Oh, man.

The worst I had in Walmart was my son used to have these blowouts. And I mean, like, it was like. It was an explosion. It would go up his back down into his shoes. We were in Walmart one time, and I looked down at him. He's sitting in the cart seat, you know what I mean? And I see him squishing, funny face on.

I'm like, man, you all right?

What's going on? And I'm looking and I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, my gosh. That's so much. And so I had to take him. Now, luckily for me, my sister worked at that Walmart at the time. So I kind of, like, on the way to the bathroom was like, listen, I need you to go get this, this, this. Because I didn't have extra stuff I had, you know, So I had her buying. I had diaper and all that, but I didn't have an extra outfit, which was. That was the last time that happened for a while. But she bought me pants and everything. They were, like, on sale. And she got her discount.

Nice.

So I spent, like, $5 on a whole new outfit.

That was back when they gave discounts.

And. Yeah. And so I'm in. And then these people had the nerve to, like, give me dirty looks as I'm cleaning up my son in the bathroom in the appropriate place. Yeah, this is what this is for. You don't like it, go bathroom somewhere else. I'm sorry, is this. Is this too much for a Walmart? You must be a Target shopper.

Yeah, right.

Like, hey, hey, now. Target's where I go when I want to feel bougie. Okay.

That's right.

Targets, where I go.

Actually, toys. Toys at Walmart actually have really great deals. Everything else is expensive, but always there are some dope deals.

You said Walmart. Did you mean Target?

I meant Target. Okay, Target, Target. Target has some dope deals on toys and games.

Their game sections.

Really?

I get trapped there all the time. I keep walking up and down and just staring at the games like, I want to buy one of these. I want to buy. So actually, Jeremy has got. From the Tuesday group, he's got, like, 300 board games. So I went over to his house the other day. We were talking, and he's like, hey, come upstairs. And he just, like, gave me, like, five games.

Play these.

Let me know what you think of them.

Like, all right.

So one of them is, like a Star wars game. I'm really excited to try that one out.

Yeah. But that's not where I Go. When I want to feel boozy, I go to Bass Pro Shops. No, no.

I have no business in a Bass Pro shop, to be honest with you.

I do.

I don't.

Oh my goodness.

There.

Not only that, but they, they carry my size, my actual size, because I'm an xlt and.

Yeah. They don't have short and fat, so they just.

Well, the c. I have to either get a 2x in a regular person's clothes.

Right.

Or I have to go into tall. And they actually have tall clothes.

You know what's funny?

Amazing. I love best practice.

What's funny is I probably would do better in tall clothing too because whenever they make fat people clothes, they don't necessarily make it exactly proportional. So.

Sure.

No, probably not.

No, they don't.

It drives me nuts.

Like undershirts. If I can get tall undershirts, that's the way to go.

Yeah, actually, yeah. I. My problem is, is that I'll often get a double X thing and that's enough. And then suddenly it still comes up in the midsection.

Yeah.

And I'm like. Or. Or the worst part is. And is that because they're cut for bigger people and you put a 2x in and it falls. But the second I raise an arm, it makes me look like this.

Uh huh.

I'm like, I hate this.

They do the same thing in baby's clothes. I never under. It's impossible to get proper sized baby in children's clothes because everything is. It's like the bigger it gets, the wider it gets. But it doesn't get any taller.

It just, it's dumb. You know, I gotta say, when it comes to kids clothes. My first kid, when I was going through outfits, it was like playing the lottery too much. I just kept throwing money away is basically what you're doing. Cause they grow out of it so darn fast. By the time my last kid came around, we were like, anything that just covers the whole body, that's fine.

Just.

We're gonna take em everywhere. She's not even crawling yet. Doesn't even. Over the whole body. Easy to change diapers. That's what it was about. Get that stuff. Nothing fancy. And then maybe for Christmas. Nice. But then that's it. Like, because it was like. I remember when we found out that my last daughter was coming, we went to Toys R Us at the time because Toys R Us stores were still open. Toys R Us and Babies R Us was there. And so we're sitting there and we're like, I guess we should get some like Bottles and stuff, Right? This baby's coming. And it had been six years since our last, you know, baby. So it's like, okay, well, okay, we'll need bottles and probably some diapers and a couple, like, we're, like, shopping, like, very practically, like, yeah, we're not actually needing all this junk. And then we see these kids that are coming through the store and they're having their first baby, and they're like, you know how they get registry? They're, like, marking every darn thing. I sat this kid down.

I'm like, listen, son, you're overdoing it.

Let me. Let me explain some things.

2000 Onesies and a pack of diapers.

Although what you need to do is you need to mark every different type of pack of diaper because each kid only has certain diapers that they can wear. I don't understand that. But, like, my kid could only wear this one type of diaper.

Yeah.

Like, this one brand. And that was it.

Which one?

That was all. I don't remember. I think was Huggies or something.

Huggies is a decent brand. I don't get the cheapo diapers.

But even. Even the other expensive ones, like, she could not wear them. She would break out.

Huggies, I think, were one of the better ones that we could get. It's funny, because you go to some of these other ones, you're like, oh, yeah, it's only $10 for 52. And you're like, great. And then it's like, you're gonna give your baby a rash on the first day. And.

Yeah.

So anyway, we are.

So you guys probably think that we're just talking randomness to talk randomness at the beginning of an episode, but believe.

It or not, it's true.

No, today we're gonna be talking about talking points. We're gonna do some random card polls. And so. Yeah. So what's going on?

Hey, hey, hey.

That'll never get a lot.

That's a thing. Now it's a thing. It was a thing the first time you said it was.

So.

Yeah. So we are gearing down. We've got a month. One month. One month till our live episode. Till 2. 50.

That's crazy. Only 30 days away.

Did we rev match?

What does that mean?

You said we were gearing down. Oh, it's a car term. All my car people.

Anyway, listen, what does it mean rev.

Matches when a manual transmission. If you're looking to save, like, you blip up. Sorry. You give a little gas to get into your lower gear.

Hold on a Second. And then for all of you out there listening, this is where you just zone out.

Right?

I'm just kidding.

I'm interested.

I'm interested.

But you blip up, which was. Which is when you. You get a little bit of gas, get your RPMs up while the clutch is in, and you put it in a lower gear and you let that bring you down and you do it again.

Okay.

Yeah.

Rev match.

And what is the outside of just hitting your brakes?

Well, it's good for your engine because you're not just dropping it and it allows your drivetrain to start slowing you down instead of putting all the pressure on your brakes.

I see.

You're just getting brakes.

On your sports car. It's a wonderful thing to learn. Plus, I don't know, I loved doing all the things when I was. I love driving stick. I miss having a manual transmission. I now have my. The car I'm working on in my driveway does have manual transmission. And I got a few things to do left and hopefully I can put it on the road soon and start to enjoy the wonder of manual again.

I only had one manual transmission. It was a 79 Chevy pickup and I think was a pain in the neck. But I've driven a few little like five speed. Manuals are so much fun.

Did that one have the first gear? That was literally three seconds.

Ping Hong. No, it was a three on the tree.

Oh, okay. That's.

And I swear that clutch, you had to lift your leg up to like your knee touched your chest to get it to shift like it was. Yeah. Wore my leg out. I sat through a snowstorm like bumper to bumper traffic for three straight hours and my leg was completely dead. I was using my right leg to like shift because of how tired my leg was getting from shifting to first and then back to zero and then backed up and then down and then up and then down.

