Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:06 Or the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age. Welcome back to the grease house podcast. It's been a couple of weeks for us. Uh, I've been traveling out of town here and there at Kansas city. Uh, Ryan and I went down to, uh, smokey mountains. So we've, we took a little bit of a break in July, but we're going to be back on our weekly pace here with our podcast. So welcome back to the gray SOPs, uh, podcast today. We're at a powerful episode lined up for you. We had a great friend of ours, a regional friend here, and a great friend of gray SOPs, uh, Phillip Williams. He's a local pastor, local rock star entrepreneur. Um, this guy just does everything.
Speaker 1 00:00:51 He's an awesome guy, awesome friend. And, and we just love him a whole, whole lot. And I'm glad he's with us. His voice is so important and very powerful. And so we want to also encourage you to share our podcast, uh, pump it out on social media. You can find us on our socials at great at grace SOPs two 12. So find us wherever you are on social media. And we'll be there, share our podcasts. A lot of people are doing that and they're liking the bold topics that we're bringing out. And so our whole heart today is to talk about how Greece trains us to fight darkness, to actually conquered darkness. So we're gonna look at that concept today of like, what does that actually look like to conquer darkness based on the Titus two, 11 and 12 scriptures here. So welcome Ryan, Evan.
Speaker 1 00:01:34 It's good to have you with us, Ryan and I are the co-founders of gray SOPs, Phillip Williams, like I said, I've already gave him a really good raw, uh, you like the rockstar. Like I threw that in there. Welcome out guys. Welcome to the show. This episode, we've got a powerful topic here. How Greece, uh, trains us to actually fight actually conquered darkness. So we want to talk about that kind of, as we look at this, uh, Titus two 11 and 12 passage, and it's really the gray stuff's culture, how we want to help train men and help actually reach families through reaching men and, and help men kind of turn the tide in this hour of the earth, where we're up against all kinds of darkness, spiritual darkness, and physical darkness. So who wants to chime in? I know we've got some passionate guys on this episode here.
Speaker 1 00:02:20 Um, you know, what are we thinking? Cause I, what I, here's what I want out of this episode. I want us to, to extract out how do we fight this, the spiritual side of the inner man battles? And then how do we actually have fight some of the darkness we see in our culture? Um, some of the more propaganda like media, the just Marxism and communist types approaches to the controlling of the American people. Um, that doesn't matter to me. You know, a lot of people get mad at me cause I talk about this stuff. They act like if I love America, that I'm an anti-God or if I love the constitution I'm anti-God. And, um, I struggled with that because when the constitution was written, I would imagine that the people of this country who are just set free, um, and fought for that freedom in 1770s, I would imagine that they all thought that document was from God.
Speaker 1 00:03:13 It was probably really rejoiced that God had blessed this country. So I really struggled with the idea that loving the constitution is somehow anti-God. But anyway, um, there we go. So I want, I want to extract out of you guys, like how do we fight the spiritual battles that men face and how do, how do, what are some key things we can take away today? And then what are some key things we can do physically? Um, you know, it's I read a statistic the other day, 62% of people aren't even talking about the things that disagree with culture on, because they're afraid to talk and that's, uh, that's exactly where the propaganda has us in the political correctness. So, Hmm. So what do you guys think about Titus two, 11 and 12? I know we talked a little bit before the show launched, live about how God's grace has appeared to bring salvation. And I know Philip, you're very passionate about, uh, just the gospel and talk about that. What are some of the pros and cons that you see right now with just pertaining the gospel?
Speaker 2 00:04:16 Yeah, man, I, I think, yeah, you hit it right on the head, man. Like I'm say because of the gospel, right? I mean, it's like, it's the power right there. Brought me into the say right on this. I'm not ashamed of it. You know, as Paul said, and uh, you know, I think that we need to, to in a very, uh, spiritual, innovative, practical way be preaching the gospel, like never before and built into the gospel is the solution for, I believe what's going on in our, in our country. What's going on in the world. Um, everything from the 10 commandments all the way down from follow the book all the way down to the back of the book. There's an answer in the gospel on what to be doing in this present time, you know, and I just believe that from and wholeheartedly, um, that, you know, we need to be all the way all out.
