So what's up, everybody?

How's it going?

How is everybody doing today?

As you can see, Derek is not here today, unfortunately.

He was sick.

But I'm Matt.

And I'm Kevin.

And he's Kevin.

And we are here today to do another podcast for you and Kevin.

How are you been doing lately?

I have been well traveled.

Well traveled, but doing well.

Doing well.

I'm blessed.

God answers my prayers.

Unfortunately, I pray for bad things like patience and compassion.

And he gives you opportunities for patience.

And he gives me opportunities.

Yep.

See, that's what happens.

But I'm sure it's helping you grow.

I keep telling myself that.

Yeah.

So I'm prayerfully getting through it.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Sadie and I are in a season of, like, it feels like hurry up and wait, because there's things that we feel like are forming for our near future, and we're excited for them, but at the same time, you know, we have to be patient in that as well.

So that can be a little frustrating sometimes.

But usually we know that something good's coming, so absolutely try to get through it.

So have you ever played the game Monopoly?

Have.

Love it.

You love the game.

I actually am a big fan.

Nobody ever wants to play anymore.

It's not because of how I play.

It's just that nobody.

Everybody considers it such a long game.

And, you know, we're in a microwave society.

It actually is a commitment.

Yeah.

You have to actually sit down.

It's like a Lord of the Rings movie at some point.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like the equivalent of a poker night for some people.

It's like, man, I have to block off this much time.

But I do love playing.

Actually, you know what?

It almost got ruined for me one time by playing with a guy.

So when I was.

I think I was in, I want to say, middle school or early high school, I had a neighbor that.

That in the summer, we didn't have much to do, so I went over his house and we broke out Monopoly.

And I'm like, awesome.

I love playing.

So it was when he broke out a calculator at one point and actually did his income tax amount.

I was like, no, I feel like I don't want to play with you anymore.

Guys getting serious.

Yeah.

When it goes to that level, I'm.

Not sure my 10% assets is.

Hold on, let me see if I really should pay this much or that.

I'm like, oh, goodness, just put the money in.

Let's keep rolling, man.

I mean, so do you play with Park Place money?

In the middle or not.

Oh, I love parking.

Free parking.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I love free parking.

Money in the middle.

That makes the game more exciting.

I agree.

You know, because, hey, I mean, on the other corner, you're going to jail, so you might as well have something cool in the other one.

So, yeah, I'm a big fan.

I've done it different ways.

I've done it where you can pass out all the.

I've done that.

Properties ahead.

Yeah, you kind of, like, jockey them out and see what happens.

That's an interesting way of doing it, in fact, because I try to talk people into that.

Let's just do it that way and then we can trade and stuff like that.

But, yeah, once again, nobody wants to play.

Anyway, I bring that up today because I had this idea of something that we could talk about today.

See, here's basically the idea calling it Christian Monopoly.

And it has really nothing to do with the game.

It's more about the fact that Christians are sometimes accused of feeling or acting like we have a monopoly on salvation.

So I thought that was an interesting topic to think about and maybe talk about a bit.

So we'll talk about that today.

How do you feel?

Sounds great.

Sounds like a good time.

All right, well, we'll be getting into that today.

Welcome to the Truth response.

I think I'm going to pray today.

Do that.

All right, Father, thank you for today.

We pray for Derek that he heals from this sickness quickly and that he can get back not just to the podcast, but just back to his normal life and being able to do what he does on a daily basis.

Lord, we pray for just everybody who's getting sick right now.

There's so many things going around that you just help wipe that out so everybody can get back to normal and start feeling better.

Just continue to pour into us.

Allow today's conversation to maybe be enlightening, maybe help someone or maybe even help each other as we go through it.

So in all things, we ask in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, so anyway, the idea of Christian monopoly, so, yeah, that was the complaint.

So Christians feel like we have a monopoly on salvation.

So, first off, just that sentence.

How does that make you feel?

Twofold.

One, it makes me feel that we're special.

Okay.

But it's a big tent party.

Nobody is exclusionary to it.

In fact, we invite others to join us.

So whereas I think the problem with the concept of monopoly is that if there is one path to salvation, then everybody else is wrong and we have an obligation to tell them they're wrong.

And that makes conflict and people avoid conflict.

Gotcha.

So I think that is the heavy lifting of the whole topic is how do you address it.

But there are some thoughts I have that are not necessarily accurate and I'm always interested to explore them.

God created us all.

He gave us all life.

And I can't imagine that our Savior and our God who loves us all gave us life.

This gift for destruction.

Okay, I got you there.

So how do we reconcile the non Christian faiths into salvation?

Well, see, that's the thing.

So I decided to go online and I've been very intrigued by these, I guess AI chatbot things that are out there like ChatGPT and there's one that's built into the Windows based system called Copilot now.

And every once in a while I ask Copilot questions just to see what kind of answers it comes up with.

