I didn't pray about it first, I'm not the right guy. I come up with a thousand great ideas every day that I didn't talk to Jesus about first, and I try them. And I shouldn't. Right?

I shouldn't try any of them. If I had a king, I wouldn't try one. I would, like, humbly submit myself before that king if it was just a one to one. But I've put so many things, just like in my real life, like levels between me and God, where I assume God's not paying attention yet. Mhmm. I haven't made it to the top yet. Yeah. There might be an angel somewhere upset with me. You know, maybe maybe the Holy Spirit's a little upset, but God the Father, he's okay. He doesn't know about it yet. Yeah. Right? He's not hurt. Instead of, like, there is there is one level. Yeah. There is God, and there is everything else in creation. Right? And so if that's my king, I wouldn't do much besides open my eyes without saying, is this a good idea? Is this gonna be alright? But I do it every day. And so I really appreciate this conversation. I really appreciate the spirit of humility that we're calling for first. I don't think, and I hear what you're saying, Mike, and I didn't mean to infer that, you know, like, hey, Romans one is the only answer. Oh, no, There's like so But many levels after I'm just confessing,

like, that part of the reason I say I'm simple is because I'm still trying to work out that first one, right? And until I can, like, say, you know what, like, this moment I fully submitted that Jesus is the only King, nothing else has power, and I really better keep my business out of everything else. You know? And it doesn't make me I feel like that makes me incomplete, and I'm okay with that. Like, I'm working to on sanctification. I'm allowing God to work in me, to make me into something new. But I've got to let go of that, like, oh, but I've got to have a stand. Like, God's got to want me to do something. No, I don't. I've got to have a king. I've got to have a first love.

And when that relationship is right, maybe if God blesses me with something, I'll get to go and do. I'll get to go and serve. But it's hard. No. And I think that was my point. And I didn't mean that also to as a critique against what you're talking It about, Fundamentals was it was that like, I think we all recognize that Paul wrote more than that, but like, there's a reason that's a foundational thought. There's a reason that that kicks us off. And like if can't walk into some of these things with humility, then we can't move on. We're still on the milk. We're not the meat people. And like we need meat people. And like there are things in Scripture where like, look, this is pretty clear. Someone has to speak to this and this is our foundation of life. But like, even those things, if you cannot communicate

if you cannot take communicate the words of Jesus and if you try to communicate the words of Jesus and miss, sorry, and miss the heart Sorry, Wagner's acting like a total babushka over there. Sorry, it was just stirring at me. Keep going, keep If you My hand wasn't up yet, I wasn't like He was getting ready to throw it. I thought he was gonna pass out. I couldn't tell what was happening. Continue. If you

it's it's Dude, it's trying to communicate the words of Jesus without the heart the heart of Jesus misses the truth of Jesus. Like, you can't just it's not just a word pass. We're not just passing around 10 Commandment tablets here. That's why I don't care whether they're in the lawn at the State House. It's why I don't particularly care whether you put it in your lawn. Don't If it's the words of Jesus without the heart of Jesus, then ultimately you're not getting it rhymed. Can I take you down a tangent? Yes. And if you don't want me to, if you've got something else to talk about, I just want take you down a one five minute little branch. Our show is made for tangents. So like, as one who has been offered the opportunity to be a leader in a church, right, I feel so blessed that God lets me do this, right? Here's one of the things I think that bogs up the church too, is that pastors, so church leaders, whether you're a small group leader, a pastor, a worship leader, or whatever your title is, like

we are afraid. We are afraid that if we don't get to the next issue, that it won't be enough for the people. Right? Like, who's going to show up to hear Wagner say again, like, is Jesus your king? Yeah. I'm in. Is Jesus your king? Who's gonna show up for the third week in a row of my whole sermon for twenty minutes and I just go, alright, friends, I just want you to jot down every king on a piece of paper you have besides Jesus, and then you're just gonna unpack that for yourself for a while because Jesus is the only king. Then we're gonna sing this song, Jesus is my king, the end and you're going go home. Third week nobody comes back. Like, they're like, well, about the election? What about crime? What about injustice? What about and those are really important things, right? What about the marginalized? What about the other?

Where is your stand? Like, what does your church stand for? And I feel like right now, if the answer is this is a frailty of mine, like, if the answer is, oh, my issue right now is Jesus isn't the king. Well, like, but but what about, like, the riots? Like, what what about, you know, this injustice? What about people who don't have anything to eat? What about all these political things happening? And and I don't have, and I'm looking for, and I I'm this has got me even more willing to humble myself and just pray, like, courage the to be like, wanna be there, and I do love people, and I know that, like, serving people is ultimately where I will be, but I think we gotta figure out, like, where God fits in this first. And it's not as sexy as a sermon series on human sexuality. Yeah, I agree. It's not as sexy as a sermon series on

what it means to be a person of color right now, which I think is a legit thing the church should be talking about. You know, the whitewashing of the Protestant church, I think it's a real thing. But, like, how am I supposed to have authority in that if what comes behind that is nothing else? Like, have a church for every issue. Right. Town, we've got the church that is about the environment. And you know what? That's an important thing. And we've the church that's about human sexuality, and that's a thing that shows up in the Bible. And we've got a church that's about immigration, and that's a real deal in the Bible, too. But

I want to be, really am desperate to be a part of a church that is about Jesus. And then maybe I'll be so lucky as to figure out what comes next. So here's the thing. It's like, you know, we have fear in it because we don't try it. We won't try it. Know. We're scared to death there, right? Because, mean, even Look at our man. Look at our man Paul. Paul, what do you know? Christ crucified. Paul, what else? A lot of stuff. But Christ crucified. Put me in the stocks. Yep. I'll be here. Right? And and so I I It's

it's funny. Like, all these thoughts keep coming through my head as we have this conversation. One, like, I lead a youth group. It is almost impossible to show references to God, Yahweh as a father and Yahweh as a king. We have zero reference for that in our culture. Zero. Right? If I'm lucky, there's two kids out of 20 that have a dad that still lives at their place and loves them and pays attention to them. Right? They have terrible references for God as a father. They also have terrible references for God as a king because we got no king. And that's all true. And I think the thing that

we want heavy issues to be complicated because it starts to back up why they're heavy. And that's not true. That's not true. You know the answer to the whitewashing of the Protestant church? Jesus is. He didn't ask for none of that. You created that, humanity. Sinful humanity created that. Right? You wanna know the answer for immigration policies that don't include people doing the right thing and being loved on? You know who created that. It was you, humanity. Right? Like, you created all this, the human sexuality problem. God spoke to these things. He loves them more than than you do. Your heart pounds hard, but God loves them. He died for them. He knows them. He's after them. He loves them so much. And he'll send the Holy Spirit right behind them their whole lives until they turn around. Because Jesus. That's why. It's always Jesus. It's not a complicated answer. Now, walking that thing out in a world full of broken humanity, Jesus knows that. That's why we have the book of Hebrews. It's a tough gig. Right? This is a tough role walking through fallen humanity. And God says, I get it.

