Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] So on November 5, America made a huge statement with the way we voted. This country is sick and tired of being pushed around. And I was really proud of America for standing and just kind of like, hey, enough is enough. And the amount of people that voted, it restored my own faith in our own democracy. Our voting system honestly made me proud to be an American again. It was kind of depressing. You felt isolated and alone, not watching news outlets because you just. You can't put up with the propaganda machine and the madness of just the lies. And I think there's a lot of work to do. I want to celebrate the win. We're kind of in that season of, like, we're in that window now where let's celebrate. But I hope everybody's gearing up for hard work. Wokeism and blm, those are political movements that need to die. They need to literally, like, disintegrate. It needs to leave our schools.
[00:01:11] LGBTQ needs to leave the school systems. That stuff does not have to be in front of my children's faces every single day in the classroom. Rainbow flags do not belong in schools. American flags belong in schools.
[00:01:28] It just doesn't belong.
[00:01:30] You have your rights. You have equal rights. There's no sense in pushing the.
[00:01:36] It's really the.
[00:01:39] It's the insanity of demons, really what we're trying to teach five year olds. It's insane.
[00:01:45] But my question is in my. Another big ache I have is like, how can the church in this day and age get away with so many, many things?
[00:01:53] So many things.
[00:01:55] Weak churches everywhere. And when I talk this way, I am not saying that I'm better than any other pastor or any other church, but grace ops is to kind of counter punch against cheap grace.
[00:02:09] And so it doesn't mean that I'm perfect or anybody on my team is perfect. It just means we're tired of it. I'm tired of the soft gospel, the sugar gospel. How do pastors get by nowadays with avoiding things like human trafficking, avoiding things like how powerful LGBTQ has gotten in our school districts? Well, that's an attack directly on our children. And how can pastors just get. Get. How can they get by? How do people keep going to their church? They don't ever bring these things up. Why? Why is that? How can a pastor not bring up the fact that, you know, Kamala Harris is a baby killer and a communist? I mean, those are simple facts, and they could be said very simply just like that. And they'll say, well, because my 501C3, and that's just not true. I think that's misunderstood. If you look at the left, they're always going down to churches that they like. And what is that? That's an endorsement of that candidate. So if we want to endorse people in our political views, we can do that. There's no this whole 501. And then at the end of the day, if someone is policing the 501 rules and what we think are the rules, then so be it. Just lose it and pay your taxes. I think that'd be way better to pay some taxes in this world than to stand before God saying, oh, I hid behind this cheap monotistic protection, where it just, it just falls apart quick. When you start looking at the mandate of the church and the purpose and responsibility of the church to help those who are weak and to stand for those who are slaves and to protect the unborn. Protect life. Why do we protect life? Because we're all made and created in God's image.
[00:04:03] So, yeah, I'm really excited about the win and we've got. That really is a powerful thing. It was a great statement. I really would like to see our country get back to believing in Jesus Christ, to believing in biblical values.
[00:04:23] Not just lip service, not just, I don't know, churches can get away with cheap grace, cheap gospel, the inch deep, mile wide crowd.
[00:04:41] I mean the 7 minute, maybe 12 minute worship venue. I mean rock star quality.
[00:04:52] Lacking of biblical preaching in a lot of the mega churches lack biblical preaching, not all of them. And I'm not against the mega church at all.
[00:05:03] And it's not like my church is perfect or grace ops culture is perfect. It's just, it's like Gordon Ramsay. I always, I always love Gordon Ramsey Gordon Ramsay show Kitchen Nightmares because he would come in to the business, the failing business. He would come in to a mediocre owner and a distracted owner who's just. Or stressed out. And they haven't faced themselves or their failures for a long time and they're hanging by a thread, if they're hanging by a thread at all. And what does Gordon Ramsay do in these episodes? He comes in with passion. He comes in with high standards and it's always the same thing. He never does anything different. It's always about fresh food and checking the food before it goes out. I mean that's obviously you have to know how to cook and all that stuff. But those two main things of like make sure you're cooking fresh food and it has to go out to the tables. Perfect.
[00:05:59] Those two simple standards are high standards.
[00:06:03] That when you fail to maintain them, when you maintain those standards, people come to your restaurant, they like it. When you don't maintain those standards, you, you get a cheaper crowd. You get people who, I don't know, and then eventually they don't like it either. And then it all just begins to fall apart and you start blaming all these other things. So I love that show because in the church culture it's the same way. It's like God's grace is not there to excuse a pathetic existence of life. It's God's grace does not exist to help me be a good sinner. God's grace exists to train us. The book of Titus says to train us like the operations of his grace is to train us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and then to live self controlled, upright and godly lives. So we renounce two parts death, ungodliness, worldly passions. Those categories of our lives which are within our own hearts have to be faced off with. And it's not a one and done. It's a ongoing journey of maturing, sanctification. I mean, yes, it's all done in the finished work of the cross, but we're unpacking that for the rest of our lives.
[00:07:20] That's why we need community. That's why I think community is so important. We need one another.