Yeah, we're all over the place.

Yeah. I'm not though. I'm just totally not following. But what I am doing is I'm figuring up how many episodes left.

Right.

We. We are at. Technically we put out this last week, 147th episode. So we are going to have one or two weeks where you're not going to have anything from us except for maybe some shorts.

Oh, boy.

We're going to build.

Send out shorts.

The brand anticipation.

Oh, anticipation. Build the wall.

Yeah. Especially the week of you guys won't be getting an episode or. Yeah, the week of you won't be getting an episode. Just for all the preparation that's gonna be going into making sure the cool stuff like hats, right? Got some fancy hats in here. Got some leather truth response hats. Totally gonna have some gifts and some purchasables. So making sure all that stuff's ready to go and the grand prizey stuff is ready to go. Sweet. For that, for that event, invite your friends, invite people, family, whoever. We're just going to have a good time and nothing else. It's going to be something. You can throw paper wads at us or something.

That's right.

On not live, but recorded video footage that's going to go on YouTube. So today's first question.

Today's first question is.

Oh, no.

Did Jesus Christ remain in the tomb after his crucifixion?

What? That's really the.

I want you to interpret this question and then answer it.

Okay. Did he remain in the tomb after the crucifixion?

Yes, obviously after being placed in the. But that's the exact wording that it.

Used after the crucifixion.

Oh, man. There's a couple different ways I can do this, but on the.

I wonder if. Is it talking about his physical body? Like, did his spirit walk out of the tomb?

Did he remain in the tomb after his crucifixion? This is the whole, like, man, are.

We answering this now?

Oh, right, right. I guess we should.

Cause I can start.

No, no, give a little something. Just a little a snippet. Give a hot take.

Well, we know that at the very least, on the third day, he won't in there no more.

That's right.

Okay. Mm.

Yeah. So, you know, his. His disciples could have stolen him.

Okay, man, this is gonna be an interesting conversation.

He could have rose from the dead.

He stayed in there for three days.

They are. There's actually, well, there's the, you know, there's just a thought process that he descended into hell to take the keys for those he needed to save and, and to I guess, show those who didn't believe that the they were wrong.

And so all this and more after the break.

He did this to me again.

Welcome to the Drew's response. So, Matt, you want to pray for us today?

Yeah, I do, I do. I do want to pray. I gotta take my hat off, though. I've been lazy. I haven't taken off yet. All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for today and for this podcast and just the ability to continue to do this, guide our conversation on the question you've already given us and any others that we pull out of that box today. Lord, Just help us to find good answers and good conversation and do so in a way that glorifies you and might even make a difference. And we pray all this in Jesus name, name, Amen.

It might even make a difference.

Might even.

So before we stopped for the little intro.

Yeah.

Did Jesus.

I had mentioned, you know, stay in the grave? Yeah. Did Jesus stay in the tomb? But I had mentioned, like, people there are, like, lots of theories.

Yeah. That's what I was kind of getting into.

Yeah.

Before Bron.

Like, what kind of theories? I haven't heard too many theories in this one.

Well, I mean, you disciples. Okay, okay, let's slow it down again because you have to.

Okay, you slow it down because you're.

You're going. You're jumping after now. Okay, jumping after. You get. We're going to talk about before, like, okay, so they put his body in the grave.

Oh, so you're talking like you're. You're taking this question super deep.

Oh, man.

If you want to.

I mean.

So, like, you're taking it super deep where it's like, did he stay in the tomb? Well, his body.

His body was in the tomb. But his soul. What did the soul do? The soul, it didn't go to heaven. It went. What. To get the keys.

We could get real wild and be like, is there a difference between soul and spirit? But we're not going to talk about that today.

Sure.

Even if that's what.

So anyway, unless you want to just talk. We can just talk.

No, no, go for it. Go for it. I want to.

What's your theory? I mean, one of the prevailing things is that, you know, Christ's crucifixion after his death, he went down to hell to set the prisoners free that were to be freed or went down to Hades or. And then also it's like the revealing of the gospel to those who had passed away, because he's down there showing this is their combination of everything that they've been told over the years. And for those who adhered to it, for those who accepted it, they get to be saved. And for those who rejected it, they. That's where, you know, they. That's the condemnation that they are facing now that they realized, oh, this is the.

In order for that to be even a possibility. Right. Like, explain where he went then.

Well, okay, so Jesus tells us a.

Story in this theory, obviously, right?

Yes.

It's not necessarily. We're not saying that. This is.

Yes. So Jesus tells us a story of a guy named Lazarus and a rich man where the Rich man is in a place that is bad. And Lazarus goes to Abraham's bosom, kind of like temporary holding sites of the good versus the evil. Right. And so Lazarus is being embraced. And the rich man who took advantage of him his whole life and did not live righteously, it cries out to Lazarus. There's a chasm between them that cannot be crossed. And cries out for help, but can't get help. Cries out to him to warn his brothers because he doesn't want them to end up in the same place. Gives us the indication that there's two different places that even spiritually that we go before the final resurrection and before we go between, before the white. The great white throne judgment. Now, that being said, that he would have gone to that place and took the captives, right, the good captives with him. And then the others would have seen the gospel right in front of their face. Because. And the thing is, the reason I ask why, okay, here's because they're being rewarded to go be with him. Go be with the Lord. He's going to go take them to where he's going to be.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. The reason I ask why is because if there's a positive place and a negative place.

Yes.

Like, why is he taking them anywhere?

Because Abraham's bosom, that name I'm using for this place or paradise.

Right.

It's kind of like a pre. Paradise where they're at now.

So you're saying paradise is the paradise vestibule.

So Jesus said that today you're going to be with me in paradise. And Romans 8 tells us that even though our bodies should die because our spirit is attached to the spirit that raised the spirit of the Lord, we will go to be with the Lord, then also goes on to say that our bodies will be raised one day too. Now, interesting about that is that.

But I don't think it's talking about paradise after that, does it?

But Jesus did. That's the point. Is he?

No, what I'm saying. Yeah. When he said to the thief on the cross today, yeah, we will go.

Be with the Lord. We're going to go be with the Lord. And so when we're with the Lord, until the time of the resurrection, when I get our bodies again or get bodies remade into new bodies, kind of like Jesus's was then. And so from then, we're just kind of with him, where he's at. Do you see what I'm saying?

Oh, yeah, I know. I see what you're saying.

Okay. So the idea being. And Then there's some evidence of this because at the crucifixion and even the resurrection, there were some who were seen who had passed away. He was seen walking through the city.

Yeah, right.

So those would have been, they were saints of old. So those who had been waiting for Christ, some of them got to go and show that they've been set free kind of thing. It's kind of cool.

Anyway, I actually didn't know that. Yeah, if you miss that part.

Yeah. If you, if you read the Scriptures, it says that, you know, at the crucifixion there was people that actually it.

Was like some 500 or something. Like there was lots.

Gotcha.

Yeah, it's pretty, that's not a lot if it was everybody, but I mean.

That would, that would be, man. Well, we talk about the narrow path, but no, I mean, but it's, it's an interesting, gives us kind of like a, kind of a foresight into something beyond ourselves. It shows us a life after death. It shows us a continuation after this body. It shows us something greater. And if Jesus himself talked about the fact that after these two men passed away they went to different places, it gives us the indication that, you know, he would have access to all of this. Of course. So that is one of the prevailing theories is that while he was in there, he went and took the captives free.

