Josh Howerton Defends Charlie Kirk Against False Claims and Discusses His Major Preaching Strategy Shift

I trying to please man or I'm trying to please God. If I'm trying to please man, I'm no longer a servant of Christ. There's not a single tragedy that God can't use for our good and for his glory. I've seen a few things over the years with Charlie and his team. Charlie really was a God-fearing, honest, loyal man of God. Josh, I have a question for you. What did not make it into the sermon? Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Aras and I'm here with Dr. Howard. Carlos, I can't see you. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. Where are you? Where are you? Here's what you need to know. This is literally like my first like this kind of shirt. Uh what's that called? He's been Texas fine. Yeah, bro. I'm telling you, like this is like uh 9 years in living in Texas. Come on, man. You're going to see me wearing a cowboy hat soon. Come on. Let's go. Driving a truck. Oh, hey, listen. Once you go truck, you you're never going to go back. You got to have Once you do it, you It's a slippery slope from here. Come on, man. Well, thank you. You look great. You do. I appreciate that. You do, too. And wait, wait. And right before we started this podcast, Carlos said, "Let's kick this pig." My goodness. I bet you have a lot of bro. I actually talked to some people from Kentucky and I asked them, "Hey, I just want to make sure that you know this is like a legit Kentucky thing and they're like, "We've never heard about this." That's so dumb. Well, it was at Greenwood High School in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Okay. Maybe more of a West Virginia thing. We'll complain on West Virginia. No, I don't know, man. I was in I was in Kentucky. Okay, Paul Cunningham, welcome. Ah, thanks, man. How are you, man? Yeah, I'm so good. Good to be back with you guys. Good to have you here. Yeah. I love that you got your notes highlighted. Paul, do we have a nickname for Paul yet? Well, you sometimes call me the theologian, which every time you do makes me write it and makes me embarrassed. So, yeah, if you if you want to do it different than that, I was I'm I'll look I'll think of something. Let's keep going. Dude, when you tell me anything about Paul, I can't know. I don't know if you're talking about Paul the theologian or Paul the Apostle. It's hard to tell. It's very confusing. Hey, man. We're going to have a great episode today. We are going to be talking about Acts chapter 20, talking about church governance. Pastor Josh, I want to ask you at some point today. Also, you had a little bit of a a preaching strategy shift at some point. We're going to go there and because there's lots of misinformation around Charlie Kirk and what's actually being said about what he said and what he did not say, what he meant, who he was. And later on, we're having a a friend uh Sabrina Cosme joining the show. She's right here. She's right over there. She's right behind you. I see her. She's right there. And so, we're excited for that. We're going to be debunking some of the most popular lies right now. Yeah, it's going to be awesome. Sabrina works for Progeru. Proggeru is Sabrina's the CEO of Progger U. There you go. I'm just joking. If you can hear if you can hear her off microphone, she said, "No, I'm not." No, but she does work for PragerU. Let's go. And Prageru for a long time has been like one of my favorite cultural commentary uh spots. And so Sabrina and her husband are amazing, great Lake Point members. and she's going to hop on and help us with that some of the Charlie Kirk uh misinformation stuff. Fun fact, even before starting this podcast, man, Prageru was one of our, you know, like, "Hey, you see what they're doing?" Yeah. Literally, me and Carlos were like, "Dude, we should build like we literally said that we should build the Prageru, but like for for Christian cultural engagement." That's right. So, anyways, it'll be fun. By the way, Peru has a lot of Christians on there. Yeah. And so, we'll be addressing, you know, was Charlie Kir racist? Um, did he actually believe that empathy was not a thing? Was he opposed to the Civil Rights Act, etc., etlie Kirk called somebody a racial slur. The racial slur he was accused of was calling somebody a Uh, gun deaths are worth it. Charlie Kirk Charlie Kirk said the Civil Rights Act was bad. Charlie Kirk said black Americans were better off under Jim Crow. Uh, he Charlie Kirk said gay people should be stoned to death. We're we're going to like let me just say like people will be absolutely shocked when they see like this is the accusation and this is reality and there's I actually this is actually a very spiritual disciplehip thing that I need people to understand. We'll get to that later. Wait, can I debunk one thing? Yeah, go wait. Should we do this first? We're going to debunk a lot of things, but go ahead. I don't know what you're I'm going to do it right now. I'll just do it right now. The one So one um No, I'm not. No, I'm not. You go ahead. How are you? Hey man, this show is unedited. It's going to be great. It's wrong. It's wrong. Uh man, we first of all, thank you for liking, subscribing, all the things. By the way, our YouTube channel just surpassed 300,000. My goodness, bro. I I'm not kidding. I think that thing grew like 100,000 subscribers in like a month. That's stupid. And so, uh, man, thank you. That's you. That's people joining right now. So, thank you so