And I was actually impressed by a lot of things that it came back with because I don't know, I thought maybe in my mind that if I asked religious questions it would not have good answers.

But in fact it's got a lot of good information.

I asked the question to it.

What's the biggest difference between Christianity and every other world religion today?

This is for the copilot one and it gave me three reasons and I think one of them speaks highly into this.

The first reason it gave me is just the nature of Jesus.

Christianity teaches that Jesus is both fully God and fully man.

The son of God who lived a sinless life was crucified and resurrected prior providing salvation for humanity.

Most other religions don't have the concept of a divine savior.

Okay, so that's one.

Gotcha.

But this one was the one I think nailed it on the head.

Is salvation by grace.

Christianity emphasizes salvation through faith in Jesus and the grace of God rather than through good works or adherence to specific laws or rituals.

This contrasts with religions like Islam and Judaism which have more focus on following a set of divine laws.

Now that's the thing that I usually go to.

I will say just so for just so I can say the third one is that the Trinity, that three in one God.

So that was the third one.

And feel free to ask these things, these questions.

But what was interesting to me is that so yeah, do we believe we have a monopoly on salvation?

I think on the whole we do.

But the difference is that every other religion is works based.

It's something that you have to do whether it's following laws or there's something that you have to attain or something like that.

So it's all on our human effort.

Agreed.

Whereas Christianity says, nope, you can't do that, but God loves you so much that he's provided a way for you.

So, yes, we feel like we have a monopoly on salvation, but we're the only ones giving it away for free.

And so maybe that's something to think about in that I just, you know, when you think about the idea of works based.

I mean, so Paul talks about this, he really exhausts the point.

I believe in the book of Romans, the idea that, you know, well, first off with the law, I mean, he's talking strictly about Christianity versus Judaism, is that they have the Law and God's law, and that's great.

But the law does a great job of showing us just how far from the mark we are and just how hard it is to be perfect.

And it's an exhaustive list.

So he then makes the conclusion that the law condemns us by showing us that we're not perfect.

So the law can't save us.

We can't be safe through following the law because we can't follow the law.

It does nothing for salvation.

Therefore, Jesus coming to fulfill the law is the only way.

So I think, I mean, on a personal note, I'm like, why would you want a religion versus Christianity if it was one versus the other?

Why would you want to turn it?

Why would you pick one over the other?

Yeah, it makes more sense that there's a loving God, that he wants to give it to you versus not.

Or you making something you have to earn.

I think that's a little harder.

Plus, most of us are going to fail at that, I think.

I'm pretty sure all of us, actually.

Yeah, I was going to say, pretty universal.

Yeah.

I mean, even people who are following Jesus, they'll have days where we've had a bad day, you know, something went wrong today.

So, yeah, I mean, I think the idea of Jesus, God following, making a way, having our characteristics and our nature in his plans, I mean, that makes sense to me.

But let me ask you a question.

Take it from the outsider's point of view, and I know scripturally, and I think it's 1 Corinthians where it says that to the unbeliever, the cross is folly and to the believer, it's the power of God.

So I understand that paradigm.

But if you're an outsider, let's say you grew up somewhere in Bali on an island, and you've not been exposed to Christendom as it were.

But you have been exposed to whatever traditional faith that they have at that point, which creates the deity.

It says there's a deity there, one God, if you will.

And they're monotheistic, but they don't define Christ.

How do you suggest that their salvation could be intact?

That their salvation.

Yeah, I don't know how I could see.

Where I look at it is if you look at the other religions, we're born out of Judaism.

So it's not that I fault Judaism.

I just think that they've got almost the whole truth.

You know what I mean?

They cling to the law, which is terrible because it condemns them.

Right, but yeah, so.

But when it comes to other religions, like you're speaking of, it's.

So where's the proof in the pudding?

Like what is the evidences of your faith?

Then I think it becomes an argument of, well, okay, then how, what, what backs up why you believe this?

You know what I'm saying, right?

To where like, so to those who.

Have been exposed to Christ, we can identify it, we can justify it rationally.

But you even said so the cross is folly.

Well, that's true for those who don't understand its full meaning.

You got to look past the cross to the resurrection.

The resurrection changes everything as the one.

As I looked at the copilot thing, the fact that Jesus rose from the grave, it's not to be underrated.

No, that's the differentiation.

That is not that he died.

That's the difference is that we have.

We had a guy who actually walked the earth and had.

So that's the things.

Like I like to point this out to people when it comes to who Jesus is.

We did a podcast around, I want to say the hurricane season, we did one and I kind of defined who Jesus was.

But that's the things you point out to them is that, you know, he was a real dude.

And if you just look at the history, the evidential history that we can prove real dude, you know, had a ministry, crazy things happened.

So miracles would be indicated through writings that are not just Christian writings, but both Roman and Jewish.

And then how he died and that he was buried.

Now here's where it gets tricky.