Speaker 2 00:05:14 You know, the gospel is going to tell all these areas and touch government, how we conduct ourselves with one another, it's going to hit all of these areas. And, uh, you know, so I'm, I'm answering your question, but I'm just kind of, you know, Sharon and, you know, I'm really passionate about us doing what Jesus actually told us to do and to preach the gospel, to make disciples. And I believe that's what you guys are, are doing man with gray socks, you really doing what Jesus said. I mean, you can put the labels on the brands on it, but at the end of the day, boil it now. And you're following up with the masters, said to make the cycles. And I love it. I love
Speaker 1 00:05:55 That, uh, is basically our energy partnering with the great commission to basically win loss souls and to make disciples. So it's kind of funny because anything that we do in the earth as entrepreneurs, it's never like something new, it's actually something ancient. That's just renewed, you know, like we're going to something old out and shining it and polishing up, going all, look at it. This we'll look at it a different way. You know? So it's kind of that whole thing. It's like nothing new, but it's just like, look at it in a different way. And I'm like, what'd you have to say about, about, uh, the gospel, because it's one of the layers here, you know, God's, that's, God's grace brings salvation, God's grace trains us. So I kind of look at it like, that's a very important element, you know, how does that answer specific questions?
Speaker 1 00:06:42 So that leads into that, right? So if God delivers us from Egypt, if that's the storyline, which it is in the book of Exodus, God's salvation delivers us out of Egypt, out of that place of bondage and the place of slave drivers over our lives. And if that's the case, then, um, we have this idea where from that time God's grace now from the time of salvation has Greece now trains Egypt out of me. And that's how God conquers darkness inside of me, because we talked about that earlier. It's like, why would Jesus so powerful against sin is because he never allowed darkness inside of him now for me, like, and now this is interesting. Cause I was just talking to my wife about this yesterday. Some article had popped up on some social media thing that she was on and it was about athletes, female athletes wearing less skimpy outfits.
Speaker 1 00:07:37 And you know, how some of them take in Boulder stains in the Olympics and, and uh, you know, we had this interesting dialogue cause she's like, she's like, are you serious? Like a gymnastic girl. Who's like 16, 17 years old. She's like a child. And she's wearing like a leotard and might be exposing more of her backside, you know, that kind of thing. And she's like, you're serious. Men would look at that and think bad stuff. And I'm like, yeah, they do. It's not on this podcast. So I can say that. And that's fine. Um, you just kind look at me funny. I'm like, honey, I'm like, yeah, that I go, women don't understand how visual men are that doesn't give men. You know? So we talked about the Arizona side. So we talked about, um, I'm like, you know, yoga pants is one of my jokes.
Speaker 1 00:08:23 That's like the worst thing that ever happened to mankind. And then, you know, I brought that up to her yesterday and she was like, well, why, why? Just because men look at women and why would you care about what we look like in yoga pants and blah, blah, blah. And you know, we're having this really huge kind of dialogue like we typically do anyways. That's like our style. So I said, well, babe, um, I said, there's errors on the men's side. You're right. Men, we do live in an oversexualized culture and men error that way. And they air that way. I agree with you that we should train ourselves to be in control of ourselves and our sex drives. And on the flip side of it though, I said, women are just as bad at contributing to it because they were these provocative things. You know, they it's, it's the culture we live in is so saturated with sexuality. And since, since sensation and sensualism and all that kind of stuff. And it's just, um, so now, now I just busted this whole topic wide open. What, what do we do guys? How do we fight this concept of staying pure? Because purity is a source of it's as our source of power in our lives. I was talking to him yesterday and he said, he said, holiness produces happiness. And I thought that was very powerful because if you pursue happiness without pursuing holiness, you'll always be empty. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:09:45 That's good stuff, man. Ryan, Hey, don't bring any second brother around.
Speaker 3 00:09:52 Yeah. Long trip. My mind's a little slow today, but, um, I think the biggest thing for me when it comes to fighting, especially if we're on the topic of sexual purity garden, the gates of our eyes, um, I've always found that that the greatest weapon I have against that is abandoned brothers have been, uh, you know, but it starts with me being willing to be vulnerable and actually revealed to somebody close. Right. Um, that I'm walking with and saying, Hey man, I'm really struggling right now. You know what I mean? Um, and when you can bring that stuff into the light, right, darkness doesn't have a place to reside anymore. Any longer we've got, we've gotta be able to bring this stuff to the light. We gotta, we gotta put the light onto it. And darkness begins to flee from there. It begins to get a lot easier from there, you know, but it starts with that humility of dropping down your pride and saying, Hey, like I've got some issues, I've got some stuff that needs to be tightened up in my life.