much. And, uh, by the way, most people that actually watch it on YouTube, they're not subscribed yet. So, if that's you, man, there's a little button, a subscribe. or you're going to be seeing it right now. And then uh man, recently there's some things we want to celebrate in the life of our church. Well, number one, I'll just say um you know, last weekend uh a and this weekend, like I think God used some of the the assassination of Charlie Kirk to shake some people. So, number one, go and toss that picture um of last week's services. Now, this is last week. So, like a lot of the services were like this. I mean, it's like full up. What you're seeing right there is a bunch of college students sitting on the stairs just because they were just like, "Dude, I got to hear what, you know, when stuff happens like that, people walk in in going, is there a word from the Lord?" Yes. And it was like that. Um, I think, you know, I think we pushed we were between 26 27,000 people in person last week. It was just absolutely stupid. And then uh that led to um an absolutely enormous baptism weekend this weekend. Like enormous. Um heading into this weekend, we already we had more people um registered to be baptized than we baptized total with all the walkups last year, same time. And it's just, dude, there's just something it just it does there's something shifting in there. Actually, we got a Bible verse for this. In the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it will bear much fruit." And what he's saying is when a person of faith in in Jesus Christ, he's talking about himself, but you can apply the principle. When somebody lays down their life, it's like a seed that dies in the ground. And unless the seed dies and deteriorates in the ground, it can never spring up to produce a plant that produces fruit. And Jesus is saying when anybody spills their blood for me, it's like that seed and it produces a bunch of fruit. So that's seeing. I'm going to show you one other thing because this like um now we're going to Trinity, you guys will blur out any personal information, but I got this um today and um if by the way if she sees this uh I just want this person to know how much this meant to me. So this is almost 10 years ago. I walked into a Gap store and I ended up still exist. They Well, they did 10 years ago and I ended up just uh sharing the gospel with the worker there. I could tell like she was kind of asking some questions and I was just like, "You know what? Do you want to go hang out in the food court and I just want to answer some of your questions?" And you know, she didn't trust Christ that day, but I answered her questions and prayed for her. 10 years later, have not heard for her for 10 years. And just this weekend, she's responding to a post I did about uh Charlie's death. And she just said, "Josh, my friend, you're doing a great job. Still back here in blank, following your messages. Forever grateful for that chat we had in the" and it's the name of the mall. I'll just say it. Cool Springs Galleria Food Court. It was the beginning of my seeing the light on so many things and a major right turn for me. I'm grateful to God for sending you and Jana into my little gap shoe box that you needed something to wear for that 10year anniversary trip to Italy. We were we were taking a little 10 year anniversary thing. God bless you. I miss seeing you guys. But I was like, dude, what's what I feel like happening right now is like for dec if I get emotional, it'll be right here. For decades, there's all these little gospel seeds people are planting. And then it's like the fulfillment of exactly what Jesus said in the Gospel of John. It's like one of my servants lost his life for beliefs they had because of me. It's like I and he's gone. I promise I'm going to make sure that was worth it. Mhm. And and I think it's just appropriate and like we need as a church to stop and celebrate because unfortunately when a lot of stuff's been happening even over the last few weeks is we we've seen some things shifting. Yeah. Is that I I it's just shocking to me that in a lot of the Christian circles that I see they just they meet it with skepticism. It's like y'all, this is the thing we've all been praying for and longing for. I I've since I was a kid, I've heard, oh, we long for revival and then when it finally comes, some are like, it's not the real thing. And I'm like, you know, it's almost like, you know, the people who were praying for Peter's released and then he was released and then they don't open the door for them, you know. And so I just I just think it is so probably like we celebrate, we thank you, God, for what you're doing, including through tragedy that there's not a single tragedy that God can't use for our good and for his glory. Amen. Amen. And by the way, we had a special episode drop also last week where you addressed that more in depth about just what's happening in the American church, what are we seeing with me and and Ryan. That's right. That's right. Yeah. So, if you miss us, three pastors, we just all hopped on. We kind of did an episode for pastors, church nerds, and church leaders. And um yeah, we were talking about that. That was our first bonus episode, by the way. Look free. Let's go, my man. Try it. That's awesome, man. Live free, brother. Well, before we before I ask you, I I have a question for you. Best food. I'll allow it. Do you know where that's from, by the way? No. What is that from? I I I'm not sure, but I thought we were