The next thing that is evidently true through history is that this dude's grave, this tomb was empty.

You can argue about how it got empty, but.

But it was empty.

Now the next step is for Christians, is that we accept the resurrection.

That's the big difference.

But can I cut you off for a second?

Was it also not evidentiary, that the dead walked again, that they rose from their graves during that time period.

So whether you were a believer or not, you would have witnessed that.

Yes, but it's not as recorded as much.

So there's not.

So.

But Christ being rescued, resurrected, is a much bigger story because you have this guy who was put to death, I mean, pretty decisively.

The Romans were very good at their job.

They were.

But now he's supposedly not dead and his tomb's empty, there's no body they can find.

And all these people are claiming that they've seen him risen.

And so that's a pretty big deal.

Especially the only rational answers would have been contrary to the interests of any party involved in taking his body.

Exactly.

The idea that, you know, these are people that were fearing for their lives, that are now standing in the face of the people who killed Jesus and saying, no, this is true, this happened.

And that's the people who followed him.

That's people who didn't believe in him.

That's people who were persecuting him.

And his followers, many, they would turn around and follow because they believe that they saw with everything they have the risen Christ.

And because of that, were willing to be put through persecution, torture, even death, and never recount a single word.

They believed in it that strongly.

And people have tried to explain it away in incredible ways over the years, but the facts are, for them, this is 100% true.

And you can trick some people sometimes, but to have that many people, that's conviction.

That's complete conviction.

And I believe, actually, I believe that's one of the reasons that the church blossoms under persecution is because of the strength of the conviction.

Okay.

You know, when people see something genuine and real, they tend to go, what's up with this?

Good thought, however, I mean, so.

But the resurrection then becomes everything.

The fact that we can say, yeah, our guy was here, it was real, and, you know, it changed lives to the point where they were willing to die for it on a real sense all over the world.

Then, you know, then there's a little more.

For us, it feels like there's a little more proof in the pudding than, well, there was a guy that wrote some stuff down in a cave or anything of that nature.

So.

And this is the one.

The guy who walked around and then supposedly, you know, rose from the dead, which obviously we believe this is really what happened, also told us, hey, man, this is for you, so to speak.

And, you know, I got you.

Yeah.

So for us to go, then.

Why should you have to go and do all this.

Obviously, the scripture also tells us it's not that we want to negate the law, we want to try to follow it still as best we can.

But it's nice that we're covered.

So when we slip now versus when we were trying to do it on our own, it's faith based, not work based.

And that is such a big deal.

When we see people who just don't seem to understand that even to Thomas.

He did not have faith.

So he offers that salvation even to those who don't have the faith.

That's where I get hung up.

How does that message reach them?

As you call it the monopoly.

We have that monopoly.

How do we convey that message?

Yeah, yeah, it's hard.

But I mean, I think sometimes looking at what some people would consider weak points becomes our strong points.

For instance, you know, when they wrote the Bible pointing out that the women were the first ones to see the risen Christ and proclaim that he had risen, that to some people was a weak point.

Women's testimony wasn't considered valuable in that time period.

So why put it in there unless it really happened?

You know, you have the things and the stories of the disciples just missing the mark and not getting it and denying their Savior.

And Thomas not wanting to believe unless he saw the proof in the pudding and things like that.

And these same people though, were willing to after they made mistakes.

Thomas, although he said he wouldn't believe until he saw it, and Jesus pointed out to him that it's blessed are those who haven't seen yet believe.

He went on and died a death because he wasn't willing to stand back and go, no, that didn't happen.

It happened for him.

I will still stand up for Thomas in that.

He believed enough to be up in that room.

Oh yes he did.

There was something to be there.

So he just needed the push, I guess.

But I mean, it was real.

And so, I mean, how do you look at that?

And we have a guy, I mean, I already mentioned Paul.

Paul is one of those guys.

We'll look at Paul and look at James.

Okay, so James, the half brother of Jesus who wrote the book of James, and Paul who wrote like most of our New Testament.

So you have James, who James didn't.

Want to believe it at all.

No, both were Pharisees.

James did not want to believe that his brother was anything but maybe a lunatic.

Right.

And yet when we know by scripture tells us that Christ revealed himself to him in a risen form, James changed everything.

We know also from History that James eventually took over the church in Jerusalem, you know, so.

And James just.

His whole world changed because he saw his brother in his glorified form, his half brother.

So that's pretty amazing stuff in itself that you have this other Pharisee that.

That thought one way and now is a completely different person.

But then you have Paul.

Paul is one of the most interesting characters of our history.

I love Paul.

He's great.

Oh, who?

I mean, yeah, he's amazing.

But, you know, when he was going by the moniker Saul, his Hebrew name versus Paul, his Greek name, you know, Saul being a Pharisee, was a very zealous person.

In fact, you could kind of look at his entire life, both pre and after Jesus, as a very zealous existence.

He believed it was consistent the whole way.