I'm gonna pay your debt and I'm gonna send someone to help you. And so, yeah, are all we talking about is it as simple as who is your king, Submit and trust. I'm struggling. I know. That's why we pray. God shows up, God tells you what to Okay, I'm gonna tell you a quick story. About three months ago, my life fell on its face. I got some news, and at that time, it

occurred to me that I can't do anything without him. I knew it for a fact that everything that I'd been trying to do and everything that I was struggling for and everything I thought I was actually good at and doing well on, I was failing. Because I was not running it through him. And I spent the next three months praying and praying, all the time. Every day, all the time. In between conversations with other people, breaks in the radio, whatever. You'd have found me a month before the thing happened. And they said, look, you need to pray unceasingly. I'm like, yeah, okay. Nobody actually does that. It's a pipe dream. I'm telling you, people don't do this thing, you know? Well, here I was a month later, and boy, did I find myself doing it. And every time, I would start my prayer with, dear Father God, I can't do this without you. I can't be the father you designed me to be, I can't be the worker you designed me to be, I can't be the husband you designed me to be. I can't do it. I can't do this without you. Will you please show up? Please, I'm begging you, show up. And whatever you got, I'm in. And I've

experienced more fruit from that humility in not only myself but the people around me than I've seen in the other thirty seven and a half years I've been on this planet. And as the time went on, as months went on, two months, two and half months, I feel old King Mike rolling back in. And I smell him coming through the door. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. You you leave. You leave. I know what happens when you run things. You leave. Because the the mountain thing, the high top mountain where God where God calls you to repentance and he calls you to humility and you find yourself on your face and you go, I don't care, don't wanna be anywhere else, it does wear off. Boy, is hold on, just not to pass that, that is the right notion of a mountaintop experience. Mhmm. Yeah. God's call to humility and repentance in your life. Like we look at those things totally long. We we look at guilt kind of that way. We look at like burdens upon your heart that says, boy, this stuff is weighing me down. But like the notion of relief from those things and right understanding of your contribution to it and then Jesus' contribution to freedom up against it, like, if that's not our mountaintop, we're climbing the wrong mountain. Yes. Yes, exactly. And it's how you can almost separate, help people separate wheat from chaff, right, when they're like, man, was just

The Holy Spirit's a tough topic, right? People sometimes interpret things that the Holy Spirit does, and sometimes they're just emotional highs, sometimes they're right on the Holy Spirit just kicking tail and moving things around. Always pointing you to Jesus, by the way. That's the way the Holy Spirit works, it's a job. But there's so many people in your life right now, and if you can't look at whoever's on the opposite side of you politically, morally, socially, whatever your current ax to grind is against anybody else on this planet, if you can't look at them with empathy and go, please God, give me one more day to try to talk to somebody about you, please. I

just need one more day. I need your Holy Spirit to show up. I actually can't do anything. I stopped telling God what to do. I used to, when I prayed, I'm like, Lord, get Adam in a dream or something. I know what will do it. Right? And then there's that guy up the chasm in Abraham, you know, and he's like, just send a guy. They'll listen. And old Abe goes, no, man. I've already tried they're not gonna listen. I know they're not gonna listen. Right? And once again, you get down on your knees and you put your face to the floor and you go, I can't do any this without you. The dream thing, like I'm praying for a guy specifically, I'm like, I think you should get him in a dream. But you know that's the best thought I have. It's only my ideas. You'll do this in whatever way you're gonna do it in the right time, but just know, I don't know how to frame

my earnestness and my plea for you to drop a rock on this man. I I'm begging you, don't let him go on And I've begged the same thing every day for three months, for like 10 to 15 people. God, I'm begging you to drop a rock on the guy. And I will keep asking until that rock lands on that man. And I will keep waiting And for just to clarify, because not everybody knows you, you don't literally mean drop a rock on a man. You mean disrupt his life for the glory of the kingdom. Whatever brings him to humility. Noted. Once again, I don't tell God how to do his business. If the rock, a physical rock is gonna get it done, I think he'll do it. But once again, it's asking God to do all the things that he does because I know for a fact that you can preach the best written sermon and it can be polished and snazzy with a sweet camera and a fog machine and a band.

And like, without ears to hear or eyes to see, it's noise. It does nothing without the Holy Spirit going, Greg, this one's you. I need you to listen. I need you to listen. And so, if the thing that we're doing is even walking into We pray before everything, right? But we don't pray before anything, you know? We don't go, look man, I am honored that you would let me raise these kids. I am honored that the wife that you've provided, I am honored the situations that you've put me in. But you know this as well as I do, I cannot do anything without you. I cannot do these things. I need you every day, every day. Thank you for listening to me again, you know? And like, you're stumbling and you're stammering, he loves it all. Because it's all humility, and it's you submitting to the king. And the coolest part is is, like, you don't even have to ask him. He will let you see the cool things that he's doing. He will let you see the things that you know could not have been done without him. And you get to sit back and go, I didn't scheme any of this. I didn't try to come up with a Tuesday night class on how to understand the Holy Spirit better. Not that you shouldn't have one, but you know what I'm saying? Like, it wasn't a a pipe dream. It wasn't a plan on my end. It wasn't a I'll get them with this argument, or if I just address this issue, finally, they'll be pacified. That you know better than that. That's not what's gonna happen at all. As soon as you address that issue, half of them are gonna leave, the other half are gonna stay, and then they're gonna bring up another issue next week that they're gonna want you to address until you're whittled down to a guy calling balls and strikes. And the one thing Jesus did not do is get in the middle of petty human fighting. He bailed every time. Every time. Yeah. My brother's gonna take my inheritance. Let me tell you something. Yeah. It's got nothing to do with that, really. I wanna answer a different problem. Like, Jesus always bailed on personal problems and pointed people to higher principles which I think comes down to the thing that we're saying here which is like

if someone is really geared up to talk about the thing of the day, like a reasonable response to every one of them is, I hear that that burdens your heart. Let me take it to King Jesus with you. And then here's the thing, King Jesus may move my heart on it. He may move yours. But like if the first, as Christians, if someone said that to you and you're not satisfied, we missed the first step. Yes, yes. Hey, I don't like who they just elected.

Boy, I hear that that's a burden upon your heart and you're worried about some things related to that. Let me take it with you to King Jesus and have him work on us with it. And let's start there. And like, think to John's point, yes, I think we all acknowledge that like there are we have to go do. God created us to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so there's doing here. We're not talking about, like, God, can I go to Hy Vee today? Hey. I was thinking about getting some apples. How do feel about that? Right. I mean, obviously, I get You know what I'm saying? Like, don't take it too far just so you can create a ridiculous scenario of where this is not important. Yeah. That's what you can paint this to say, oh, all they that they're saying, just all they do is pray about everything and everything will shake out. Like, God created the hands and feet of people to do work. Okay? We're there. In fact, we're created to be the very description of Genesis is God described it as his idols, the people that represent Yahweh on this earth. And so, yeah, we got tons to do. But what I'm I think what we're getting at here is to say, you went and did without

without checking in with the king, without making sure that what you're going and doing is in fealty to the king's orders, with the king's heart to create and fill up the kingdom that he desired. Because here's the deal, you can't drag people into the kingdom in the wrong way. You can't grab them by the neck and drag them in and go, look, Jesus, I got one. He's like, no, no, no, Like, one wants here's the deal. He those types of people don't want to spend an attorney with Jesus. I'm not sure he wants to spend an attorney with anybody who doesn't want to be there. And so let's let's just like, what we're saying is is if you are not satisfied with the first option, which is let's talk to Jesus about this and see what he's got for us, then like that's a direct example that we lack humility and that we're not we're serving something else. And we violate idol provision number one in Romans one. And that's where God turns it over and like we have I tell you what, we run a risk. I think we're not as sensitive to this as we should be but like we are taking the Lord's name in vain. We have taken the name of God, the name of Yahweh, attached it to ourselves for our own glory. We we write that one off because we're like, oh, just don't don't say GD. That'll solve this problem. Don't use his name shallowly,

which is also important. But like but that's that's not really what what it's getting at. It's saying don't don't take his name upon you and then use it for vanity, for your own glory. We as Christians vote this way. We as Christians like press this issue or not. And like again, we're not dismissing these are important things. Think there's things that are not great that our society promotes.