getting a big revelation. Um, somebody will let us know in the comment section right now. What is that? Monty Python. I don't Oh, I've heard it before. Before we go there, man, uh, everything that we're going to be discussing will be in the show notes as well. And so, if somebody has not yet downloaded those, uh, you can do that right now. The the show notes are basically that document that you can download on each episode and we'll include key takeaways, all the highlights, nuggets, additional content and discussion questions as well for you to take them to your life group and continue to deepen your disciplehip together because disciplehip happens in relationships. And this is your next step after this podcast. We want you to do what we're doing right now. And so to get those, text the word notes to 20411 and we'll send them straight to your phone or go to lakepoint.urch/notes. Pastor Josh, I have a question for you. I will allow it. Thank you. What did not make it into the sermon? All right, real quick. Before I do that, let me talk about I want to respond to the most common objection to last week's sermon. Can I do that? Yeah. There were a significant number of people in addition to the people who were like, "You should not have um uh you should not have celebrated the life and death of Charlie as much as you did because all the Charlie was a racist. Charlie wanted gay people to be stoned. Charlie, like in the the incorrect uh accusations, which we'll get to later. The number one objection to last week's sermon was I was insistent that it was appropriate to use the word martyr for Charlie. That was the number one thing. So, I want to talk about that real quick and then I'll answer your question. Is that okay? all it. Okay. All right. So, um first of all, actually this is really easy. What people said is a man and usually it was probably probably people who didn't like his his message, you know. Yeah. But the the objection was a man are you crazy? You can't call him a martyr because um he didn't die for his faith. He died for opposing uh transgender ideology. Uh there's two things I want to say that is number one um number one the word martyr uh the word martyr it literally is just a Greek word witness. That's that's what that means. And actually I I talked about this in one of the services um that the word witness uh and the word martyr became essentially the same thing because in the first century if somebody was very clear and public about being a Christian it always resulted in trial opposition and some form of persecution. And so the words, it's one Greek word but two English words. Um because originally if you were a clear witness, you were always going to receive persecution. Um so I just want to point out, man, you you might say, "Oh, he wasn't a a martyr because um he wasn't killed for uh his faith. He was killed for opposing transgender ideology." My response to that is where do you think he got the belief that he should oppose transgender ideology? He was extremely clear clear. We'll talk about this later in the podcast. He got that because and like he would literally consistently quote the book of Genesis that in the beginning God created them in in his image and male and female he created them. So he rooted that belief in his biblical Christian faith and he was killed for that that belief. The other thing I would say and this is why I'm like dude I make no apologies for Colin Martyr. Dude, it's the same thing like um if somebody John the Baptist was beheaded in uh the Gospels because he uh spoke up that King Herod had an unlawful perverse marriage with his sister-in-law. Yeah. And that was why he ended up getting getting beheaded. Literally no Christian anywhere would say, "Ah, John the Baptist wasn't a martyr." Not technically. He wasn't technically a martyr because he didn't die for his faith. He died for opposing the king's marriage. Well, no. He like he opposed the king's marriage because he was saying what you're doing is wrong before God and the people of the nation will never be blessed while the leaders of the nation lead them into open defiance of the living living God. And he was killed for the same thing. In the same way, I think it's honestly really naive to say, "Oh, Charlie's not a martyr because he didn't die for his faith. He just died for opposing transgender ideology." It's it's the exact same thing. So, if you're going to call John the Baptist a martyr, you should be calling Charlie Charlie one. And I do. And I do it because it honors him correctly. So, there it is. I just want to get that out. Good, man. And obviously, we're going to be addressing that even more towards the end of this video. That's right. Uh cuz honestly, you just you just hear him and if if you just if you're not familiar with him, then maybe you might think that, but if you just just listen to what he's saying, it's like it's just evidently his faith is on everything. Everything. Yeah. Everything, man. Cool. Well, you're going to say you're going to tell us a little bit more about what didn't make Oh, yeah. Okay. So, here's what didn't make it in the sermon. Uh, first of all, this was really fun about this sermon is um my life verse since middle school is in this sermon. There you go. Acts 20:24. Uh, whenever middle schoolers ask me to sign their Bibles. I always knew I used to I used to say no. Yeah. And then finally I was like, you know what, man? They want a memory. And um but I always sign it. you know, Josh Howard and I signed Acts 2024, which is I and I memorized it in the NIV. Was is it the NIV 8486? NIV84. NIV 84. That's my favorite. My favorites. Yeah. 84. 