[00:07:27] So there's a lot of work to do. What would it look like in four years? I mean, no one's talking about this, but I would love us to come out and say pornography is illegal or if you want to look at pornography, do it on the paid websites. But let's start making laws and cleaning up the filth that is in our society on digital screens, available to basically anybody, anywhere, anytime. It's just absolutely gross.
[00:07:58] And it is statistically proven that it destroys lives and it destroys culture. It's one of the things they do to tear down countries when they go in. They put 24 hour streamed porn to distract the men. I mean that's one of the war tactics, but.
[00:08:15] And you know that's a war tactic of the enemy. Jezebel's behind all of the pornography industry and I would just love to see that happen in the next four years. Let's, if we're swinging big, we're swinging, we're going for the fence in all these different categories. Let's add that to the list. That would be awesome.
[00:08:36] So how are you doing in the area of lip service to God?
[00:08:43] I'm not perfect. I don't nail it Every single day.
[00:08:47] But I. I am dedicated to the spiritual disciplines. I'm dedicated to reading my Bible. I'm dedicated to spending time in prayer and speaking with God and then, more importantly, listening to God and those simple little disciplines there added with fasting every now and then and extended times, really goes a long way in strengthening your spirit, strengthening your backbone.
[00:09:16] So I do run a church. I started a church 17 years ago. I started Grace Ops five years ago.
[00:09:23] And I do talk boldly about the word of God. I talk boldly about cultural issues because I believe the church has to speak about truth. And I'm getting. I'm so tired of this.
[00:09:39] There's. The church at large is more silent and more weak than it is boisterous right now. And I want to see that tip the other way. I want to see pastors either be replaced or be renewed in their vigor and their strength and their faithfulness.
[00:09:55] Their faithfulness.
[00:09:57] Faithfulness to God, faithfulness to God's name, faithfulness to the people.
[00:10:03] I'm not here to get people to like me. I mean, yeah, I'm not going to intentionally be rude, but I'm not here to. I'm not here so everybody likes me and feel so safe and comfortable. I remember a person in our church, a young lady came to me. I don't know, this is like a decade ago.
[00:10:23] And she said, well, I love this church, but you speak so boldly about what, you know, marriages between a man and a woman, and that homosexuality itself is wrong. I also speak about all the other sins, like gluttony and sexual sin. I speak about all of it. I don't just highlight one of them, but that had just become. I don't know, she didn't like it because she felt like she couldn't invite somebody who was homosexual to our church where they would feel uncomfortable. And I said, you know, two things back was my response. I had two responses.
[00:10:56] One, most of the time when I bring those topics up, I'm as balanced as I possibly can be in the moment. I said, so I think you should observe that. And two, I said, why aren't you. I go, you should be equipped. You. I put it on her. I said, you should be equipped that if I speak something from the stage under God's direction, you should be equipped to be able to have a powerful conversation with that person and help them grow and understand the truth. See, the problem is when we don't want to face truth.
[00:11:31] I mean, there are so many excuses out there that most the pastors that don't talk about this stuff. They claim, well, we're about the kingdom of God, as if I'm not, you know, we're about the kingdom of God. This isn't about me being better than them or them being better than me. I'm just looking at. They don't speak about truthful things. That's all I'm talking about.
[00:11:56] We, you know, we're, we're kingdom minded. In your nationally national minded. You're a nationalist, a constitutionalist.
[00:12:04] It blows my mind. I'm like, okay, so the church is. You're running a church and you'll be silent against the murdering of the unborn because really, when it gets down to it, you're afraid that people will be offended and you're afraid that they'll leave. But you don't address it because, I don't know, you like money or you like a lot of people in your church, but you don't address it because it makes you uncomfortable.
[00:12:29] People might not like you. People might cancel you and cancel culture.
[00:12:36] We're going to stand before God and give an account for what we did with his name and with the power of his cross.
[00:12:43] It's going to be a fearful day and joyful, but it's going to be dreadful at times. I mean, so, so these pastors will say, you know, you're a nationalist and we focus on the kingdom of God and we avoid politics.
[00:13:03] And that's just not a biblical message.
[00:13:06] Everything about a person being filled with the Holy Spirit is to infuse every dimension of society.
[00:13:13] We don't avoid politics because we don't like the topics.
[00:13:17] I wouldn't avoid a disagreement, agreement with somebody in my family because, you know, in the name of family, like if they're doing something cruel and wrong to somebody, I'm going to have a conversation with about it.
[00:13:30] The Bible, there's an ancient. This comes from the Old Testament all the way through the New Testament about possessing the gate of your enemy.
[00:13:39] And then. Don't get confused, don't get confused. We don't escape this earth. We don't escape. We don't leave earth and go to heaven forever. That's not the biblical perspective or worldview.
[00:13:55] Yeah, heaven's a pit stop. That's where I would go to be absent from the bodies, be present with God in heaven. But where's God coming back? He's bringing all of it back to this beautiful, powerful earth that he created. And he's going to bring it right to Israel, right to Jerusalem.
[00:14:10] He's going to rule and reign from there.