But like you're not going to get at that on the plane of trying to talk about it as a rational discussion. It's a heart. They're heart issues. And all my heart issues get solved by Yahweh. That's right. The God that you don't know feels that this is not best. That's not gonna work. Might as well come up to me and say, hey, you know what? Zeus doesn't appreciate that you gather for your worship service on Sunday. He'd like you to move it to Monday. I'm like, I don't worship Zeus, so buzz off. It doesn't mean anything to me. That's right. And so tell me once again that the thing that we're afraid to lead with is the only thing that matters. And yes, and frankly, it's the only thing the church has to offer that has nothing else like it anywhere else in the world. That's right. I know we love this and I love community, but like people could find really good community at Carl's place on Friday nights. Yeah, there's people swear by it. Same people, they love you, they remember your name, they remember your stories, they'll commiserate with you. They know what beer you're drinking? That's right. Right. They can go to the bar, you can find community there. It's not the right community, it's the same type of community. But like, the world has a lot of things to offer. Hey, nice, good, rational arguments, logical arguments for this thing or that thing. Understanding of like groups of people who can talk about how to set up governments and who should be in the government and why this thing's gonna fail and why this thing's not. Right? The

church is getting in the middle of something in which there is a lot of alternatives. When we have within our hearts and souls the one thing that undergirds and changes everything that the rest of the world does not have to offer And if that isn't the thing that we are leading with, we're failing. We're failing ourselves because we don't get to be part of God's cool work. We're just another schmo on the Internet firing stuff off at some other guy in his underpants. Great. Two guys in his underpants. This what this what you wanted to grow up to be? Yeah. A couple of fellas in their underpants? Yeah. Firing it up on the Internet. Yeah. Writing letters in poor grammar. Typing, no doubt. I mean, you don't even get to go and yell at a guy. You gotta do it with exclamation points and capitals. Yeah. You've been robbed of everything, friends. Can't you see? What a wheel. Right. Like like think a lot of this is undergirded by, hey, we're being emasculated. You emasculated yourself with your with your emoji and your response, hey, Ted, I think you're wrong and

your sources are bogus. Okay, way to get Ted. Congratulations. Is he closer to Jesus here? Pray Ted under the table. Let's start there. Until he falls under the table and sees you down there and goes, What am I doing Jesus is after you. That's nothing I can do. Yeah. And social media is censoring my posts. Well, don't censor your phone or your voice or your handshake or your ability to go to the diner and meet a guy. I mean, I mean, look how far we are. We're just I mean, we're just crying to cry. Know? Right. Our hands have been tied by a corporation that doesn't observe any of my values. Okay. Yeah. Where's the surprise event? Big shocker. What a shock. I can't believe this. And here we are, arms raised up and armed. You'll never believe what they're doing. You saw this as a surprise? You walked in here with your eyes closed then, friend. You knew exactly what this was when you signed up. Right. And, like, here's the thing. I think, like, to some of this stuff, a reasonable person goes, yeah. I think that's wrong, but I'm not sure it changes anything about my reaction to it. What oh, it is wrong. Okay. Now what? Yeah. Yeah. What? What were we gonna do when anything else is wrong? Like, you're gonna you're gonna you can't control the world except through the means of the power of he who created it. And then he and then only then can it be controlled in such a way that otherwise rectifies it to himself. What are your aims? I wanna say what I wanna say.

That's what I wanna do. Yeah. But that's what happens if you follow that thought tree out, like, for the simple mind. You follow it out. So, you know, the social media gets blocked. Whatever. Okay, so have you prayed to Jesus about it? Well, what's Jesus going to do about that? It totally falls apart, which is another reason we don't go back. Right. Right? Like, because Jesus doesn't care, right? They don't care. Exactly right. Right. But but I care. No. I'm not saying I specifically care. Wish I could get off of social media, but have the people I talk to only talk to me through this. I know. Know. Know. How do I delete it if this is my connection to these people? I I could talk face to face, but that's a lot of work. No. But seriously, like, we're smart enough to know not to ask that question. That's right.

That's So like, I know that if you tell me, like, I'm really, really upset about a sports team losing, right, if you tell me, Tuck a juice about that, I'd be like, of course I'm not going to do that because it's not important. Now put that in front of any, almost any hot button this, hot button that things happen in the world, and it hurts us because we think we're supposed to care more. Right? Because we've begun to worship it, because it's become our idol, because Jesus isn't the most important thing. I mean, if you called me on that about something I'm passionate about, it would push me back into my seat, and I'd be like, because it isn't as important as Jesus, and that's probably why I shouldn't be focused on it, I guess. But if you already aren't in a heart space

where you want that, right, where I've I've found that submitting is the best thing I can do, that powerlessness, if you will, is a gift. Like, right, like to be able just to praise is an awesome thing. To not have to have dominion over all of creation is a great burden not to have to have upon your if you're not already in that headspace, then telling somebody, like, oh, this is good that Jesus doesn't care. Like, I care. Like, it's become about me

and my opinion and my objective. And those objectives might be righteous. They might be. Yeah. But if they are, it's accidental. It's accidental. Like, we stumbled upon it. Like, have you done that? I've done that. I've stumbled into God's will before. Like, I pray about it afterward. Like, gosh, I can't believe I found my way into God's will. That was weird. That doesn't happen very often. But when it does, I mean, I almost feel like I'm like, wow, maybe I can do this by myself. Right? And so I think that's the whole problem. But what's hard, I feel the struggle and I need to just let go of it, I know I do. But the struggle I have is like, I want to tell people, like, Jesus is the only thing. And

that isn't the answer that I'm just going throw out a huge number. 90% of people, believe that it answers their question because it's not their question. It's almost like I'm walking into a room and I say, four. And they're like, no, no, no, Our question was, was the capital of Washington? I say, Jesus, no, no, no, no. That wasn't our question. Our question is, what is happening with this and why isn't this right yet? And so without being able to somehow redirect the audience to say you're asking the wrong question,

right, because they're looking for an answer that isn't Jesus. It just isn't intrinsically Jesus. Think that's, you know, the the excuse for the clever sermon series, which I've done. The excuse for, like, trying to show up and shine up. And, you know, we don't have fog, but we got lights. Right? We don't we don't have, like, 10 electric guitars, we got two. Got couple. Right? Exactly. Is it kind of like, well, maybe if I can redirect the question somehow, if I can get them to start asking the right question, then when I present the answer of Jesus, they'll be like, oh, well, makes sense to answer that question instead of, what you guys are inferring tonight, and it's really preaching at me, is like, there is only one answer to everything. And if it's not the answer, you're asking the wrong question. If the answer isn't