Speaker 3 00:10:48 I've, I've got to tighten the gate of my eyes. So that, that might focus is, is Christ and Christ alone. You know what I mean? That I'm fixing my gaze on him and I'm not fixing my gaze on the yoga pants down, you know, in the front row, you know, or wherever I'm at, you know, um, it's for me, but you know, being authentic, being transparent with, with, uh, not with everybody, uh, just that's, uh, that's another mistake, you know, we don't, we don't want to be transparent with everybody, um, on those levels, but, but to be transparent with one or two people that I can, I can say, you know what, these guys, these guys got my back, um, these guys are here for my, for me, they're here to see me grow. They're here to see me, um, live out this whole, this lifestyle of holiness, you know?
Speaker 3 00:11:28 Um, and for me that's always been, um, one of the biggest ways and on a, on a private level for me, it's always, you know, if I'm really struggling, I can, I can usually go back and say, how much time have I have I been found in the secret place with God? Have I been, have I been washing myself and renewing my mind with the word of God? And usually it's in the moments where I've been over overly working, I'm tired. Um, maybe I'm stressed out about some stuff. Uh, you know, that I haven't prioritized the place of prayer, the place of worship and intercession with God. And, you know, I haven't, I haven't put a priority on my time with God that I begin to see. Not, not necessarily a rapid decay, but a slow decay over time before I realized whoa, like, like I haven't been, I haven't been saturating myself in the presence of God lately. And now I'm beginning to bear other fruit by having a harder time reeling in, uh, the reins of my eyes are really in the reins of my thought processes because I haven't been renewing myself daily. And within scripture, I haven't been washing myself with the word and being cleansed by the presence of guns. So those are some of the things for me, man, that stand out
Speaker 1 00:12:40 Most. So that's the first first takeaway for the, from this whole thing is, is quality time in the presence of God, because the reason I say it that way, because quality time in the presence of God is way more than just reading the Bible verse of the day is way more than, than turning on a Christian radio song, right? It's we really have to be like, no, what it means to be in a loving relationship with God and what it means to actually like in the Psalms when David says as the deer pants for the living, for the water. So my soul longs for you and pants for you. And if we're not hungry for God that way, then we need to discipline ourselves. And I I've always found it to be a discipline. I enjoy God, but there's so much of the flesh that gets in the way that I have to engage the spiritual disciplines.
Speaker 1 00:13:37 And I'll be quite honest with you. I was just talking to Bob copy yesterday. He's he's one of the greatest hops board board members is a local pastor. I referenced something he said earlier here on this episode, but he, uh, I was talking to him yesterday and I just said, man, you know, I was in Kansas city for, I don't know how many days, 13 days working hard with ATC camps. And I only hit the prayer room probably three or four times. And other than that, I was running busy in the schedule. Now I could've got up earlier and went, but I wasn't going to bed delayed. And I'm just was wearing myself out because I agree with you, Ryan. I found myself to be more worn down, more easily attacked, more susceptible to just, uh, temptations and just, and it's all because, and that was exactly the conversation I had yesterday with Bob is like, it's all.
Speaker 1 00:14:28 Cause I, I didn't personally put God first. And because of that, I suffered. And typically when I, when I discipline myself to put God first for an hour or two a day, um, or most days would be a good way to say. But if that discipline of putting God first or prioritizing him, I find that as a guy who likes to get a lot of things done, when I put God first and I blow off my task list, it seems like a task list gets done easier if I blow God off and I go out with my Tesla. So it just seems like my task list never ends.
Speaker 2 00:15:07 Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 00:15:11 But I'm coming back. I mean, we went to Tennessee, I'm right where you said it. Right. You know, I slept, I was dog tired Sunday, thank God Phil young preach for her, for us, you know, like, um, and I was really tired yesterday, which was a typical day off of mine. So I took that day in Sabbath. And um, and then this morning I had some meetings I had to move because I've just been tired. So I'm trying to get my energy levels back up. And so, and I think that this is key. You know, these are key things that how we fight darkness, grace trains us in the air because it says it trains you to be self-controlled upright and godly. And that stuff, I like what Ryan was saying. It's not an automatic thing. We've got to have each other. We you've got to have one or two people that you can have these very transparent, vulnerable conversations with so that you can be strengthened. And so that you can have an outlet. And so that you can have that great. Because what happens is that person who loves you, what they're going to do is they're going to pour grace on you in that moment. And that they're going to that grace in that love that you need that time's going to help train you.