[00:14:14] And so in this earth, in this day, in this present age, that I believe we're in the end of days since Jesus ascended. But I believe we're in the end of the end of days. I mean, there's not much left for this thing to be wrapped up, the end of this age.
[00:14:30] But in this earth right now, I'm supposed to conquer darkness. That was Jesus's main mission. He came to destroy the works of darkness. And I'm supposed to be partnering with him in that work to destroy the works of darkness, starting in my own heart, facing off with my own dark wantings and my own failures and my sinful nature, and embracing the cross, being filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, walking in community, partnering with the Great Commission, yielding my heart to God, my resources, my time, my talents, my treasures to advance his kingdom in his name by making disciples.
[00:15:07] And that's not just the role of a pastor. It's the role of the body of Christ.
[00:15:12] The body of Christ is so off the mark of making disciples.
[00:15:17] Most people, when you ask them the question, what is a disciple? They don't even know how to answer it.
[00:15:23] And I'm not saying I'm not trying to pick on people, but it's just not. It doesn't seem like it's that important to us.
[00:15:31] So what's important to us? You know, we're excited that Donald Trump won. We're excited that the red wave hit and celebrate. Be excited, but be thinking, be engaging.
[00:15:43] You know, what kind of church do you go to? Do you go to church? What kind of faith do you have? Do you have faith?
[00:15:49] I don't believe there's many roads to heaven. I believe there's one way to heaven. There's one way to get to the Father, and that's only through Jesus.
[00:15:57] Jesus is the only person. Teacher, rabbi, Lord Savior, Son of the living God, God himself. He's the only one that ever claimed that there's one way to get to heaven, at least to my knowledge. I don't know all. I don't know every religion out there, but it's a bold claim. No one comes to the Father except through the Son.
[00:16:21] That's it. So how are you doing with that? Where are you at with that?
[00:16:26] Don't allow cheap grace, this message of softness, this weak culture, because we still have a pretty weak culture. We made a strong stance, but now we've got to go in and take the broom and sweep out the corners. We got to go clean the house.
[00:16:40] We've got to tame it. Down again. And I really believe the only way to do that is to have the human heart experience and encounter the power of the living God. And that's through Christ, that's through being filled with this fire, filled with this power of his holy spirit.
[00:16:56] So that's what we're dedicated to in Greece Ops. We have a values driven culture for men.
[00:17:02] We've got a, we have a five star charge that we've just placed at the very center of our world.
[00:17:09] It's on our website. I'd love for you to go check it out. Go to the website, sign the charge, sign the values. It's the five values that we live by. And you're saying, I want to be a man after God and live by these values.
[00:17:22] And we even have a seven day little journey that'll, that'll start off when you sign it. It'll give you like a one to three minute amount of content per day, a little bit of reading, a little video, little call to action, just help you stay engaged. But what are you doing?
[00:17:37] I mean, in that, I mean, it's one of the most powerful things to think about how much time we waste. Because in America, I mean really, you like, you do what you want to do, we do what we want to do.
[00:17:47] That's why God, one of my mentors, says, why does God want your money? Because in the Bible he says, where you put your treasure is where your heart will be.
[00:17:57] Powerful stuff. Where I put my time, I love it, I'm devoted to it. Time, devotion, lingering.
[00:18:06] When I want to build powerful friendships takes time. When I pursued my wife to marry me, it took a lot of time to keep a strong marriage going. I had to invest a lot of time with her to keep relationships with my kids going. Gotta invest time. It's the same way with God.
[00:18:25] We're not gonna get a powerful backbone and we're not gonna have this confidence to speak by just reading like the verse of the day. That's, I mean, yeah, read the verse of the day, but don't let that be all you do. Engage God daily. Fall in love with them. This is a love story. God loved us so much, he sent his only son to die for us.
[00:18:47] Well, this episode here, I just wanted to talk about that. I want to celebrate. Awesome, awesome work. Good job, America. But now we got a lot of cleaning up to do.
[00:18:57] And that means loving people we disagree with. It means helping have empathy and embracing their own hearts.
[00:19:07] But the lies, the lies in the media. Gotta go. I would love to see pornography. Go. I mean, I love this whole efficiency thing that they're talking about, about the government being accountable for the money that they spend and going to, going in line by line and trying to find. It's like we're, we're creating a department to be the IRS for the government. About time. It is about time. I like this idea. I don't. I. I think I've heard the idea of like cutting or killing income tax. I don't know what that would look like or how, but really awesome stuff. And, you know, these are days of reformation. They're going to happen in the next four years, but it won't be as powerful and it won't stick unless your heart is reformed by the power of God and encounter the death, the birth, the death and the resurrection of Christ if we don't encounter his presence and his spirit. And so inch deep, mile wide style. I don't know, man. I don't know how that. I don't know what that's doing or building. I'm not saying it's entirely evil. You gotta go somewhere where someone knows your name. Someone's gonna call you if you're not there. You gotta go where worship's longer than 12 minutes.
[00:20:17] Go get in. Go find a church that encounters God's power.
[00:20:25] Well, it felt good to get all this off my chest. Hope it was helpful to you. Until next time, live upright.