Jesus is King, Jesus is Lord, then you're probably started with the wrong question. Yeah. Because like if you think about it, like what what's our stock and trade here? Hey, how do we look at the world? Well, what does the Bible say? Okay. That's right. That's right. Except for if you've not submitted to Jesus as King, what his Word says doesn't matter to you. And so, like, it's just it's a system of it's a layer system to say, all right, if we can first of all, are we acknowledging Jesus as King? Because if we're not even there, nothing I say to you has anything is going to help. And like, I have had to say this at least a few different times. Someone will come ask me some advice and I would say, Look, my advice is based upon the assertion that Jesus is king and that what he says is good and true. Do agree with that? Well, no. I said, Well, then I

feel like I'm not gonna be able to help you. I wish I could but like the core premise of which I will be trying to give advice assumes those two things. If we don't agree to that, and I'm not withholding information as a punishment, I'm just telling you like without that as a common understanding, what I will say to you will have no force. Because really, it's just a throwing up of an opinion of which then you will use your own value system to say I agree or disagree, which is what people do. I mean, it's what I would do if I didn't have a king to submit to. It's what normal people do. And so like and I've had to say that and it almost a lot of it comes down to relationship stuff. It's husband wife stuff. And I'm like, look, if we can't this is the premise of which I function. And like I have people that like ask marriage counseling and I'm like, look, I wish I I would love to help. I would love to help but like this is how I view the world.

This isn't where we're starting from, I don't I'm not a smart man. I don't have a lot of genius answers to this. There's a lot of really, really good psychologists and counselors and all kinds of things that maybe it'll help you with your worldly problem here. But like I'm a pastor of Christ Church. That's where I function. It'll be kind of the same thing. Actually, this has come up too. Someone's like, hey, about doing a what was it? Was it's either a wedding or a or a funeral. And they're like, hey. But we don't want you to

we don't want you to teach anything related. I frankly, I think a lot of funeral stuff is is a little bit overdone. But like, I said, you know, you could have anybody do the service. I mean, you know, it doesn't have to be me. I would love to do it. But just so you know, like, I'm a pastor of Jesus' church. Like, when I show up, I talk about Jesus. That's what I'm here for. And like and to serve you in this way, absolutely. But like, just so you know, like, that's not your bag, totally get it. But like anybody can really run this

officiate the service. You don't need Christ's pastor to come do this. And again, it's not an exclusivity thing. But like the whole point is to say that like if we can't if we're not starting from the basic premise that Jesus is king and I will submit to them, everything else that follows doesn't actually have a lot of force. It's just an opinion of which I'm acting like I'm gonna say, well, think we should not allow this or that thing and my uncle Ted agrees. That's how they look at Jesus. He's as good as my uncle Ted. And it doesn't carry any force with people. That marriage counseling thing is a good hitter. Because at the end of the day, people are asking you, will you help me make my marriage better? I only know one way to do that. Yeah. I mean, to be honest, we can try to shine your husband up, or we can try to shine you up and make it act like that you have Jesus in the middle of it. And I've seen some decent marriages without Christ in the middle of it, but boy, I seen some marriages with Christ in the middle of it. Boy, have I seen some marriages. You know what I'm saying? And so

people will ask, Hey, man, I'm having trouble with this and this within my marriage. And they want you to answer a question that you're not even qualified to answer. Right. God, you know a relationship with Jesus Christ is the answer. If they go, well, that's not gonna help me, that's because you have not done it. Ask anybody that has, and they'll tell you that's exactly the only reason my marriage runs. Otherwise, it's two prideful people trying to figure out how to share a space. That's a tough swing. Doesn't matter how much you love them. And the same is true with any type of counsel Life coaches, what a breeze. I

saw something on a guy the other day, was driving me nuts. But at the end of the day, we're trying to fancy up a thing that Christ didn't fancy. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one gets to the Father except through me. And I know that the questions that you're answering, you're asking, why do you want a better marriage anyway? Why? Because I want to feel more joy, more peace, more fruits of the spirit if I have to point you to where you're gonna end up. That's what you're going for. You want all the thing that God is promising, but you wanna get it without God and it doesn't work that way. And so people should be mad at you. I can't help you with your marriage problems, I can help you with a relationship with Jesus Christ which is actually going to help your marriage problem. So And and so now think about that on how you've seen that play out is you have you have actually two groups

of political organizations or at least groups of people who are after things that I think from a biblical perspective can be agreed to. Like where people are marginalized, Jesus calls people in. Where justice is needed

and mercy is needed to be demonstrated and weeping with those who mourn is necessary. Jesus calls involvement of those types of things. But you can't ask for the things of Jesus and then try to pursue them not in the ways of Jesus. That's why they're not effective. And the same thing, if you look at other groups of people and they're saying, look, the moral behaviors of which we are supposed to fall under, our country is not sanctifying. We're codifying things that otherwise allow people to act in other ways. And then they pursued the attempt to implement the opposite of that or behavior modify in ways that weren't consistent with Jesus. Like you just you can't take the shape and smell

of what Scripture points us to from the Lord Jesus and not try to achieve them in the way in which he has asked us to. And the basis of which those are achieved are humble submission to the king. And so like where you see force where you see force attempts to change thoughts and behaviors and like this is not one political side. I know it's most relevant now but like we've seen recent examples of this where we're trying to change what people think by force and not in humble submission to the king because things don't happen fast enough. That's generally the problem with the Lord's work. We're like it's not happening in the way that I want. We don't want true change. Both sides just want behavior modification. Give me the thing that I want. Behave the way that I expect you to, behavior modification. God is only a part of gospel transformation. That's what he's doing. And so if you're not pursuing gospel transformation, I'm not particularly interested

Because gospel transformation can get the things that you're asking for. Because as the gospel transforms people, they do the work of the King and the work of the King is a lot of the stuff that I hear people complaining about, the things that they care about. But like, you want me to tell you how to go about it in your fallible human way or what strategy to go after. I have no skills in this area. I'm not a political strategist. I don't know how to change people's mind on a broad scale. I don't know how to solve major issues of discrimination or hunger or nobody has a father in their house like they probably should. Like I wish I had great answers to this.

The one thing I know that shapes and changes that is humble submission to King Jesus. And it will either give you the means to transform it or it will give you the fortitude to bear it. Yeah. It will do one of those two things and like, I'm not qualified outside of that. That's as far as I go. And like, I was thinking, Jon, when you were talking, I was thinking about you're right. This will sound I think it will sound simplistic to people. But like, if you think of it as just different stages of the same thing, hey, if you don't want to submit this to Jesus, then great, we know where to focus. Let's start with trying to figure out what it looks like to submit this to Jesus. And then second, look, we submitted to Jesus. We know this is a the Bible speaks clearly. These are things of which he says are good for the world and that we need to do or these are things which are not good for the world and that which we need to speak to, okay, then you submit that to Jesus and say, How do I actually go about this in fealty to you of which makes a difference? Because even if you get past phase one, a lot of people start in phase two and go, Well, he spoke about this clearly, I'm a fire it up. Pull the chain on the old generator, we're gonna let this boy run. And you need to submit the mode and the method to Jesus too because again, separated the words of Jesus, separated from the heart of Jesus, don't don't create the ends of Jesus. Yeah. And I actually, I think that tact will produce some people leaving your community. They they weren't really there. You know what I'm saying? They were they were trying to get something else there. And and, like, they hated him they hated Jesus first before they hated you. That's what they're running from. Not you. Not you personally. Your job is to preach the gospel. It hurts, Mike. It hurts to see him run for Hey.