So, and then I, I, I'm just inserting my thoughts, right. I, I, I, I, I think that,.

That.

The two places, the good and bad places are, are like, that's what they are. But I don't think there's a second place until after the Judgment.

A second place?

Yeah. So like difference between Abraham's bosom and Paradise. I consider that to be the same place where Jesus there to be with them.

It's all so, and then it's not hell. Hell is a different thing.

Right.

Much later. Which is interesting because everybody thinks of it as right now.

I don't know that it's, it comes later, but it's just not for them yet.

No, no, everybody be that, that comes after the Great White Throne Judgment.

No, after the Great White Throne Judgment, he throws Helen Hades into the lake of fire. So there's no point in throwing anybody in hell than to go into. Well, no, no, I mean seriously though, this is, this is okay, but we're diving into it.

Yeah, yeah.

But what, this is the place that, that these things are ultimately going to go, right?

Yeah.

So there is one final place that everything is either going to be this or that.

So are you saying that there is a. There is a pre hell holding place and a pre heaven holding place and that we're not all going to like, soon as Great Throne of judgment pops up, then everyone finally gets their final oh, sorry, you were in that place, but you're going to go here instead of. It's like.

It's kind of like, look, your sins are out. You know, here's. Here's why you're condemned. You have no chance of redemption because you did not believe in the one who was sent for you. And, you know, you go to be where the devil and his angels are going to go.

Right. That's an interesting point that I think that a lot of people need to hear is that hell wasn't designed for man.

No, no, absolutely not.

Hell is the result of. Is the destination for the result of man's sin. Sure. But it was not originally created for mankind.

Yeah, it's a good.

And people miss that. I think when it comes to talking about hell, is that. That they're like, how can somebody. I mean, I would. This.

How can a loving God.

God send us to hell? You know, this horrible place? And it's like, well, it wasn't originally designed for you. It was designed for those who were willing to rebel, you know?

Yeah. And we did. And God doesn't send us there. We send us there.

Right.

Like, he actually doesn't want us to go there. He's trying his hardest for us to not go there. He's given us every way out. In fact, the one way above all ways, he's like, look, it's free. Just take it. Right. And we won't sometimes, you know, so, like, it's crazy, but yeah. But anyway, so getting away from that, going back into what you were talking about at the beginning, so that's possibly what was happening during.

Well, what's the other theory like, opposed to that? Like, just that.

There. There's some that say he went to be with the Father during that time, then came back down. I'm not sure about that, but I mean, it could have. I mean, he's God. He can do anything he wants.

Yeah, just like a sidebar conversation, like, zipped up. And I was like, okay, I just want to make sure we're on the same page. So I'm gonna go back. Like, we're gonna. Like, that's the plan. Okay, cool.

I'm headed back.

So. So wait, wait, I'm. So I'm done, right? You want me to go back there? Oh, so I don't know if that's the case.

But are there any other theories in there that there's been.

There's been theories.

I mean, yeah, but those two are the.

Those are like the bigger ones. Yeah. Especially the big. The first one. Now, of course, we know when it. You were heading towards the empty grave. And that is. That is amazing because, yes, we do know. And actually that's where history. His. His story. Right. But no history that we can actually prove ends, and then speculation begins. Well, faith and speculation begins because you can go back in history and prove without a doubt that Jesus was a man, survived, you know, lived on this planet, had a ministry, did amazing things. You can prove that he had these followers. You can prove that he was killed on a cross.

Nobody disputes any of that.

Yeah. And you can prove that he was buried. And the other thing that you can. That is indisputable is that on the third day, that tomb was empty, but it's from there. Now, that's an interesting thing in itself because. And I didn't know this. We were going right away, but. Yeah, so is the fact that, you know, obviously Christians believe that he came back to life. The resurrection of Christ. He resurrected, started walking about, saying hey to people, proving existence, giving the best Bible study of all time, walking through locked doors, letting people feel some scars. Amazing stuff, right? Redeeming, Peter, all the things. Love it, by the way. I get kind of excited. So that is our belief.

Sure.

That's where our faith is based on. In fact, Paul says that it's basically the biggest deal of our faith because without it, our faith is futile.

Well, doesn't it. Doesn't it say in there that literally people didn't recognize him?

Well, it said that when they first met. That mean they don't know what they're looking at.

Sure. Right.

So his body is.

So it's not. So it wasn't the same body.

It was.

Because obviously they would have been. Oh, you're back.

Well, I mean, they're looking at a guy that's now perfect.

Okay.

Right.

And so they see him get beaten and torn up, and he's dying. They know what he's been looking like as he struggled as a human. And they see him in a perfect form, and he's like, hey. And at first they're like, yeah, I know. And then he. They're like. When he reveals himself, like, in. In his own way, they're like, oh. Oh, my goodness. You know, like, it's amazing. Like. And once they recognize him, they recognize him, which is wild.

So.

Do you want me to keep going on other possibilities?

No. Well, I was going to. I was going to bring up some theories, but I don't know if I want to go that route.

So go ahead.

Keep going.

Well, no, I mean, so if you want to go on other theories.

Right. Yeah.

So, okay. Did the disciples steal his body? Okay. What. Which is problematic from the beginning because the tomb was guarded by Roman soldiers who were trained to kill.

Yes, they were.

And the stone would have taken.

Well, not just that, but.

And they're alive, which is another problem, because the Roman soldiers wouldn't have just been like, I give up.

No.

They would have fought to the possible.

Death, or they would have thrown themselves on their own weapon. They would have killed themselves before they got in trouble for doing that, because.

They either died, they didn't want to be crucified. Right.

Like, that was another thing. They knew what people went through.

Roman soldiers were not likely to be crucified. Rome actually thought that to crucify a Roman citizen was. Well, just to put it. It's the worst possible thing you could do.

Sure.

So they probably wouldn't. They probably just would have put a sword through them or chop their heads off or something like that. That's more humane to them than the.

Cross, which is why the jail guard wanted to fall on his own sword when Paul and Silas and, like, a door flew over.

So anyway, so that's the problem with that to begin with, is that, okay, how in the world would they have done that? While it's being. While it's. The seals in place, Roman soldiers are guarding the tomb, and that stone needs to be rolled away. And that's pretty heavy in itself. So there's a lot there.

And then we're not talking, like, security guards with tasers.

And there's more problems with it, though, because you have a group of people that would have had to be in on a huge lie.

Right.

It had to be. And the thing is, is that people don't die for a lie. Okay. And they won't have the same story. That never changes. Whereas the disciples and everyone who encountered Jesus or claim to have countered the.

Risen Jesus, they won't die for a known lie. That. That's important because lots of people refute that and say people die for lies all the time.

But a known lie, they don't die.

For a known lie.

You had a group of people who said they saw the risen Christ.

Yep.

So in order for them, they would have had to knowingly. The whole group of them had to. Would have to knowingly. Know the lie. And the thing is, is all of those people who said that they saw Jesus risen from the grave, not only did they carry that to their deaths, but on the way there, they were persecuted, they were tortured, and they were killed. And yet not a single one of them, okay, refuted or went back on a single word. They stuck to it, no matter what, with conviction that this actually happened. And what's interesting about that is, isn't just the disciples that were originally with him. You have James, the brother of Jesus, who didn't believe in him before the death, but then did ended up being part of the large part of the early church. Paul, who was, you know, Saul, who was hunting down Christians, then ran into Christ and changed his entire view on the whole thing, including being one of our greatest evangelists. So there's too many problems there. And so some people say, well, maybe then it was mass hallucination. Problem is, is that hallucination doesn't work in mass. It works individually. You can possibly get a whole group of people to hallucinate, but it's very unlikely you're gonna get them all to do the same thing.