Yeah, he wanted to.

He loved God and he wanted to do stuff for God and he wanted to.

His life was dedicated to serving God.

That was what it was.

But the interesting part was, is that prior to his encounter, he thought what God needed him to do was eradicate this new sect of people, right?

The sacrilege, the followers of the Nazarene, the people of the way, and wiped them out.

They needed to be persecuted, they needed maybe even be killed.

This needed to stop because they were drawing others astray.

So he held the coats and he got permission to persecute them and jail them in all the things.

And it was in that one of those very missions that he's on the road to Damascus and quite literally gets knocked off that high horse.

What's interesting about Paul is in that zealousness and in that true heart to want to do what he felt God needed him to do, to realize he's never been so wrong in his entire life.

He took that so personally.

That here's a guy that at one point was getting permission from the Sanhedrin to go and persecute these.

Is now their biggest advocate.

And that in itself, I mean, that's huge.

And then of course, we hold on to his writings today and their scripture.

Because of that, people's lives are changed every day.

And without that testimony of the pre.

The Saul period, it'd be far harder to relate to him, to the redemption qualities that Christ shows us through his grace.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so, I mean, like, when you think about it, I mean, that's really what it's about for the Christian is understanding life without Jesus and life with Jesus.

And so, you know, for those who are like, look at us as if we believe we have a monopoly, it's like, yeah, we do believe this, but we want you to see what we see.

And so sometimes we get labeled as, you know, Bible pushers or Bible thumpers or such like that.

And it's like, well, that's how we, you know, that we love is because how much I love.

Simon Pegg said it, right.

The one guy, the magician guy, how much he's an atheist and he said, how much would you have to hate someone to not share the gospel with them?

That's right.

I think that's brilliant because it's true.

You can tell that we love because we want other people to see this, to be able to meet Jesus, get a relationship with Jesus.

That being said, I mean, I'll admit there are some people that do it in some really wacky ways.

Some that I think are great and some that I'm like, I don't know if that's the way, but you know.

But see, the manifestation should be the same to the outside observer.

We're pushing Jesus on them.

Yeah, but God always judges your heart.

So it's the motivation behind that.

And I think sometimes because we're human, we're fallible, it comes across improperly.

Yeah.

We're zealous for what we believe.

We want to bring people.

I equate it.

It's going to sound ridiculous, but to the old multi level marketing thing.

Yeah.

Get into Amway or one of these different programs and what's first thing you do?

You tell all your friends and family about it.

You're going to be rich.

And this is great.

And they look at you like you've lost your mind.

Now you believe it with all your heart, but you're alienating everybody around you as you push it upon them.

But you're trying to do it because you care.

Right.

And, and as the equilibrium passes, you now have more of a consistency behind it, a little bit more maturity behind it.

And your messaging improves.

And I think that's where our faith, through prayer, through fellowship, through reading the Word, I think that really is the evolution of a Christian is the messaging changes, but it is the excitement, the exuberance of a child, I gotta share this.

That really drives us.

Yeah.

And I think about the fact that when Jesus said, take my yoke upon you because my burden is easy.

When we see people who are trying to earn it on their own and we're like, you don't have to do it that way.

It's frustrating.

It is.

But I mean it's also like, come on, if you could just understand that it's better this way.

Which is a strange thing to say.

Some people.

It reminds me of the people that are like, well, faith is a crutch.

I don't think that's the case, especially if you ever walked.

You know, think about the early church.

Being a Christian wasn't always meaning that everything's going to be great now.

It meant you could be going into a really hard life.

So, yeah, to the contrary.

And from someone who even myself, as long as I've been following Jesus, there's been some hard times with that.

And it's not always easy.

And temptation is there at times, you know, I mean, these things are.

The enemy is always trying to get us one way or another or frustrate us or whatever it is.

So it's not a crutch.

I mean, it's not just so we can hope that there's something after this life.

It's not just to help us feel better about things we don't understand.

For those who have embraced Jesus, it's embracing the reality that there was a guy who loved us so much that he decided to lay himself down to pay the penalty that we've already incurred.

I think genuine Christianity is understanding the debt that we can never pay.

Right.

Debts paid.

That in itself is a humility.

Yeah.

I agree completely.

I watch people.

To say it's a crutch is like saying, okay, is eating a crutch.

We're reliant.

It's different.

Yeah.

And so, I mean, look, does that.

That's not to negate the benefits.

I mean, yes, heaven is something that we look forward to.

The idea of living in a world where there's no suffering or pain.

Yeah, absolutely.

We look forward to these things, but at the same time, you know, we keep our eyes on a God who has proven himself to us.

You know what I mean?

So, yeah, then going back to.

I mean, from an outsider's perspective, even if you don't have a religious background or something that you're adhering to, for the person who has decided in their heart that they don't want to believe in any kind of religion or deity or such like that, to see us the way we go about things, they like to think that we're a little nuts.