That's the problem. I got a family right at that bench. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, don't think that that thought is not lost on me. But what I do know is, and we talk about this almost every time, is when we talk about spiritual opposition in the world, if if if the opposer can take down one guy and watch 10 people fall because of that one guy,

he loves it. I mean, what a victory. Right? When you when you follow it down in the dumps and go, look, man, I told a guy a hard thing, and he got mad, and he left Jesus' church. He just left, or he's gonna go to a church down the street. You did what God asked you to. God loves that man more than you do, and still had you do it. And you preached Christ crucified like you were asked to, and like God says to. And and the more that you allow yourself to follow that individual or even a group down a rabbit hole of running away from Jesus, and then you like to wear that personally, that it actually reveals how much you don't trust Jesus with them. You don't trust Jesus to hold them or to watch them. You've taken it on as a personal crusade. God has asked me to get those people. If he has not specifically done that, he's got a lot of people. Don't don't ever think to yourself that the man that walks away from Jesus, Jesus goes, good, I'm done with him too. He thinks, Greg, don't worry, I got a lot of people. And it's not just John. John's not the only guy I got. Nathaniel's feeling terrible right now, but, like, I got a lot of people. Roll it up. Let me have it. I will deal with it. And if it's a burden coming back to you, I'll tell you. And you know that when you pray. You know that when you submit humbly and go, I lost Greg. Greg left, and it's breaking my heart. And and the Holy Spirit goes, I know. I know it is. But I got cattle on a thousand hills and I got people who love me all over the place. Don't worry, Greg's not going out of my mind.

It's tough to watch though. I mean, don't don't hear me. Like, it's tough to watch. I think what's hard here, among many things is that if Part of the line of which we're speaking of a bit of a reckoning of reality

that says, are we The thing that actually separates people here is the call to submit to King Jesus. It's not your answer or lack of answer on a social justice issue. That's not what it actually is at all. Yeah. Hey, that guy doesn't believe what I believe. That's not what people get upset. Like they will run because you insist that the only thing we have to offer is Jesus and they wanna talk about something else. And like if that is the case, then like that is not that isn't a judgment upon them from an earthly perspective. It is a revealing.

And like this is what God deals with. Like this is why repentance is a gift. Called a repentance as a gift. We hate guilt but to the extent that God puts a here's the deal, the Christians, we just changed the language. We stopped calling it guilt. We call it a burden upon our hearts. But I'm gonna tell you this, it's guilt Sucks. And the Lord deals And here's the thing, this

never came into greater relief than when my oldest kid just couldn't shake something and like she came out and then she goes, I just couldn't let this go and I handled this wrong and I lied or she lied about something I think. And so she says, I just needed to tell you. And like for some reason in that particular moment, God just put it in my mind to say, what a gift that was. Like what did you want God to do? To see you walking down a wrong path and just let it go? Like what a cool burden of the spirit to put it on your heart and say, look, I can't shake this. I can't shake it. I need to go I need to turn from this and I need to go talk to the people that I have offended because that's exactly what Jesus asked you to do. And so why should I be surprised that there's a burden, that he would lay a burden upon my heart to go do the very thing that brings me freedom and joy and starts to put things back together that I have torn apart? And so again, we even have a posturing towards, well, didn't create us to feel guilty. I agree, because he gave you the mechanism to turn from it. That's right. He didn't create you to live there. That's right. You're certainly gonna visit. That's right. That's right. And so like, but it's those things that like,

it's the things that traditionally and by traditionally, I'm gonna put I'm gonna bucket it off and say probably within the last, I don't know, fifty, sixty years, is that the church is like we kind of started walking away from because it feels like it feels harsh. It feels like it feels harsh to people. But like, boy, the path to these are the paths to freedom. The paths to freedom are turning from things. The paths to freedom are saying, boy, I really feel like doing this thing but God says freedom is over here. And and if he's not right, then he's not God. And like, so yes, it rolls up to a much larger question and that's frankly, there's people that walk away from God for that particular reason. They're like, well, if he can't agree with me here or if if if this doesn't align with what I want, then either I have to say, I'm openly giving God the finger or there just isn't one. And so they choose there isn't one because the burden of saying there is a God and I'm giving him the finger, a lot of people just don't have the stones for it. Yeah. And I get it. It's easier to say there isn't one. I just don't know if the evidence points that way. And so but like that's the thing is that we just things that were good,

that were beneficial, that seem hard are really the paths to freedom And like we I think we got away from that and so we don't give people the mechanism to actually live in that freedom. And so now they're just in this ambiguous state of what do I do with what I feel and how do I get God aligned to what I want? And we lost a little bit of King Jesus in there. Just a little bit over time. Actually, you know what it reminded me of was at the

start of Leviticus is when he talks about making a sacrifice, the sin offering. And like one of the things you had to do is like you had to take in the presence of a sin offering, you had to go grab your own animal, a good one. And here's the deal, we eat meat all the time. Those fellas meat's expensive. It's a luxury there. Okay? So if you're gonna have to knock off an ox or a heifer, like, that's gonna cost you something. But again, it's gotta be a really good one. And so you had to walk up, bring your animal up to there, and like, it's misunderstood. The priest didn't slaughter this thing. You slaughtered it. You had to kill it. And then you just gave parts of it to the priest who then put some on the altar, threw some out, washed out the entrails and did what they did. But the thing was is that the notion of atonement on the sin offering was you had to like put your hand on this animal and effectively kind of transfer the stuff over your

wrongdoing, looked his heifer in the eye, hand on, and then you kill it. And there was something about like we don't do that anymore obviously because Jesus has made this sacrifice. But like there is something way more tangible about our sin and our separation from God when you have to look it in the eye every time and hold it. And this is not me saying that God hasn't handled this well. Obviously, the solution with Jesus was the right one. But like because we're separated from having to look our stuff in the eye, we become passive about it. Which is why like, it's not a it's not an

ultra holy thing to say check out the Passion of the Christ once a year. It's a reminder thing for me. Not because I celebrate the goriness of it, but it's to remind myself that, like, if I had to to put my hand on Jesus' shoulder and said, Okay, I did it. And again, not because he's wanting to beat you up about it but it's just a reminder, a tangible reminder of things. And I say that example only to say if when we get separated from the reality and kind of tangibleness of some of those actions, repentance and right submission

to a holy God, it pushes away and our kingdom makes more sense to us because we're not being constantly reminded of stuff like that. And so I just think it's the only thing we have to be careful is like the only thing that we can do and do right is preaching your Christ crucified and submission to a holy king and then what that looks like for us. And anything beyond that, like we may be stepping outside of our borders or let's nail that first and then maybe we can tackle the problems of the day. Yeah. I mean, let's let's pray on it. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I don't know what God's got going for your specific congregation. Yeah. I know you can't lose with the Jesus is king. I know that. Biblically true. Yeah. Ready to go. Ready to ship out the door. Package is done. And you could probably fill up at least your sermon time with your story on how you came to know that was true and how you're trying to get you're trying to act and make your life align like it's true, and you're only making it by the blood, sweat, tears of the Holy Spirit, and your submission to the work that he's doing. If that's not engaging,

then they don't have ears to hear and they don't have eyes to see, and we're going back to prayer and asking God to give it to them, Because your whizbangery words are, I'm telling you, bummer. I've done the same thing. I'm telling you, I'm not pointing fingers, we're looking in mirrors, boys. Yeah, these are mirrors. Know saying? These are mirrors here. And the exact thing that we're talking about, tell me we haven't been talking about this for half an hour, I'm geared up. Like, yes. So we have things to do, because why? Ears to hear, eyes to see. Holy Spirit, have your way. So here's here's the thing to do. And I don't know, I don't recall that we've done this before, but like, I would like to pray on this right now. Yeah. Let's make this thing happen. Here's the deal, I don't know how to enforce It's not a round robin unless you want in, but I'm gonna fire it up and then we'll just see what happens. Okay. Alright. Dear Father, you're good.

