Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 So we finished our national call this morning, and the last many days as I've been spending time with God, I wanted to just share something with you that's, I don't know, I, I can't let this thought go. It, it, it, it's gotta get out <laugh>. Um, there's a book that I've gone through probably 10 times. I love this book. It's called Running With Horses by Eugene Peterson. It's about the life of Jeremiah the Prophet. And if it's the only book I ever read the rest of my life, I'll probably, I'll be okay with that. But I'm getting so much, I get so much out of it all the time. I preach about Jeremiah all the time. I, I love this, uh, I love the book of Hebrews, the book of Exodus. And, uh, when it comes to like grace ops culture, I don't know, just this whole thing of like living upright, living godly moral lives, men of character, in a day and age where the world is just coming unglued.
Speaker 0 00:00:46 I mean, we know in the end days the Bible says that the world will be like the days of Noah. Well, we're kind of, there's a lot of stuff that's like the days of Noah in our culture today. Do we just go on with life, with our own goal setting? What are we doing right? Like, what are we doing? Are we living in tune with God? So here's the thought that comes outta Jeremiah's life, and uh, Eugene Peterson points us out. It just, it just kind of wrecks me and motivates me. But it was at the time when Joe, uh, in, in Jeremiah's life, so Jeremiah was prophesying and, and living faithful before Israel for 40 years. I mean, we have to remember, we're in a marathon, not a sprint. The, the kingdom of God is a marathon. So always remember that this is about endurance.
Speaker 0 00:01:29 This is about getting, doing this a hundred times, a thousand times, right? Like, it's about being faithful a million days in a row, <laugh>, you know, if you will. So in Israel's history, Manassa and his son had led for 57 years and they were evil. They, they, they, they had all kinds of idolatry established in Israel, prostitution at the temple, just disgusting type stuff. Well, Josiah becomes king. He's eight years old, and he, he finds the book of, uh, Deuteronomy and he's starting to, uh, reform the nation through, you know, telling them what to do from a, the way a king would, right? Like this, is this a command? You know, get, let's get right with God. Let's get to the temple. Let's destroy the altars, let's get rid of idolatry. And there's a rebuke in there that where Jeremiah, cuz they were, it was the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, right? We were in the temple of the Lord. The, you know, if you're a, if you're like a pastor type in that day, a priest of the Lord, it's, it's kind of a good thing, right? The church is filling up the temple's, filling up, it's like, oh, these are good days, uh, better than we've ever seen in 57 years. But Jeremiah's like, there's a rebuke there, there's a challenge there at this point in their history. And he is like, you're in the right place doing the right thing, but you're not right?
Speaker 0 00:02:54 Wow. I mean, I just, I have to think about, I've been thinking about this for days,
Speaker 1 00:03:00 For, for my own life. I'm not trying to look at anybody else's life, just my own life. Like, okay, I'm in the right place doing the right things, but am I, am I right? Am I really in tune? Am I really all, all the way present there? And, you know, that's a challenging thought and, and it's, it keeps you sober minded, moving in the right direction. And it tells me a couple things, right? I need to be humble and to be hungry for God. I need to do what Jesus said. I need to abide in him. I do need his grace to enable me and to train me for this life to overcome this world.
Speaker 1 00:03:44 So grace is training us how to not only be in the right place and do the right thing, but to actually be right in the midst of that. It also tells me that I need a community. I need, I need brothers. And I just thought about the grace ops culture. Yeah, it's been around for a couple years, but you know what? It's been in research and development mode and we've been changing everything every time we need to. And I'll tell you what, I was talking to my, my partner Zach, uh, a little while ago today, and I said to him, grace office is two months old. And he said, yeah, I need to get my mind around that. You know, you're, you're right. And I'm like, yeah, it's two months old. We launched this website in December. We, we launched, we launched a, we launched <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:04:30 Sorry, I had to laugh at myself. We launched a website in December, a sweet website, which we've already revamped a little, making it look better. But the systems, the strategies are there. Like for the first time I can answer my wife when she says, is it ready or are you ready? Is this thing, what, where's this thing at? And I've always, you know, cuz we've been just building all the components of this thing and all the on-ramps, and it's finally, it's ready and I can tell you, yeah, it's ready. It's good. It's two months old now. It's ready, it's locking and loading. We got a brand new app that we built on a very powerful, uh, platform called Commissioned. It's a, it's a kingdom minded company, global company, uh, you know, leveraging, uh, bringing solutions to the kingdom and this global chain line. Uh, I I, I don't know how to do their commercial a hundred percent, but I love the platform they've built.
Speaker 1 00:05:14 Um, I, I, I forget the language. They say it's like a global, um, uh, it's, I I'm not in tune to language. So I'm excited about this app though. It's like social media on steroids for us. It's, it, it helps us do our courses. Um, it, it, it's, we can spread this thing across the country nationally, and then we've got like chapters built out on this thing. But I just wanna encourage you today, grace Ops is here for you. We're here for you. We believe in you. We're building all this stuff for you. So if you're not in the membership, it's like $3 a week. I mean, come on, get in the membership, get engaged with the content. Uh, and the content's good, but we, we've also partnered it with these things called Build
Speaker 2 00:05:57 Community groups. And every one of our members is in a small three to five group of men powered by this, uh, app platform that we have. So it really is remarkable what, what we have built and how we can expand and not be, uh, affected by cancel culture or liberal agendas. And even in the app, I mean, come on, how many times you go on Facebook and you see some stupid video or yoga pants or some kind of distracting thing, or a Viagra commercial, just stupid stuff, right? Um, we're not gonna see that in this app, but it's for our members, you know? So I think it's worth $3 a, a week. I mean, it's not a big deal. Um, it might maybe we'll put it 20 a month. I don't know what it's, it's worth a lot more than where we got a price.
Speaker 2 00:06:33 But anyway, as I close out, there's a million mercies for you today. There's a million mercies. Maybe you're in the right place, maybe you're doing the right thing and maybe you're not right, you know? But there's a million mercies for you and I today, and we've created this culture so we could walk, you know, so we can encounter the mercy of God together and be equipped and trained by his grace. Just want all of you to know, I love you, care about you, and we're here to serve you and your families. God bless you. Until next time, live upright.