And once again, I mean, first I would point out that, you know, that we have evidence to the contrary.

But I mean, how would you.

If you met someone who didn't have anything, didn't want to believe in God of any kind, didn't want to have religion, like, how would you go about Trying to explain like this is the.

Way I would start by probably just looking around.

I would take him into nature, look at the sky, the stars, the ocean, the flowers.

I would probably make him intellectually stagnant or frustrate him, because I'd be saying, explain this to me.

How is this possible?

Where did this come from?

And once we could determine that it is beyond our comprehension, then we could at least identify that there is a greater knowledge than our own.

Once you identify that knowledge and we can label it as God, then I would suggest that a loving God would not put us into such a bad position as to try and earn our own salvation knowing that we physically could not do it, because we physically cannot comprehend a dandelion.

And so therefore he gave us this grace and this gift, just like any father, any mother who loves their child, because any human, whether they believe or not, understands love and they understand love for their children.

So I would start there and.

And I would work from that point.

I like that approach especially because the heavens declare the glory of God.

You can look around and the majesty of creation is all around us.

And God's handiwork and his design.

I like looking at that.

And even when it comes to how advanced sciences point to God, you look at astronomy and how finely tuned our universe is, how finely tuned our own solar system is, our Earth is, and how everything is just so, and the odds of these things being astronomically against it, and that's just to have life, not even to get life to be there.

Right.

That's even more crazy.

So that's pretty insane in itself.

When you think about the discovery of DNA and what that has told us about an information system far advanced to anything else we've ever created, where it can tell your body not only how to be, but what to do and how we've learned through medical fields how our body systems works and how we heal.

And even to the point of how a mother's milk can change depending on what the baby needs and how it can sense that that is there's such an amazing creation around us all the time that just points to amazing design.

And it's pretty special.

Now, taking that then and taking it from.

Okay, so there's that.

I mean, that indicates intelligent.

Intelligent designer to Christianity, I believe, is once again points right back to that resurrection, you know, a real person who was really here and did things, died and then came back.

Now there's faith that's required, you know, so he couldn't just keep going around to everybody.

And every.

At that Point, that's not faith, that's just proof.

Right.

But at the same time, there's enough evidence.

God always leaves enough evidence to where, just as I said, in the sciences that have discovered more and more of how amazing his creation is, there's still evidences in the heart change in the lives of people.

You can see someone who is one way in their life, who have turned their life around in ways they never thought possible, people who were not caring, that are now compassionate, and people who had struggles, who now have hope.

And for some, they want to explain all that away.

But I think that it's.

That's deliberately being blind for the point of being blind in order to be blind so that you don't have to deal.

Yeah, I think, honestly, I think it's rebellion and the denial of it is deliberate.

I don't think anybody who considers themselves a thinker who can rationally go down the logical argument can come to any other conclusion other than Christ as the Savior.

That said, it's usually the most educated that have closed their minds to it because I believe that they are refusing to bow knee, that they find themselves too intelligent to accept something that they cannot fully control or control the outcome of.

I think that's the very seed that has people so dedicated to these other religions of works where we feel like it's something that we have achieved on our own, it's by our power.

We like the idea of something that's by our brow.

You know what I mean?

Like, we've put the plow to the ground and made this happen.

We've earned this.

And I think that it's a pride thing.

I love the rebellious pride, but it's definitely a pride deal.

Actually.

I'm also one of those people that believes that pride is like the root of everything that is bad in this world.

I could get on board with that.

Yeah.

When it comes to sins, for me, I'm like, I think everything just goes back down to the idea of pride.

But, yeah, the idea that.

No, I mean, I did this myself.

But the Gospel tells us it's by grace, not by works.

So that no one can boast.

So that we're not holding it above anyone's health head, we're not better than another.

And I think that's evident as you see Jesus teachings too, as he's teaching them.

If someone asks you to carry their stuff for a mile, go with them an extra mile.

This was a period of time where a Roman citizen, Roman soldier, for instance, could take a Jewish citizen and be like, all Right, you going to carry all my gear?

And they can only make them do it a mile, but you're going to do it.

And they couldn't refuse it.

Quite an illustration in the Chosen.

Oh, yeah, the Chosen did a great job.

That was a great illustration.

Great job.

But Jesus is going, well, we'll carry him another mile.

And I loved how it changed the soldier's perspective in that.

That was really cool in the Chosen.

But let's say it doesn't.

We also know from Scripture that doing the right things for the point of doing the right things is what's really rewarded first.

Peter crucified.

Yeah, it's doing it for the point of doing it.

And God rewards that.

And showing love beyond what people tell us we have to do well, loving.

Your friend, there's no gift in that.

Loving your enemy, there's something to that.

Exactly.

It's one thing to do well because you're going to get rewarded and it's going to be acknowledged, but.

But it's another thing when you know it's not.

And so God pays attention to those things.