You are a good king, you are a faithful king, you are a loving king. And I thank you for being here with us today. I thank you for humbling our hearts. God opening us up to see the world the way that you see it. Boy it feels like we're taking risks here. Like we're taking risk on bailing on important conversations. It feels like we are looking for an easy way out, a cheap way of not having our answer the big questions that people have. But it just seems God that even those reactions are trying to rely on

our own way of looking at the world, on our own understanding, on our own wisdom, on our own plotting for what it looks like to change the world. And foundationally God that we can't be humbled in service to You first and foremost in humble prayer that says whatever You got, we're in. Whatever You say is good, we want. However You want us to go about it, we need your boldness but we want to go do it. And prioritize that over and above any

human level stuff, any human desire to function out on who has power and in what way and who's taking power from me and who's not acknowledging the power I should have or the attention I should have or the elevation of who I think I should be. Like there's just there's a bunch of complicated human mess stuff and I don't know that human voices is what actually sorts that out. In fact, I'm confident that it doesn't. We've seen humans try to do it. And so we submit ourselves humbly to you God. Help us, I mean whatever it takes to continue to bring that humility to us day to day, to remind us, I mean if you've a whatever needs to humble us daily for us to go, Yep, tried that on my own, what a miss. For us to trust in you and that You are good

and that You will provide us with direction and that Your Holy Spirit has been given to us to do these very things that we don't know how to solve because we're human and that we can just rely on You and the things that You provide. And so God I pray for the fellows in this room and for anybody that's listening God that you would just continue to pour out the spirit of humility in us. The thing that brings us to our knees and doesn't say, Look what's the right answer? We say, What's your answer? What do you have? How does our heart need to change in how we look at it? Can we look at people rightly first before our mouths open? Can we pray about them powerfully before our mouths open? Can we trust in you wholly before our mouths open?

And I know these are important things. At the root of these things we got people are scared, they're anxious, they're they're fight ultimately a lot of these things are fighting for things that you fight for. We're just trying to get them in the wrong way. We're trying to grab them with the limits of our human understanding. We're trying to grab them with the limits of our human exertion of power and authority. But we don't want shallow change. We don't want change that gets to get reversed every four years when some new dude shows up and uses the power to change it. Like this, we don't want that. That's back. We don't do badminton. We do real gospel transformation and change and we know that only you provide that. You open hearts, you open minds. And so I submit to that humbly God that you would continue to work on us fellas for that very thing.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Okay good. Nathaniel, I thought you was gonna come in, Billy Sunday. You think about it? Did you even consider it? Did you? Yeah. I thought I could. You got it? Okay. It's on the tip of the tongue. Here's the deal. If you decide to come in, here's the code word, Santa's got a brand new bag. Okay? And you say that and then I will know that you're gonna come in with the spirit has come upon you. The wind

is from the west. Hey, you know, was reading the Oh, he's gonna do it? No. Nathaniel has something to say. Oh, he he didn't say Santa's gotta bring it stop talking. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead, Nathaniel. Hit hit me with it. I thought you were about to tell story about the the king thing again. Oh, no. Was really really embarrassed. No. No. I won't tell that. I'll tell it to the fellas after the show. Okay. That was it? You just wanted to defend your honor for a future date? Yeah. Okay. That's fair. Okay. But that's because, you know, I'm not hubbly submitting. Yeah. So I've gotta some you know, throw throw hands. Alright.

Hey. You're listening to Live From The Path. Thanks for hanging out with us. Hey. I like this discussion way better than the political discussions. Yeah. Know. Way better. The deal. We could have spent a good half an hour trying to sort out the world's problems of which have not been sorted out yet. Yeah. But I think we have to sort out of the world's problems. It's just not as it's as easy but as hard as what we were just talking about. Okay. You wanna do a couple things of advice and then we'll cut a trail? Yeah. Mike, did you have Pope style? Yeah. We covered it. Okay. Alright, awesome. Yeah, I had a theme rigged up. It was like, Give me the chains. I don't remember what my point was. The spirit took it away because it was probably dumb. Yeah, I agree. Consider that a gift. Alright. Alright. Let's do it. Dear

Dear Life from the Past. Oh, no. Okay, here we go. Dear Life from the Past. My boyfriend and I have been living together for almost five years. Of course you His parents bought a house a few doors down. They pop in whenever they feel like it and even walk into our bedroom while we were in bed. I need this to stop. Wait a minute. Hold on. Separate apartment? A few doors down? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The parents live in a separate place. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. His mother and I had a falling out in the past because she felt she had a right to control everything down to where I keep my dirty laundry. This is a touchy subject with my boyfriend, let alone his mother. Please help me. Okay. So I wouldn't begrudge a listener of the show saying, well, what do you say, boys? Take it to King Jesus for them. And then they have us. I mean, they've got us the whole premise of this advice column. It's some something beyond. Actually, I considered that after we were talking about this. Like, Maybe this is a bad idea for some don't know if we could keep doing Dear Life From The Path, because obviously it's just a bunch of bloviating on how to make your life look like you're following Jesus.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We just ruined life from the past. Oh, man. I think you know, if there's one thing I learned today, we gotta submit to these things. This is a disaster. We have to quit doing it. Okay. Here's the deal. I'm willing to pursue these questions in the light of potential comedic value only. Okay. That's right. Let's do that. Okay. Okay. So so let's start with the basic principles. One, you need to stop living together. Yeah. It's not helpful to you. It's not what God designed for good. And so and frankly, because

they're not married. Yeah? Yeah. Not married. Yeah. I I you know, I'd able to assert a little bit more united front here with with old mom and pops if if if your situation were slightly different from a social perspective. And so I'd I'd I'd say that. Second of all, it's it's his mom. Yeah. This is his problem. Yes. He's not marriage material, frankly, based upon what I've No. He should've put this at the handled bucket at least four years ago. Yep. Yep. I was like, boss, this got shut down. And no, you ain't moving two doors down for me. No. Why would you even do that? This is a bad idea. And he would know that. And if he doesn't know that, again, don't think he's married material. He's not taking in the full counsel of the world, right? If you don't know your mom just a little bit over the top on some of this stuff and your wife says, or your future wife or your girlfriend says things like, Look, man, she's a little over the top. And you're like, Oh, she's not so bad. Nope. Nope. You're missing a friend. You wanna know how to deal with a mom, I'm I'm telling you it's time to cut ties with this fella until he can straighten out his wits. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's fair. Yeah. You

think that's too harsh, Wagner? No. I was quick. You're just boom, boom, boom, boom. Course, there's no Dear Abby, Life in the Past. It's always short. You gotta have a short answer. You can't talk forever. It's People will tolerate it. Boom. Gone. Yeah. Our attention spans are like thirty seconds. You go any longer than that, people are like, I'm out of here. What's on I those love it. How's mom keep getting in there? That's what I wanna know. You think they don't lock her? She may actually Yeah. Keep lock the door. What's that? Yeah. That seems like an easy answer. 1995. Locks. Let me ask this question, though.