Yep.

So that doesn't work because you have Peter or, I'm sorry, Paul. Paul. Paul said that not only did the disciple see him and James Solomon, and he saw them, but 500 people saw him at some time. Then go ahead and ask them at the time that you wrote, go ahead and ask. Some of them are still around. Okay. So that is a society where oral tradition says, okay, I'll go check with them. And so for him to say that and make such a claim, there would have been people who could have gone and checked on that. And if it hadn't been true, they'd have tore up his stuff and gone on with it. You know what I mean?

Yep.

So that doesn't work either. Right. Then there's the theory that, well, maybe Jesus wasn't truly dead. Well, that's ridiculous for so many reasons. Number one is, as I kind of gave him. Well, you weren't here, but the sermon I gave last Sunday, the Romans were experts on death, and they were not going to let him down off that cross unless he was actually dead. In fact, the Roman guard, you have a couple instances to make sure that he was dead. You have the Roman guard that was standing there going, truly this man was son of God and it was the way that he died. This guy was an expert in death. He watched death happen all the time. He knew the moment Jesus was gone, recognized it. Right. You have the spear that goes through the side, spilling out the blood in the water from probably around the heart. More than likely, you have the fact that even after Pilate, when Joseph of Arimathea came to Pilate, Pilate was like, hold on. And asked a centurion to make sure. Like, this was a. And not. There's too many cogs in this wheel for it to have failed. Like, there's. There's too many. And not a single one of those cogs is going to lie, put his life on the line. Especially because most of the big players that are going to testify that he was dead have nothing to do with Jesus and everything to do with Rome. And so therefore, he was dead. And just for sake of argument, Just for sake of argument, let's just say. Okay, now I've already proven that's ridiculous, but let's just say that he didn't actually die. Mm. And you're gonna tell me two days later, people see him and he doesn't look like he's pretty much dead anyway.

Right.

Because they saw him and he didn't look dead anymore.

Mm.

He looks pretty miraculous. And dead people don't go through locked doors, and dead people don't go on long journeys like these things. It doesn't. It doesn't add up.

There you go.

Doesn't add up.

Not to mention, how do you get out?

Yep.

Yeah. That would have been another thing. How can you.

There's two theories that run into each other that just are a mess at that point.

Yeah.

Yep. So cut. Good. Dry game, set, match.

Yeah. Well, here's something. Here's something interesting, too. Is like.

You're right.

Yeah. Okay. The. The. The concept of the death, burial, and resurrection, like, there's different bits in there that mean different things. Like, for the whole sins and all of that bit. It only required his death. Do you ever think about through that? Like.

No, I have not.

The veil was split when he died, not. Not when he was resurrected.

Right.

The forgiveness of sins was given to us at his death. Yes, because it only took a sacrifice. But there was a lot that his resurrection meant, too.

His resurrection gave us, first off, that we could trust in exactly who he was. Like, this is the son of God. This is. And everything he says is not only true, but we need to now go back through and put weight on everything.

Right.

You know, including the promises. And ultimately, in showing that he can conquer death and promising it to us ahead of time, we now know that we are promised something, you know, past death. That's huge. You know, in itself. And then you have the events after that, even after his ascension with Pentecost and all that stuff. But, you know, just the fact that he returned and showed us everything, you know. Here it is, guys. I'm back.

Yep.

This is real.

Yeah.

You can check me, like, right, like,.

You can check it for yourselves.

Yeah. Can you imagine? Okay, now we already know that we know very well the story of Paul. And we only get like a. Not even a preview. We get like an over glance of. An over glance of what happened to James, his brother. But can you imagine being James? Like, that brother of mine was full of it. Hey, what's up, brother? What?

Oh, my gosh. Let me tell you about. Yeah, it's like he's standing right behind me.

He's.

He's right there. He's right there.

In that something.

It reminds me of this video. I saw this. It was actually awesome, and I loved it the second I saw it. It was this kid who was trying to be an atheist, and he was driving down the road, he's like, God isn't real. If God was real, the lightning was striking. 3, 2, 1. And then lightning struck, and he's like, oh, so that's. That's problematic. And I'm like, for you,.

That's awesome.

Like, God was like, bet.

Yep. All right, so long answer short. Did Jesus remain in the tomb at the crucifixion?

No.

No. Nope.

Nope.

Man rose from the grave and the ascended into heaven.

That's it.

Hallelujah.

He's coming back. Better watch it, Dave.

You better watch it.

What. What single thing would you absolutely want to do, if possible, during your last lifetime, as far as your faith journey is concerned?

As far as my faith journey?

Yeah.

Oh, boy. What did I love to do?

Single thing would you absolutely want to do?

Well, I could look at it on a micro scale, and I could look at it on a macro scale. I've like, from probably. There's probably too much vanity put in there, but I would. I always. Our pastor goes to on all these missions trips, and he's talked about going to Ethiopia, India and all these places and preaching to, you know, 17,000 people and watching hundreds upon hundreds on thousands of people get saved. I would love to be able to be utilized in that way. Right. To sound like just all of a sudden go, oh, my gosh. Like, God used me as a vessel and this happened. Like, that's crazy. On a micro level, I would love to be able to sit with a couple that's legitimately struggling and help them get through it. Like, so my heart breaks for couples that are falling apart, and I don't have a lot of opportunity to deal with it. So there's your micro and macro.

That's good. There's good things.

Yeah, I like that about you.

Ultimately, if I. If there's one thing I can achieve through my faith journey, I want to hear, well done, thy good and faithful servant.

That's like, copy.

I was like, and that's not in your lifetime, bro.

It's a good point.

Okay.

I mean, now you do hear that during your lifetime. That's pretty remarkable.

No, I mean, okay, yeah, that's.

You said, if I could achieve one thing, I want to be embraced by my Savior and told that I did a good job. That's ultimately what I want to do. But I mean, on the things along the way, I want to be able to, with the Lord's help, you know, shave off whatever is left in my life that I need to. That are big stumbling blocks for me. And, you know, I. When it comes to faith journey wise, I mean, life wise, there's plenty of things I'd want to do. You know, I want to be a good husband, a good father, maybe even, hopefully, if I'm blessed to be one day, maybe a great grandfather or a good great grand. No, a good grandfather or maybe even, hey, who knows, a good great grandfather. But anyway, a great great grandfather, like, it'd be a great, great job. Who knows? But the thing is, is that, you know, like, when you're talking about faith journey, I mean, like, look, there's things that I could say, like, I'd love to lead another person to the Lord.

Sure.

You know, I've been there with people, praying as they accepted the Lord. And some of which, you know, God used me in some way right prior to that. I don't take full credit for it because God's working. I'm just the thing he used. It's interesting for people to say, you know, I want to lead someone to the Lord, like, okay, but it's not ever fully one person.

Sure.