And I like that better.

I think he always signs his masterpiece.

Oh, yeah, he does.

He always signs it.

You will always know if it's his hand.

Even if we were to take it down to primitive understanding, we learn from mimicking, modeling what's before us.

A mother with her child is selfless.

Stand in front of a freight train, a bull, whatever it is, to protect her child.

There's instances where they've pulled the rubble off of the mother who's protecting her child.

Underneath that is the image I have of our Father in heaven.

And in order for our salvation, that rubble of our own sin coming down upon us as a building, the only thing we have protecting us is Christ.

And in that model, even the most primitive understanding of that love still points you to Christ's sacrifice and resurrection, right?

Where it says that basically the ultimate love is this to lay oneself down for one's friend.

That is something I thought about many times, especially when I've seen people that I viewed as heroes in this world die.

My dad was in the fire department.

We were around the fire department and the police officers, you know, all the time.

And the idea of one of them going down, that was the image I had in my head as someone who's willing to lay themselves down for another.

So.

But I mean, that's what God did for all of us.

He did.

He jumped in front of that car, he took the nails so that we didn't have to.

He Died the spiritual death that we were supposed to die so that we didn't have to die, so that once our bodies go on, we can go on and so he can remake us.

And we're not going to be limited by this world, by this curse, by this sin.

And that's pretty amazing, you know, a sacrificial God who just put himself there first.

Yeah, I think about what.

When I was in high school or getting out of high school, I went and worked, of all places, I worked at Chuck E.

Cheese.

You know what I mean?

Pizza Rat.

Oh, I got some stories.

Pizza Rat.

It was nuts.

But I will say this.

The guy that I worked with, the general manager of the store, his name was Mike.

And I've got the utmost respect for this man to this day because he was the kind of leader, as a manager of the store, he was the kind of leader who was willing to roll up his sleeves and get the work done.

He was never going to ask anyone to do anything he wasn't going to be willing to do himself.

He showed that in his character.

You're saying he cleaned the ball pit?

He did anything.

If he's like, hey, I think we're not doing the floors right, he would get down with us and find better ways of doing it.

There was nothing he wasn't willing to do to help the store.

Excellent.

He would take on extra labor himself if he felt like our labor numbers were too high.

He was always willing to do what was necessary.

And, like, I just always felt that, you know, I was never going to be abandoned by him to not have his leadership.

And that's the kind of.

I think I loved it so much because it does remind us of God.

God, yeah.

And I'll give you the example by looking at Abraham, right?

He says, abraham, take your son Isaac.

Go up on that hill, sacrifice him.

Talk about faith.

Talk about faith.

Now, I love.

You know, it's by his faith that he's righteous, right?

That's what even the book of Hebrews tells us.

You know, we are in the family of Abraham because it's by Abraham's faith that he was righteous.

By our faith in Jesus, we're the same way.

Now, what's interesting is this.

Although he had no idea what was going to happen, he had faith that somehow God was going to work this out for good.

God had promised that through this seed he was going to have so many offspring.

But yet he's told to go put this son, his one and only son, at this point that he loves, that took him forever.

To get that took him forever to get down.

But he followed through.

And at the last moment, God stopped him, provided a sacrifice, and he provided a substitute sacrifice.

What's interesting there is in that story in Genesis 22, it's so foreshadowing because.

And it's not just that people don't even understand some of the details.

It's the same hill.

On that very same hill, God did provide his one and only son.

He never asked Moses do anything that God had not already pre determined in his heart that he was going to do for us.

And we had to believe in that.

And so he laid himself down and his son on that hill.

Just as he was going to ask Abraham to do it.

He made that sacrifice.

He didn't require it of him, but he did it himself.

Yeah.

Which is amazing.

There's so much from Genesis.

I love preaching the crucifixion from Genesis, by the way.

Oh, it's great.

It's.

There's so much there.

And so like, I enjoy having conversations, if any.

Well, I enjoy having conversations with a Jewish person who knows scripture because I love the back and forth.

I love the different perspectives and I love pointing out things and having them point out things.

That's a good discourse if they're open to it.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So let me toss this to you then.

I've changed my position.

We do not have a monopoly.

Okay, what's your monopoly?

Well, because God has made it evident to everybody, even in the most prehistoric terms, in the most primitive settings, that he has put his signature before us.

So then it's only simply us accepting it.

Okay, but you have to accept it on his terms.

Christianity is.

That's surrender.

Yes, but Christianity is based on those terms.

Right.

No, I get it.

What I'm saying is God has opened his arms to everybody.

I agree that we may say that we have the right membership card.

Well, yes, but it's not.

I will agree with you that it's not a closed system.

It's not.

There you go.

It's something we.

That's why we offer it to everyone.

That's why we want everyone to know is that this is for everyone.

It's not just for someone who calls himself.

God is still offering it to every Jew.

He's offering it to every Muslim.