Speaker 3 00:16:16 Yeah. And I think, I think it's a shift in our mindset too. You know, like when, when we're prioritizing the presence of God is why are we in this place? You know? And, and, um, you know, we've got to remember that we're not, we're not going hard after the presence of God or studying scriptures for knowledge or, or just for the, for the sake of wisdom, but, but it's unto obedience. You know what I mean? And, and, and right there, and Titus Titus two 11 through 12, you know, it says that, you know, that we would be, self-controlled upright and godly. It's training us for, to obey, you know what I mean? And so it's my mindset getting into the scripture isn't so that I can get the next heavy Revy right. Or, or, or getting with God so that he can reveal the next mystery.
Speaker 3 00:17:02 Um it's so that my heart would, would, would, would grow in obedience to his nature, you know, that I would begin to be obedient to his desires. Right. Um, and I, and I think that that's the biggest thing is just having that mindset is like, no, man, I w I want to be aligned. I want to be aligned with the presence of God. I want to be aligned with his nature, aligned with how he's asking me to live. You know what I mean? And the only way I can do that is with a heart that is desiring to obey, you know what I mean? And when I come into those places of like, father helped me to renounce the things, you know, I have to acknowledge the things that aren't in line with you, so that I can start that journey of obedience, of walking this thing out.
Speaker 2 00:17:47 Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. A lot right there. I mean, just have mine, you're talking about having a desire, you know, like, you know, you have that desire. I have that desire and Brian has a desire to plead that the little cards and I, but there, there are guys out there who don't right. They don't have that desire. Like they, they have a desire to get rid of all the things that are hanging them up and you know, whatever's going on. Right. They don't like that, but they don't desire God enough, to let those things go. Like, how do we combat that? Right. How do we help other guys see the value that we see and having this relationship with God, having this relationship with the brothers in Christ. And, uh, one thing kind of jumped out at me is that, you know, they need to be able to experience the same level that, that we experience.
Speaker 2 00:18:53 Right. Cause it's, it's the love of God that bruise that desire, like when you are touched by God's love and his grace, like, that's what, you know, I believe helped me realize how much more valuable it is to walk with God than whatever else that, um, you know, whatever saying whatever this got me out here, you know, chasing after whatever, you know, I want him more than I want that. And so I'm willing to lay that down and there's a scripture. Was there any clashes when it talks about hook to there for earthly EDU, right. Put it through that. Like, you have to be intentional about that. Like you have to on purpose having this dire to do that. And I believe you have to first have to have experienced the love of God experiences, grace. Otherwise it wouldn't be valuable enough to do that.
Speaker 2 00:19:52 Do it, does that make sense? You know, there's, you know, guys is, you know, what's in it for me type of thing, a lot of ways, you know, it's like, you know, one of the ways I see that, well, yeah, it's gotta be that way. Otherwise, is that even worth my time? Like, why would I do that? Why would I, you know, I'd rather go home and, you know, do whatever, whatever I do every day, I really do that. Then go to church or come back with a small group. Like what makes me want to do that? Right. What makes a guy want to put down his, his old habits to come join? You guys are conjoining me. Like what, you know, what's going to make it worth it for him. Um, we need to be able to answer
Speaker 1 00:20:46 That question. Well, I think the answer to that question is, um, it's almost impossible to put down your old habits and then come with us, right. Or come with whoever like, but what was the appeal is let's put down the bad habits together. Let's, let's learn how to fix the gaze of our attention upon something. That's far more fascinating than anything we've experienced to this point. And that's what God's grace actually is doing is training us to have new eyes, training us, to have a new mindset training us, to have, and we have to have each other. So like, if God is the three in one, God, if we look at monotheism, the one God, father, son, spirit, and then you look at how so God in himself as a community, and then you look at what did he do? He came in, he called 12 men to follow him. He started a community and then he tells this community, well, that's part, one of our discussion. We'll continue part two next week. We're trying to offer some practical things in our lives that we can do for conquering darkness in our spiritual lives and in the physical, in a physical sense as well. Like how do we actually fight evil, um, in a tangible sense. So we're just kind of having a fun discussion between three brothers, part of our comradery and, uh, look forward to continuing part two next week.