You know, but at the same time, like, yeah, it's great to sit down and help more people embrace him. That's obviously one of my goals. I want to, you know, I want to help people go deeper in their faith, understand things more. I mean, the whole goal that I have is when I go to preach, for instance, is I want people to understand it. Like, I really want to say it in a way that they can grasp it and start to apply it to their lives and If I can do that, job done. You know, don't get me wrong. Is it great if they feel awesome?

Sure.

You know, like, sometimes sermons hit people in a way, and they're like, man, I just feel it today. Great. Great. If that's a byproduct of that. But ultimately, that when somebody says, hey, man, I've never heard it that way, I really. I'm like, great. That's. That's all you need to say. Like, you could stop right there and, like, that's good. Like. But I mean, like I said, ultimately, though, I just want to do a good job. I want to be doing a good job. And when I'm done, whenever this race is run.

Mm.

I want him to embrace me. I wanna be able to embrace him, and I wanna hear that I did a good job.

Cool.

And how about you, Mr. Derek?

I want to be able to see my kid stand firm as an adult. Mm. That's. That's what I want. Like, nothing else matters.

Yep.

None of the other stuff matters to me. I mean, like, it's great if I can water some plants along the way and help harvest if that's a possibility, but I really just. I want to make. I want to make sure that I'm raising my child to where she will stand firm when she's an adult and on her own. So.

Mm.

Then a lot of that, I think we have to, like, as a parent, like, yo, your kid kind of is crazy when they're at home. And then you have outside people be like, oh, my gosh, your kid is amazing. We spent, you know, two hours together, and they're incredible. And it's like, are you sure? Like, I'd like my kid. Yeah, right. My kid. Like, that's not my kid. Yeah. So I think that's the. The biggest point of pride for me is, like, I had my son go out with our youth director. They went to play airsoft. And so then afterwards, then the youth director also took him, like, live shooting because he's got his, you know, thing. He's. He's great. But he comes back and he goes, dude, I can't even. I don't even know where to start. Like, he's unbelievably respectful. He plays by the rules. He's like, he can handle a gun. He's like, I don't know what you did, but you did a great job. I'm like, cool. Like, all right, that's a win. I'll take it as a win, you know, but obviously, like, when it comes to the Faith at the, the same thing. It's like when, when my daughter finally. We had to take her on a college tour this last weekend. We got another one a couple weeks now. And so the, obviously the, the fear is going into the college space is like, okay, well, I hope what I've instilled in you is going to be strong enough to hold back, you know, that you can stand your own in college. Because that tends to be where a lot of people run up against the resistance and they're upbringing wasn't strong enough to carry them through it. So all I can do is pray, keep talking, keep the lines of communication open and, you know, hope if she runs into something she can't handle, she'll can fall back to me and God. Sorry, God first, then me.

Well, I mean, yeah, yeah, that should be, that should be a given. All right, so how much control do you think God has over things that happen and why?

Oh, I've had. All right, so this is just my personal opinion. I have always tended to view God as. Since he uses all the terms he could use in Scripture. He uses the term father. Right. So I've told many people who are about to have their first kid that the minute you hold your first child, every, like it's gonna make sense. All of a sudden you go, I now understand my relationship with God. This makes sense. But it doesn't happen until you're physically holding your own child. And so I've always kind of felt that God has been kind of like a good father, that he's not necessarily overly concerned with the fact that you're choosing the red shirt or the blue shirt, or you want to go work at McDonald's or you want to go work at Burger King. But he is willing to intervene if there's a need for him to intervene, if that makes sense. So, like, my son brings me honor when my youth director comes to me and says, dude, he's doing everything right. Good on you. And I had. I wasn't with him. Right. So I've always kind of felt that the way we bring God the most honor is when we're doing things that we are supposed to be doing that we were trained to do. But God doesn't have to literally walk with it, you know, walk with us hand in hand into every situation. So that's, that's kind of where my opinion has been on this situation.

Yeah, I mean, not far off from where I'm at, because, I mean, is he in control of everything? Yes, but he allows it a lot of things Like, I firmly believe that nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing happens without his okay. You know, he allows a lot of things because it helps shape us and mold us and sometimes we need to be able to trip and fall down. And you know, if you're going to take the wrong step, sometimes you got to take the consequences. And sometimes he's like, nope, you're not going to make that step today. And there's things that are going to help us become stronger and things that we don't always understand and sometimes we pray and it's a no. And that's all part of the package. But ultimately he's, he's in control. And he's like, all right, well look, this is okay, and if it steps out of this, I'm going to do something. And. But if it stays inside of this, you're good. And so, and then there's also moments where he's like, alright, so here's your faith journey and you know, I'm going to help you get in a direction and then let's see where you take this. And okay, well I'm gonna chop a couple hints here that maybe you're getting a little this way or that way and, or maybe on the right path. And you know, it's, it's. But it's, you know, he's still ultimately in control, you know, and like if I love. People are like, well, does everything happen for a reason? Yeah, sometimes that reason is you're stupid and you make dumb decisions. But yeah, right.

Like that's one that people always rule out whenever they ask that dumb question is like, well, yeah, it's called a consequence for a reason. Like there's good consequences for good things that's done. There's bad consequences for bad things that are done. Yes, everything happens for a reason.

But I would probably argue that the, the majority of people saying, do things happen for a reason? You're probably leading into the whole Calvinism, Arminianism, you know, argument.

God has every step planned for. Yeah, yeah.

Which then obviously, like you have these hard questions like, okay, so let's look at Job.

Right.

So let's look at Job. His entire family was wiped out. Are you saying that he, that all of his family were specifically created simply to die? Like, yeah, that's, that's, that was their purpose.

Yeah, no, there's a lot of things that, yeah, so it's more like, yeah, everything. There are reasons that things happen, good and bad. And you know, there's things that God, like I said, that God allows to happen and he allows them happen because he can see how they're going to work out. Does he still ultimately have a plan? Yes. Is he going to be stopped from. From achieving his plan? No.

Right.

You know, are. Does. Do we getting into theological basis, do I believe we still have free will? 100, 100, 100. However, he is better at chess than we are. And just because we make one wrong move doesn't mean his plan is completely thrown off.

Right.

He can still.

Because I was going to say, as you're talking about, yeah, you're. You're doing great. And he's, yeah, fine, go do your thing. And then if you start drifting off, I'm going to course correct you and bring you back. Then you have situations like, I have a gentleman I know who was working for, like, cleaning up the common areas, like on one of those little gator drivers, and he got dragged by an F150 and now he's paralyzed from the waist down. It's like, it's just. It super sucks, you know, it's like. And it's one of those situations where, like, somebody could look at that and go, well, where was my course correction? Why didn't God see this coming? Why didn't he? Why didn't he, you know, somehow mystically push my gator back up and, you know, out of harm's way? Why did he let this happen? Right.

Yeah, I would. It's hard to hear. Okay. What I'm about to say is hard to hear in those situations, of course. And for some people who, who think about situations like that, it's hard to hear them here. That person. It would be an interesting thing if they can get to the point where they're like, how can I still bring glory to God through my situation?

And he is, by the way.