He's offering it to every Hindu.

He's offering it to everyone.

Every atheist out there.

God's still calling for you to come and accept this truth.

It's for you.

The difference of calling it a Christian monopoly is not so you can call Christian is so that you can understand that Jesus is the way as he proclaimed to be.

And so that one way is what we is the monopoly.

Exactly.

Then let me ask you a question, because as we're winding down, the one concept is this is the one way.

How, if it's through faith, which is what we're talking about, how do you deepen the faith of those around you?

How do you deepen the faith?

Yep.

How do you convey not only the need, but walk them through the path to where they become faith seekers?

Well, I think that's different for everyone.

Everybody's salvation journey, it's not the salvation.

Well, both salvation and sanctification journey are different.

How everybody's going to come to Christ differently and how they go through a life following him is going to be different.

So what might really help someone enrich their faith may not help another and vice versa.

But I think some of the pillars there, I think the better understanding of what it is to understand how much you were forgiven, the grace factor, I think is important.

So therefore to display that, to display that which you've received to be a good start.

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things you have to do is the more that you understand just how big your debt was and how much you've been forgiven leads to greater appreciation.

Basically, you're capacity to understand and receive God's love becomes greater.

Therefore your ability to then send it back out into the world becomes greater.

It's a deepening of faith in that.

I think another thing is that besides accepting how much grace you've received is also understanding what it is to truly lean on God.

So what's amazing, I heard this story about a translator who was trying to translate the Bible and he was trying to translate the word faith.

And so he was leaning back in his chair and he was putting his weight on his chair and he said to the person, what do you call this?

And basically the word was the equivalent to lean one's full weight upon.

Okay.

And he's like, that's what I'm talking about.

That's faith and that's faith.

And what's interesting about that is that oftentimes we want to, we believe in Jesus and we want to follow him, but we still try to do it on our own terms.

Whereas God's trying to tell us there's things you need to hand over to me.

And sometimes it's those secrets that we're holding on to that he's like, they don't have to do that anymore.

Sometimes it's control of our finances.

Sometimes it's control of our lives in ways that we don't realize, like, we don't have to do that anymore, you know?

And so we have to learn to put more of our full weight on him now.

Does that mean there's nothing for us to do?

Absolutely not.

But at the same time, there's a big difference when it comes to laying things at his feet and letting him be the one who guides us.

Sure.

You know, if we're going to follow him, then we should follow him.

We can't follow from the front.

Correct.

So we got to get out of our own way sometimes.

I saw this thing online.

I brought this up.

I don't know if I brought it up on here a lot, but I know I bring it up a lot in life.

But online one day I saw, hey, Lord, sorry for picking up what I put down at your feet.

And I thought, that's so real.

That's cool.

That's so real.

Because I've done that.

In fact, God has to remind me often one of the things that he and I go back and forth on is that he'll introduce me to a new thing that's getting ready to happen, and I'll start trying to figure out how that's going to work out.

And then he'll let me do that just long enough till he goes, you realize you're doing it again, right?

You have to trust me in this.

It's going to be okay.

And I wish I could say I learned the first time to the second time, the third time.

And I wish I could say that because I just went through this, that I won't do that again.

But I feel like that's going to be a thing.

God's always there to remind us.

I've got you.

Have you ever seen a hamster on a wheel?

Yeah, that's me going through that.

It feels like that sometimes.

So, I mean, these are some practical things that to start to.

If you want to go deep in your faith is really, how do you understand why more and what to do more with it?

You know, a lot of people want a list of, like a laundry list of tasks.

It's not about tasks, but again, it's.

Because they're oriented to.

They have to do something to earn it.

Yep.

Yep.

Sometimes you just have to be quiet.

Listen, be still, and know that I am God.

Such an empowerful verse.

And it's.

There was a season that actually it's still relevant.

I don't want to say it's Not.

But there was definitely a season a few years back where Sadie and I were.

That was such an important verse for us to keep remembering.

And, you know, be still and know.

That I am God.

Be still and know that I am God.

But I would also point people.

I mean, like, if you think about what Jesus says in Matthew and what you think about in Proverbs, I like to point out Proverbs 3, 5 through 6.

And think about Matthew when he's talking about seeking the kingdom first in chapter five.

And the idea is the same.

You look to him first on everything and let him start to sort out the details with you.

There's going to be things that you're going to need to do sometimes, and sometimes there's things you don't need to do that we think we do.

But learning that more those things are going to enhance your faith in a way.

I mean, there's obvious things you can do, praying, getting yourself in a better pattern of prayer.

Communication is important for relationship.

If you're not communicating.

Agreed.

Reading the Bible, that's him communicating back.

It's important.

So those two things are hand in hand.

But when it comes to how to deepen your faith in a way, I mean, those things will help you do it.

By the way, those are some areas, it's like, well, what does that mean?

Like, how reflect on your life.

What are the things you know, didn't match up, you've been forgiven that.