Ben's like, don't live together. Submit to Jesus. Yeah. Deal with the problem. He's like, buy a lock. Yeah. He's buy a Deadbolt. You really want that? Let me ask you this question, though, Mike. Mike, do you lock your vehicles at your place? No. Why not? What? I'm not worried about people stealing anything. And because if they did, you'd rather they not break the window. That's correct. Okay. Yeah. So But you live out in the middle of nowhere. No one's coming around. Meanwhile, I just locked my truck, like, from here. I was like, wonder if I locked my truck. Lock, lock, lock, lock, lock, lock. Yeah. We were operating on the principle, and they can't steal anything we gave them. So as far as I'm concerned, whatever you take, I gave you. Yeah. You're welcome, whoever you are. Yeah. But here I guess here's what I'm saying. If you put a lock on the door, Nathaniel, do you think she's just gonna go, oh, it's locked. I'll just go back to my house now and busy myself with a pie? Or do you think she's gonna pound boom boom boom boom boom. Teddy. Teddy, are you in there? Don't answer to Teddy. Say it all. Say go away, mom. Just like that little crack in your voice. Yeah. Go away, mom. Go away, mom. I'm busy right now. This feels real grown up. Yeah. We're putting our dirty laundry wherever we want. Yeah. I'm a real boy. Don't come in here. Yeah. I mean, that seems more quarrelsome. Yeah. I'm just saying, you've you've just made it so now you're now you're just yelling at your mom through the door of an apartment complex. Funny? Like, the thought of of of locking the door is considered passive aggressive. Right? Where where the the right the the more direct route is, Ma, you can't come in here. I don't care if the door's wide open. There's a sign that says welcome. You come in when I invite you. That doesn't apply to you. Welcome everybody but you. And and this is not this is not across the board advice to for you to treat all mothers this way. No. But this one has boundary issues. And it is not out of the Lord's purvey to set boundaries for some folks who have problems staying in their lane. Nope. You can love people and still ask that they stay in their lane. That's probably fine. That's exactly right. And some people will go, well, you don't love me unless you let me leave my lane. That's not the way that works. Nope. Don't believe lies just because people say them. Just because they came up with an idea don't make it true. Right? We run on gospel thought. We run on the way the world actually is, and you, sir, are out your lane.

Go back to your boundary where you belong. Okay. Secular says uh-oh. Did I lose it already? Oh, man. Oh, no. I got it. Secular says buy a lock. Wow. That's weird. Yeah. Dang it. Secular says, no one should enter your home without first asking permission, and that goes for your boyfriend's parents. That they would enter your bedroom while you and their son are in bed is over the top. That's a phrase I used. Fail to understand why this would be a touchy subject with your boyfriend. When he became an adult, moved out of his parents' house, surely he had something to do with privacy. It's time you change the locks on your doors. Nathaniel for the win. Yeah. Look at that. Oh, no. Hold on. It's they they tanks after this. Hold on. Hash this out with a professional mediator if Oh, man. If you cannot do that, start counting your blessings. Chief among them should be thanking the Lord, this woman is not your mother-in-law. Yeah. What? Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Oh, man. Call on the

Yahweh who asks you to leave your mother and father and cleave to your your marriage partner for the rest of your days, and then thank him that you're living in perpetual sin apart from him. Fantastic. This is not even good secular advice. No. It is not. At least be grateful that this woman like, to what value does it create to be grateful that this woman is not your mom when for all practical purposes she continues to barge into your like, it's that's like saying, ignore that it's a mom. It's like saying when the guy who's downstairs at the apartment complex comes in, makes toast in your kitchen every day and leaves. And she goes, well, just be glad he's not your uncle. Okay. Great. Yeah. I still have a guy making toast in my kitchen. Yeah. I tell you what this has done though. This has really changed my my life outlook. I didn't know the job of professional mediator existed, but that is my new gig. My foo's professional mediator.

Yeah. That's a terrible idea. I signed with this man. $80. Hey, man. I think you could you think I bet you could make I bet you could make $300 a month with people hiring you out as mediator even if your only response is, let's take that in prayer to King Jesus. And you say, that'll be $25 at the door. You can Venmo. Yeah. You can Venmo me. Yeah. We can do can Just stand there until they Venmo. Yeah. Venmo right now. Just Yeah. Here's the thing. It's either we're gonna take this to King Jesus together, or I'm gonna take it to King Jesus that you did not pay me. What kind of risk do wanna run here, friend? Yeah. Like holy blackmail. He's gonna throw it at you. He's gonna throw $18.50 at your face and go, Take that to Jesus. And you say, I will. Yeah, thank you. I will do. Alright,

maybe I shouldn't be a professional mediator. Okay, we got one more. Okay. Here we go. Dear live from the Path. I am hurting because my mother favors my brother. I talked to her about it a few times, but she said it hurts her when I say things like that. I don't bring it up to her now, but I am very troubled by it. I've invited her to visit so she could meet my fiancee, but she refuses. She says it takes too long, what? She didn't deny it. No, quiet. Okay, sorry. What is the matter with you? I have other commentaries. This is highly unprofessional. K. Now, she's her feelings are hurt. I'm trying to set the tone. Okay. I'm sorry. And you're you're making a goofball on yourself. I'm starting over. Okay. Quiet. Oh, yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. I am hurting. Let me think about it. Because my mother favors my brother. I talked to her about it a few times, but she said it hurts her when I say things like that. Point of order. She did not deny it. True. So far. Okay. I don't bring it up to her now, but I am very troubled by it. I have invited her to visit so she could meet my fiance, but she refuses. She says it's too long a drive. I miss her tremendously and I want to see her. My fiancee told me to give it time, but I don't think it's fair. What can I do about this situation?

Holy cow. Well, you're messing about every detail that would help figure I out what is going on have a guy that you should date, and then the mom will come over all the time. Tie them together. I know, What is available? Not only professional mediator but also matchmaker. That's right. Two for two. That's $25 apiece. I mean, Maybe to call me old fashioned, but right? You have a fiance. It seems only right that you bring the fiance

home to your parents to meet the guy. That I mean, that's it. Maybe that's just an old fashioned thought. Flipping it over. Yeah. And then you're like, I want my mom to meet my fiancee, but she refuses to drive all the way to come see me. I mean, if it's like ten hours, your mom by the time you got a fiancee let's say your mom's like 55, maybe? I don't know. 60? I mean, there's a lot of details missing here. The older you get, the less you wanna be hiking, no ten hours. Your bladder don't work like it should. You don't like to drive in the dark. That is not true. Old people travel the country. No, they don't. They go to the Yosemite. They go back to all the parks. Yeah. They drive three hours a day, and then they go over to rest hour, and then they sit there for, like, fifteen hours watching Bob Hope. Okay. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bob Hope. Here's what I'm saying. Hey.