Oh, okay. I'm not saying you wouldn't, but like. Because when you can get to that point, everything becomes glory, even the mistakes, even the things that bad that happened to us. I mean, I've gone through a divorce in my early 20s, and I've been able to use the things that I went through to help others. And I've, you know, that was something I thought was going to be the worst thing ever. And I. And now I use it to God's glory, which is strange thing sometimes to think about, but, like, reason I bring it up. One of the things I really loved about the show the Chosen was that there was an episode where little James was like, why haven't you healed me? And he's like, I could do that. And it would be a good story. He's like, but when people see you in your current condition, I'm paraphrasing, of course, go out and perform miracles in faith. How greater a story is that? And it's like, wow, when we're able to go, yeah, I know I haven't had it the best, but God's still gonna use me and this is still good. And like, that's way more powerful sometimes than just, oh, God kept me from something. Sure, sure. Okay.

Yep. Well, it's the age old argument of, well, okay, let me ask you a question. Why isn't there, why aren't there any rich Christians? It's like the people who are like legitimate Christians, most of the ones that I know are driving beaters and they live in shacks and they, you know, shop at Goodwill and things like that. Like, why don't we ever hear stories about, you know, anybody who's got like millions of dollars in the bank and they're helping the, you know, helping God and helping the church and everything, which I think you could probably choose to look at it through any lens that you want to. You could. It's kind of the same thing we talk about. You walk in with a, a particular mindset, that's what you're going to find. So if you're looking for the poor Christians, that's what you're going to find.

Yeah, I saw this interview recently and I thought it was actually so. It's so simple and so brilliant at the same time. So, you know, the key to being content is to value what you have. And it's the same thing twice. But here's the thing. If you're willing to take a look, an objective look at the things that are in your life that are good, you're gonna find much happiness much faster.

Yes, sir.

For instance, he was one of the examples. He says, like, if you can step into a hot shower every day, he's like, think about it. It was not long ago in history where that wasn't a thing.

That was not a thing.

And yet we have this luxury for a lot of us every day, the ability to do that. And he said, look at the things you have and learn to love the things you do have. And there's that level. It's like sometimes you get this. Like, sometimes it takes someone going on a mission trip to a place where they don't have things to value the things they do and, or to change perspective of what's really important. But why can't we do that without it? Why does it have to take something like that? It's kind of like when you go to a funeral and everybody's like, it's too bad this is the only thing that brings our family together, yet none of them do anything about it.

Never.

So it's like, okay, great. Don't wait for something to have to happen to you for you to be able to find love in the things that God has already provided for you in your life.

Yep.

Yeah. Perception of reality is not reality, but perspective makes a big difference. Mmm. It really does. I mean, your perspective of what. What reality is matters a lot.

Yeah. Yep. I preach perspective a lot.

Yeah.

It's important, I think.

Yeah. You know, one of the things that, you know, when we talk about goals that we hope to achieve through, like, middle school or high school ministries. I said middle school. I'm trying to get the reality of God in their lives, like, if I can, because they're. Middle school is an age where they're just being bombarded with this whole new world that's trying to tell them everything and that's good and bad all at once. I want God to be a reality and all of that. And then high school, I focus more on the relationship of them and God and them and each other and them in the church. But relationship. So reality and relationship, if you pair them back to back, I said, if we can get those things done before they leave, we've done a pretty good job. But, yeah, reality, man. That's the thing is we get so. We're so quick to lose sight of the blessings we already have.

Mm.

Well, it's the same thing. Like, remember, like, when you were a kid and you would get the shiny new toy and you'd be so happy at the toy, and then after, like, three days, you're just like, yeah, whatever. It sits over there or it breaks or something. I remember I got a brand new bike, and for a whole week it was like, that's all I did, was that. That bike. And then eventually I'm like, oh, I haven't ridden my bike in weeks. Or, like, because now it's. Or my friend comes over with a cooler bike.

That's the other thing. Yeah. Like, using what? Just using. I'm going to use toys that people are aware of because they're in a movie. But if you have the Woody doll and you're like, woody is the greatest toy of all time. And you spend all your time and then somebody comes over, it's like, is that a Buzz Lightyear? Does it have wings and A laser.

And it makes sounds.

How come? And you start to doubt the thing that you loved. And that's wild.

Oh, that could preach. That could preach.

That could, that could get deep. That analogy is good. I like that a lot. Although the, even the perception of reality, I hate that so much. That's one of those like phrases that people are like, well, but that's what. And I know, I'm like, I don't care, I don't, I don't care about your perception of reality because it's not, it's not reality. Right. Like, I understand that we all react based upon our perception of reality, but we need to stop it. Yep. We need to stop doing that. We need to stop reacting before we actually get a glimpse of what the reality of the situation is. And, and a lot of times I think we just react based on our perception of what reality is when we've only got this view, this angle of what's actually going on.

Perhaps that's a byproduct of a instant society. You know, we've got instant, instant oatmeal, we've got instant message. We got. Seriously, we got almost instant Amazon. So like whatever you want, you can get it quick and I can.

It's funny the things that say two day shipping takes five days and the things that say like same day delivery, they show up like an hour later. It doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, I don't get it. But you know what's funny is like, how quickly we can get things that their society has taught us that we can get anything we want as fast as we want it. And sometimes we need to get rid of that for a while. Some of the best vacations I know, my family and I have spent, whereas places where we just unplugged from all that.

Yeah, we went camping last week and we completely, almost entirely unplugged. I mean, I only had enough cell reception to send a text message back and forth every once in a while.

Gotcha. I'm still alive. I'm still alive.

I mean, it's, there's something to be said for like putting that down and allowing yourself to just let go of that for a bit. Not only does it help retrain your brain to be calmer, which is important.

Yeah.

But you're right, it gives you the ability to kind of, when something happens, to not try to be so reactive. It's like, it's like society's training us to be in fight or flight mode where we have to everything.

Oh, 100%.

You know, I'll tell you it's wild is to think about the fact that like how people in society have now accepted that you have. The other people have to be. So for instance, because we have cell phones and they. And society has figured that everybody's got a cell phone, that when somebody calls you or texts you, they expect you to pick up and answer right away. Why haven't you text me back? It's been like five minutes. Like, dude, my kids went through this. And I was like, you guys, this is why you're not ready for this. Because you're expecting this. And if you don't get your answer right away, that's not what this is for. And the thing is, it's like I bring this perspective into them and I'm trying to instill this. Like that's not what this is supposed to be. Right. Like when I was growing up and it makes me sound old when I.

Say this when I was your age,.

Like where there was none of this. Like if you had a house phone and if you called and they weren't home, that's it. Especially before rest answering machines. Like if you didn't have the money for an answering machine, you didn't have that call ID anything like that. So you got, you tried. They either answered or you didn't. And then sometimes you get a busy signal. Right. And that just means try again another time, man.

Like, and I think that was the only grace period that our parents gave us. Right. Because like you were to call when you got to your parents house or to your friend's house, you know, from their house phone. But if your friend wasn't there, you were expected to come straight home back. Unless you had made plans to go see several friends to see if you.

Know what I mean?

Like, it was, I feel like that was the grace. Yeah.

You know, it was just a different. And now, now people are so like, I need it now. It's like, you guys, it's like we're. We. It's like we have a connection. Addiction.

Yep.

An instant addiction.

Yep.

It's like, wow, let's. Let's take a step. And the thing is, is that it does. It bleeds into our faith in tremendous ways. We're discontent, we're constantly reaching, we're constantly satisfied. And.

And we can't figure why God's not answering our prayer right now.

And well, yeah, that's the other thing is we're fighting our timeline versus God's timeline. Trying to say ours is better. No, it's not. And I say that from someone who's also a little impatient with God sometimes.