I want you to think about that weight.

Add that to that pile of, oh my gosh, I've been forgiven it, or, hey, somehow we keep making our bills and we're not sure how we're doing it.

Well, he's got you.

And so there's different things that you can think about to help you with these.

But I mean, it's all about trying to find ways to.

And Scripture's going to tell you lots of things.

As I pointed out before, when it comes to the book of Romans, the book of Romans, Paul talks about how much the law is going to point out, how we fall short.

That will tell you how much you've been forgiven pretty quickly.

But even then, just seeing how God interacts with people, how his compassion is there from the beginning, especially when you start to grow a greater understanding that that story started, the story of the cross started on page one.

Right.

You know what I mean?

It's all together.

It's all one story.

And that's the amazing thing.

You have one story of one large collection of books, 66 books that came together as a Single work by so many authors over so many years.

I mean, not just years.

I'm talking hundreds of years.

People who did not interact with each other, people who didn't even talk like each other, all made one cohesive work that all says the same thing.

Yep.

That's pretty amazing.

With different backgrounds, different education, different beliefs, different political structures, different everything.

Yeah.

And still pointed to one thing.

Yep.

Basically one man, two events.

There you go.

Yeah.

I'll tell you, the next question is, why would you deny it?

Well, that in itself would be a long discussion.

Perhaps, but I think you've already started to hit that nail on the head.

When you talk about rebellion, stubbornness, pride, those are the kind of things that would.

You know, we talked about that.

When it comes to these other religions, the accomplishment.

We love the sense of accomplishment that we've done something.

We love the pride involved with that.

When it comes to denying it, it's the same thing, just in reverse order.

Instead of trying to do stuff to achieve divine purposes, you're doing them for yourself.

You're your own God.

You make your own decisions.

You have your own accomplishments.

And it's the same thing, different channel.

It really is.

It's a translation of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's just.

And honestly, I would say I'd go as far as to say that even atheism in itself is a religion.

Oh, 100%.

So you may not think.

You may not be trying to serve a divine purpose, but you're serving your purpose.

You're your God.

So you're still worshiping something, and your life is around that.

It's almost like the Scientology thing.

You're doing the same things.

So.

Yeah, same thing, different channel.

Agree.

And what Christians are doing is we're trying to tell people, look, man, there's a better way.

There really is.

And it goes back to these things, like when it comes to building your faith, when you realize that you can be saved from all that stuff.

Right.

I have to tell you, I used to fight it.

And when I started realizing it, and I say started because, man, I've got so far to go to really move it from head to heart.

When I started getting an inkling of God's grace in my life, it brought me to my knees, and it humbled me to a point of how.

Why?

The level of love in that statement is beyond any I could comprehend.

Yeah, it is pretty wild.

I remember.

So there was a period in my late teens and just into my early 20s where I call it my dark time.

It's funny, that was when my dark time was too.

Yeah, well, it was the darkest in a way.

So I grew up going to church, and I even felt the call to God and maybe even to do something for God.

But in my teens, I scared myself reading James.

And so I pushed against that a lot.

And I pushed against it to the point where not only was I trying to push against ministry, but I ended up kind of pushing against church and such things.

And it got to the point where I was so removed from it that I didn't realize how much I.

It was not me anymore.

It was not a part of me that I wanted.

And there was a lostness in that that I didn't even know that I had.

When Christ is not a priority in your life, when you're not following him, there is a hole there.

And, you know, there's things that I thought I was pursuing for good reasons.

There's things I thought I was pursuing because it was fun or whatever, but, like, I was emptiness.

It really was.

And you know what it was like to realize that.

Right.

You know who I am.

And not everybody has the same journey.

But that for me was realizing who I was with and without him.

And such a difference that made in so many different scenarios was huge.

Yep.

And honestly, I like my.

I like me with him better.

Say the least.

The very least.

It's.

It's huge difference.

But there's a piece.

Yeah.

And he works through peace.

A piece that transcends all understanding.

I like it.

Monopoly message.

Monopoly message.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

So that.

That was our conversation today.

A lot of fun.

Hopefully you maybe got something from it.

If you have any thoughts on it.

Yeah.

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Different levels of membership.

Huh?

There are different levels of members.

Different levels.

Different stuff.

And yeah, once again, we're hoping that Derek recovers.

I know that he hates to miss an episode.

He really loves this and he loves you all so much.

He doesn't say it enough, I think, but not that I'm getting on him.

I think he does a good job.

But no, seriously, he loves doing this so much.

It's just his heart's in it.

So for him not to be here, I know, is crushing him, but it also makes me know that he really is sick.

So I'm kind of glad he's not here because I don't want to get sick either, and I hope I don't.

So.

But it's good that we can come in.

Kevin has been awesome.

I'm so glad you were here today, help us get this done.

And yeah, so we love you and we thank you for tuning in and share this like crazy.

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