No. Go ahead. More insight, Ben. Rand Paul is not Randy. It's not Randy Paul. It's Randall. Do you think that? Did you ever consider what Rand Paul's full name was? No. Okay. Just took him at face value that his name was Randall. He can't be a Randy. He doesn't look like a Randy Paul. Anyway, continue. Where did that come from? Did something pop up onto your screen that Nathaniel gave you the and I were talking about it earlier on the way in. And then whatever you guys were just saying, watching Bob Hope, and then I said Bobby Hope, and then it made me think, people with alternative names, Randy Paul. That's how my mind works. Yeah. I don't wanna go on that roller coaster again.

I feel like I'm gonna have to ask you to sit there and be quiet, man, while we discuss this. I'm gonna hold tight. Guys Does handle anybody remember the whole story of what's going on here? Don't understand how Mom looks like mom hasn't met like, if they're fianced at this point, like, they and then they've never met the the significant other. What if they're, like, twelve hours away? Sure. But, like, there's Christmas. There's I mean, if you're FaceTime. FaceTime, you're at the point that you're fianced. Yeah. True. Like, there's gonna be some holidays, I assume. Right? Does that mean she's not going home to see her mom on on holidays either? Is that because her mom hates her? That doesn't seem And like she she says, I'm gonna stay away from my mom because she likes my brother better. I mean Well, then you've done this to yourself, lady. Yeah. Here's here's what I think that You've done this to yourself. This is what I think you're you're you're right about. And you've said it in not the way I'm gonna say it. No, you're done for a minute. Okay, sorry. You're on a timeout. Tell me when I tag in. No. Some people We say this a lot as Christians. We go, look, we need to love on people. Some people's definition

of what loved on means are very hard to accommodate. And so if you will not drive the twelve hour drive to come meet my fiance, you don't love me. Okay, well, that's not true. I just won't drive the twelve hour drive or whatever. There could be a million reasons why I don't wanna do Well, you love my brother more, and now it hurts me. Why are you saying that? That is not true at all. I just won't do the thing that you're asking me to do. And so some people's incorrect love language is joining them in misery or being sad. And where empathy is certainly

necessary and okay, joining people in the pit of despair, otherwise they feel like you don't love them, is not healthy. Yeah. And I know it doesn't seem like that's what heavy that's going on here. I really feel like that's what's going on here. I she feels slighted in some way, has characterized a relationship that doesn't exist. And I would never think of trying to ask my mom, at 60 years old to drive twelve hours to come meet my fiancee, who apparently I mean, I haven't seen on holidays for the past however long I've been fianced. You're right. I I the whole thing seems weird to me. Right? Especially as the fiance. Hey, man. Can I talk to your mom before I propose marriage? You know, I should at least have met the woman or your dad if he's in the picture or something. You know, like have a tie to your family. There's something real weird going on. I'm with Nathaniel. Weird. Ben? Tag. It's not your turn yet. Oh. Wagner, you got anything? I'm good. You you covered it from me. Are you sure? I'm good, man. Is Nathaniel any follow-up thoughts? John, tag me in. John. Alright, Ben. In. Do you have something, Ben? Yeah. Hey. Hey. Thanks, fellas. Boy, you couple of weak liver and sausages. I was gonna freeze out. Sorry. I didn't have anything else. Alright. Randy Paul coming at you. So so I I think one of the things to recognize, Mike, I think this is along your lines, is that, like, if it's important to you, what's not fair is to say this is important to me and then be upset when things, specific things aren't as don't seem as important to somebody else. Like Right. Here's the thing. If you if if if your relationship with your mom is important, it you can't just go, oh, mom doesn't call me and won't visit. Then call her Mhmm. And visit.

Okay. You you would say, like, it's not it's there's this there's this balance where people say, look, here's what I want, and I can do it myself, but I want you to do it. And if you don't do it, then it doesn't get done and everybody's guilty. Like, that doesn't doesn't make any sense. There's no reason to do that. If it is important to you, then do the thing that's important to you. If your relationship with your mom is important, then call her. If the relationship with your mom like, you don't say and if you want her to meet your fiance, then take the time off and go drive over there. Mhmm. Like, now if you said, hey, we're coming out, and they say, we don't want you here, then I think you've nailed it. Yes. They don't want you there. Correct. Yeah. And then whatever like, you've got mommy issues, try putting your hand under her thigh, see if you can get the blessing. But pass that, there's nothing to be done. Nothing to be done. She's wrong. Isau. I'm just shaking my head. Just shaking my head. Yeah. It's the best stay out of this, Wegener. I told you, I put them in the freeze, you goons let them out. Tag me in, boys. Was a mistake. Secular's advice, which is short and sweet. Secular says Hey, just to clarify, because the night's gone on, you know that the

underlying translation of thigh really is testicles? What? In the Genesis? Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad I don't handle it. No. Mean, it could be both, but like Why would you pick it to be testicle then if it could be both? We don't translate it that way because it's because we don't like it, but it's I'm not You don't know that's why we don't do it that way? Yes. I do. The commentary you read said, this could be testicle, but we don't dig on that. So we went with thigh. People don't like to put testicles. These are your personal opinions again. I'm just saying. Secular says We should've ended the show ten minutes ago. Do this. Was going so Do the Strong's Hebrew up on loins or upper thigh. Alright. I'll do I'll do Blue Letter Bible, and we'll see what he says. Okay.

Secular says, because you miss your mother and want to see her, I suggest you make the long drive and visit her. And when you do, bring along your fiancee. Well, mean, yeah. Yep. By the way, there's no reason to say testicle, ever, in public. Wow, weird she tacked that on. What if it get to the end? I don't think she's taking in the Hebrew. Gotta take Genesis in just like it reads off the page. Guys are looking at the English translations. Yeah. You don't even know what you're We're done, Ben. Obviously, you're on some kind of bender to put us in trouble today. So you start playing that bumper music. We're on our way out. It's on. It's on. You just can't hear it. Hey. You've been listening to Live From The Path. Here's the thing. I am certain No. That's not the thing. Here's the thing. You've listened Live From The Path. It's the end. It's when you stop. I am certain that there's something to complain about today. You give us a call or a text. (515) 517-0085. That's the Bob Eisenhower complaint line. (515)

517-0085. Now, just to to make sure I I've not set the false expectation, Bob will not answer the phone. No. This is not Bob's phone number. Please don't call Bob's actual real estate number to complain about the show. Well, actually, I'm alright if you do that. Yeah. Call him up. Yeah. Hit him with a couple. I don't think he knows he still sponsors the or doesn't sponsor, but still gets ownership of the complaint. The complaint line. Yeah. So but anyway, if you want us to see it, that's the (515) 517-0085. That's the Live From The Path complaint line, and we do love to hear from you. Thanks again for hanging out with us. If you got any comments on the show, use that. Hey. If you don't mind at the start now it's the start of the year. Time to refresh the old podcast and give it a five star review if you're so inclined or a one. I don't care what it is. Just be honest. Yeah. When's the last time you heard Tim Keller say testicle? And you're spending all your time listening to that. That's You should be over here. That's right. You were here's what I'm saying. Tim Keller didn't say that, and then look where you've landed. Look at the shape this country is Maybe a testicle or two would straighten this out. Alright.

Thanks for hanging out with us. You've been listening to Live From In the mean we'll see you next week. In the meantime, be faithful to the means. God will handle the ends. You've been listening to Live The Path.