How often was it hundreds of years before God did something with something like, you know, I mean, yeah, you know, it. Some. Something that you do right now. Right. May feel like you're a common use Christian. Right. Because scripture says in Romans, like, some, some pottery is made for extravagance, some is made for common use. Right. Like you being made for common use may impact somebody 100 years from now. And that is going to be somebody who's made for, you know, special use. Whatever.

Yep.

Like, and so we don't realize that our very limited timeline and mindset that what we do impacts way more than just right now.

It's the ripple effect, right? Well, yeah. I mean, to your point, though, like the. I heard somebody call it with that we're slave to the ding. Like, I mean, even like, literally my watch starts vibrating. Whatever. It's like. And I'll have that moment where I go, do I answer right now? Like, I'm on a podcast. I probably shouldn't answer the phone, you know, but there's that, that inside of you. Like, I keep trying to figure out how. How did people do building projects in like the 60s when you had to go to the office, check your messages, then drive to the site, see that your subs weren't there, go back to the office, call their office, find out what's going on, go back to the side. Like, in my head, I'm like, oh my gosh, you're wasting so much time. But there was so much less stress. And then I started getting really frustrated when cruises started offering WI fi. Like, no, that's the beauty of the cruise is that I'm completely disconnected. You can't reach me.

Well, yeah, I mean, that's actually another interesting point. When work was allowed to take longer back then, that's another thing to keep in mind, like that we, we now think that everything has. Everything has to be done right away.

Yep.

And it's wild to.

And.

And oh my gosh, that's. That's a h. Everything was allowed to take longer because it just did. And that's fine.

Yeah.

But as soon as. And the thing is, is like, yeah, these things we have now make things more convenient. Okay. Now make it go faster.

Hold on.

Yeah, well, now we can get more done and we're not going to pay you more, so. Okay. Oh, well, that doesn't seem like it.

Well, and that comes down to. I think that the problem that I would say probably the vast majority of churches have is the people who, you know, hey, if you're here today and you want to give your life to Jesus, and hands go up and then they come up and they make the prayer and then two weeks later they disappear. It's because they went, well, I got saved and it didn't work. Like they're expecting. The minute I get saved, my entire life gets radicalized and everything that was bad is now good.

So that's the problem of the person who said, I want to be saved. But then there's a flip side problem to that too. And that's the church. Yeah, the church has no follow up and that is a problem.

Yeah. That does remind me of a joke though. There was a Baptist church and the pastor went to his elders a few times, said, ah, there's these bats, bats up in the bell tower we need to get rid of. And they're like, well, we'll try to get an exterminator. Insterminer came, nothing happened, bat's still there. And he's like, well, let's try to get an animal trapper. Animal trapper kind of came. Bat's still there. He's like, I don't know how to get rid of these bats. And then a couple weeks go by and the elders came to the next meeting. He's like, well, I guess you're going to talk about those bats. He's like, no, I got rid of them. He said, oh, how'd you do it? I baptized them and that's okay. Sorry, that's more of a change.

That's pretty funny.

Yeah, but that's the truth. I mean, some people, it's like, okay, I'm going to get my life and everything's going to get better. Yes. The church needs to do a good job of explaining some things sometimes. Yes. Follow up. Yes, absolutely. Helping people on their journey. It's amazing. And one of the things that people don't understand that they're taking part in though, is they're literally dipping themselves into spiritual warfare. And I've actually warned people, I said, he's either going to make it difficult for you to get into the water or he's going to make it not cool after you get out. And the thing, it's amazing how often it happens where somebody gets baptized and then they go under a spiritual attack. They don't even recognize it because, well, they're new. And then it chases them away and it's like, yeah, you gave your life to Christ and then Satan ran you out of the church.

So if you're One of those people who's struggling through spiritual warfare. That is the one series that we actually have a playlist on our YouTube. You can check it out. We did a spiritual warfare series.

12 Weeks.

Yeah, 12 weeks of spiritual warfare. We broke down each piece of the armor, and it was a lot of fun.

That was actually cool. Yeah, that was a good time.

Sweet. So check it out. So that's the one playlist that we have. So go check that out. It's a great segue into that.

Yep. No, that's good. And I've often wondered if the church. The big C, if the church needs to start implementing rather than like, everybody put your hands up, everybody come to the altar, everyone give your life to Jesus, and then we'll try to tell you what it means. It's like, do we, in a way, do we have it backwards? Should we, like, hey, who's. Who wants to change their life? Okay, come up. Now. We're going to start the process of explaining what Christianity is. Now, are you ready to give your life to Jesus and change? It's like, do they need most of.

The examples in scripture that I can think of, it was, okay, I understand. Now can I be baptized? You know, like, it's like, I get it. So when. When. When does this happen? Now, you know, you see it with.

It's. It's. You hear the gospel. Yeah. And then you make the decision. Decision. And actually.

And it's more than just hearing the gospel. It's actually having interacted with it. Like, it's. It's more than just the. The hearers of the Word. Right. And when you start becoming doer of the Word, your mind gets transformed, and that's when. That's when things start happening anyway. So it's. It's definitely a. You want. You want to have understanding of who Jesus is. Yep. Not just the words. Right.

Yeah. You want to make sure it's actually real. You know, it's interesting. I think both are good. I don't think it needs to be either or. I think it can be very well, both. I think there's times where somebody really has a radical encounter with Jesus through a sermon, through a gospel presentation, and knows that they need to start taking these steps seriously, and, boom, go for it. And then there's some who. I think I'm struggling with this. Great. Let's start helping you with this. Let's start sorting it out with you and then help you get to those steps that you need to take. I think it's both, but, you know, there's no one way about any of this.

Well, I think that we forget about God's mercy and grace in the midst of all of this. Like he understands we don't understand it all.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, and so I think that we forget that he has a grace that we don't generally have with each other and he has a mercy that we don't generally have with one another. And I think that we have to remember that in those circumstances, like somebody gives their life to Jesus and they get hit by a car before they can get baptized or they go in hell. That's, that's one of those questions. It's like, bro, that's why grace exists. There is grace and mercy for all things. Now I'm not saying baptism is the point of salvation. I'm not going to argue point. But what I'm saying is like we have to understand that the God who is just is also grace filled and merciful. Right. So we often forget that.

I think he knows more than we ever will when it comes to the real status of someone's heart.

When it comes to everything, I mean, everything.

Yeah, well, I.

Comes to everything.

Right. Well, and another thing to your point of like that question, like our job is also to, to make disciple makers. So that's, that's an important piece to that whole puzzle because the, when Jesus talked about, you know, go and baptize and make disciples. Right. Who are making disciples. That, that whole concept is, it's like a package deal, like where it's like, okay, we're to train people to 100, to train people and to do life with one another towards this goal of, of Christ.

So disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

Disciples making disciple makers.

Yeah. One of my favorite, I went to a church one time, they did an altar call, they got a few people and the pastor got down and he said, I'm so excited. This, today is the first step of the rest of your journey. You know, it's like. And I was like, that is a fantastic way of putting it because that, I feel like that woke a lot of people up.

Yeah.

You know the first step.

Yeah, it's kind of, it's wild to think about. We have these journals we end up giving to people that get baptized in the church. And we like writing little notes. The staff does little encouragements, you know, hey know, oftentimes just, you know, congratulations and. But I, I like to tell it basically indicate that this is, this isn't the end, you know, at least. And everybody does the same thing really, because all of us are on the same page of that. But, like, hey, you know, keep your eyes on the Lord. He'll keep making your steps good. Keep your eyes on him. Keep going forward. You know this. You know, it's. It's. Those are the things. Like, it's not. Trust me. I wish sometimes it was easy. It's like, all right, I made my decision. My Good. Right.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

No. Yep.

No, I get it. Probably need to get some final thoughts, huh?

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Crush your toe.

Do you have any final thoughts?

Do you have any final thoughts?

Do you have any final thoughts for today's topics?

Final thoughts?

Yeah, like last. We gotta land the plane, man.

Yeah. Can't stay up here forever.

You don't have to go home because you have to stay here.

As you have.

This guy with his songs. I don't know what. Let's read the cards again.

I would say just based on everything we talked about.

Go ahead.

Yeah. I was gonna say, like, this is what. What are your thoughts on to. What would you say to someone who is listening to this episode who's like, yeah, I already know all of this. That's my question.

Gotcha.

For your final thought. For your final thought. Yeah.

You go for Matt. Go for.

I'm gonna have a different question for you. I don't know what it's gonna be.

They say they already know all this.

Yeah. Like, yeah, okay. I understand all this stuff. Like, because there's some people who have been doing church longer than we've been alive. There sure are.

Like, you guys are just figuring this out.

Are big. Not that, but like, they're like, what can I gain from this? Right. What would you say to that person? Not that any of them are like,.

What if you can do it? So here's what I would say, and I'm going to kind of go back just second what you said, because you said somebody said they heard all this and said, yeah, I already know all this. Then my question is very basic. What are you going to do about it? Because God's going to be calling you to do something one way or another. And you either have to. You have the choice. You can listen to him and let him lead you forward, or you can fight him. And I can tell you that I never win the argument. So good luck with that.

If you find a way to win the argument, please let us know.

Christ definitely rose from the grave. Okay. It's the only thing that makes sense. Our faith is not futile. We are not to be mocked. This is the real deal. And he is in control and he is there to help you throughout your life. And yet what are you doing about it? That's good.

It's good. That's it for you. My question is this for the person who's like, this was just like drinking from a fire hydrant. Because today kind of was like, blah, blah, blah. For the person who's brand new. Right. What. What one piece of today would you say is. Is the most important takeaway for them?

I would say would be the thing that I. To. To my. As much as I try. I try to make this prominent in my life is to slow down and appreciate what you have. If you look in your closet and you've got multiple shirt options, like, that's amazing. We had our church, went on a missions trip one time to Haiti, and one of the ladies came back and said, I can't believe it. All these kids had one shirt and they would wear it for several days. They would wash it and wear it again. And if you show up with a suitcase full of clothes, they are absolutely mesmerized. Right. Had somebody else come back from Haiti and they said, you look down a road and all you see are 4x4 posts with a tarp on top. That's their house. It's like, so if you are. Yeah. If you're sitting in your car listening to this, you're in the upper echelon. Doesn't matter what kind of car you have. When you go home at the end of the day, if you have food to eat, you have water to drink, it's like, you're in the upper echelon. If you have a bed to sleep in, it's like, so stop getting hung up on. My bed isn't perfect. My carpet's not that soft. My shower, you know, doesn't stay hot that long. You know, like, all these stupid little things we get hung up on and we stop appreciating all the. All the great things that we do actually have. So, yeah, I would say just slow down and appreciate what you got.

Yeah.

Slow your roll.

Mm. So, yeah, let us know. Let us know what your next step is. I think that's a. That's a good thing for comments. Comment. What. What is your next step? What are you doing about it?

Yeah, keep pointing at him. I'm like, well, that was.

That was like.

That was his. That was his. That was his question, right? How he answers.

Question.

Yeah.

And. And when it comes to what you just said, like, if you don't have those things, if you are struggling in life. Reach out. Yeah. There's resources and we can help you get connected to them, and we want to help with that for sure.

Pray about it. Pray about it.

Pray about it. And. And do something. Right? Do something. Because we're all in this together and we're here to, like, carry each other's burdens. Right. And so we, we are all unique in our. What resources we have connections to, but we have been placed in places where we have connections to a lot of resources. And so reach out to us. If you. If you're struggling to get food on a regular basis, if you're struggling for shelter, if you're struggling for those things, it doesn't mean that we've got an instant fix, but we will at least be able to point you in the correct direction.

Actually, on that note, Victory Church in Lehigh is doing a free food and diaper giveaway on Saturday at noon. So if you are in a position where you need some free food or you need diapers, go to Victory Church in Lehigh Acres at noon on Saturday.

This Saturday.

This Saturday.

Okay, well, that's going to be last Saturday at this point.

Shoot. Never mind. It was a great event. We helped so many people.

Well, reach out to Victory Church.

I'm sure that we do it every month, so.

Okay, there you go.

Reach out to Victory Church. When it comes to their 4e diaper. A diaper and food giveaway.

That's right.

I mean, which is a great combination because the food eventually goes into the diaper.

It's cyclical.

All right, guys. So, like, subscribe, do all those things. Comment what your. What your next step is.

Right.

What is your next step? Even if some of us may know your next step, it's good for others to hear what your next step is. So if you're not somebody who normally comments, I'm asking you, step out and comment. You know, what is your next step in what God is calling you to? If you don't know, write that so that we can be praying for you. I mean, we may not know your actual name, but I'll tell you. Like, I'm praying for those who are commenting in.

Yeah.

If I don't know their actual name, I'm praying you by your. Your screen name or whatever it's called.

Super Dragon 487.

Super Dragon 487.

I'm praying for. Praying for you.

And share the episodes of at least one person this week. Yeah, stop keeping it to yourself. You selfish.

Right. And most importantly, it's crunch time. We're getting ready to hit that, that 250 event. And I really would love to see you guys out there. It's completely, completely free to you. Everybody's gonna get. Get something. Get a giveaway. Everybody that shows up, we're gonna have some fun conversation and. And there's gonna be some awesome food. So.

And you get to be a part of it.

And the Holy Spirit will be there.

And it's free to you.

We invite him.

Well, we're touring more. No, but it is completely free to you. And it's also free to that person who you've been thinking about inviting to church or inviting to whatever. It's gonna be one of those events that we can just come together and have some fun. And maybe it's a soft, soft intro to church for somebody. So invite people. Sign up Eventbrite the Truth Response live.

There you go. It is free, but you do need to get a ticket.

Yep. You don't have to bring the ticket even. Just we need to know how many people are showing up. That's the biggest thing.

So get lots of tickets. Okay. Get tickets and then come on the way. Don't drive too fast. You don't get more tickets.

That's right.

Just get the tickets for the show.

Get the show.

It's all about the show tickets getting in here. And they're free tickets, you know, you don't want the other tickets. They're not free. Trust me. They are not good.

But the tickets to the show, there's gonna be giveaways. There's gonna be merch for sale. There is going to be that, but there's going to be some giveaways. And like I said, everybody's going home with something. So everybody come join us. I guess that's called swag, right?

Swag.

Yeah. So come join us.

There it is.

It'll be fun.

That's it.

Hope you guys had fun today. And God bless.

God bless.

Hey, thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and give us.

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You don't want them to miss out on the truth because we are all about the truth here. Thanks for joining us this week and God bless.