1984 translation. NIOV. I memorized it of that. It's uh however, I consider my life worth nothing to me. If only I may complete the race and finish the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. So, that's right right in the middle of this. So, it's fun preaching my life verse. Um, couple other things I just want to point out. Um, and a couple of these things I got to in like one service, but not in all the services. Trinity, will you pull up that map real quick? So, number one, um, is this is one of the passages that seem to make it clear that, uh, Ephesus was Paul's favorite church. He spent three years there. That's mentioned in the passage. This is like a lame back of your Bible um map, you know, but just so the red little dot here is so the passage says that Paul's in Mitus and calls the elders of the Ephesian church, hey, come hang out with me real quick. So if you look up there, um Ephesus, obviously north of this coastal city, Mitus. Um you know, this kind of thing you kind of miss if you don't really really really know your Bible. Like dude, he was asking them, "Will you guys walk 40 miles and come see me?" I mean, that's like a no joke, man. Yeah. Yeah. That's no joke. Yeah. So, so how big a deal they were to Paul and Paul was to them is they were willing to walk 40 miles from Ephesus to Myitus to be with Paul. And I'll just emphasize like you need if you're a if you're a dude, you you need a band of brothers around you. That's right. That love Jesus and love you. You need the kind of guys who will walk 40 miles to be with you in your moment of need. Yeah. And he had that. Number two, um I mentioned this last week. Can I interrupt you? Please do. We just uh launched here at Lake Point uh what we call Root It. Wait, wait, you talk. No, no. Okay, and so I know I know you're going to say this, but uh so because you you're talking about a band of brothers and so this is really exciting because actually uh we're really passionate about this at Lake Point. And so Rooted is a for people that don't know, it's a 10-we disciplehip experience where you get to again find your band of brothers, find your group of people, and basically go through the difference rhythms of a real everyday disciplehip, prayer, community, generosity. I actually spoken to quite a bit of people saying that this is literally the first time they've ever joined a group. Almost all of them. And it's life-changing. Yeah, it's almost all. That's right. And so, dude, it's amazing. It's like boot camp. I'm leading one. It's boot camp for team Jesus is what it is. So, this is Dude, Jan and I are having a blast. This is a p I hope none of my RA group members care about this. Uh this is a picture of my our RO group at our house. Uh this is two nights ago. And uh dude, we feel like we're doing youth ministry again. Ours is all young adults. So it's like some of them are dating. It's fun. We're like giving dating advice after, you know, and uh you know, that's just that's our little group. They hung out at our house till like 10 p.m. this week. It's fun. So this is you know, there it is. We're just having a blast, man. Total blast. If somebody's has not yet joined a group and is interested, man, just text the word rooted to 20411 and we'll get you plugged in. You want me to keep going? Keep going. Okay. A couple other things didn't make it into the sermon or did but but slightly. Um, this was what I'm preaching now is what I plan to preach a year from now. And then very uh the spirit made it really clear last week. I need you to shift it. Um, what's interesting about this, I I titled, you know, this I titled the sermon series for next year there is more colon endgame. I I named it after I It's a little ridiculous, but I named it after the Avengers Endgame because um in in the Avengers deal, I'm not a huge superhero movie guy, but whatever. Um, the endgame deal is where they essentially they come up with their plan to defeat the enemy. And there's one person that's willing to trade his life in order to take down the enemy. This Acts 20, Paul starts talking about, I'm going to Rome and I'm going to Jerusalem and I know hardships and trials await me. And then he tells the Ephesian elders, none of you will ever see my face again. So he's been given this essentially prophetic revelation. Paul knows I'm gonna trade my I'm gonna die when I do this. But in Paul's math was if I can trade my one dude and just in the light of everything happened our nation this like hits even deeper. Paul was going if I can trade my one life to see the gospel sweep over the entire nation of Rome worth it. Wow. So this right here initiates Paul's death sequence. And from here to the end of the book of Acts is Paul intentionally moving towards what he knows will kill him because he's going, "I will trade my life for the salvation of this nation." Wow. So, I love that. Um, in fact, you even see this in um when Jesus saves Saul in Acts chapter 9. A lot of people miss this. What Jesus tells Ananas, who was like a Jewish dude that that loved Jesus. He tells Ananas to go pray for Saul because he's blind and heal him. And he's like, "I don't want to. That's a guy that kills Christians." And Jesus tells him, listen close way back in Acts 9. Go for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings. That's why Paul's trying to go to Rome and the children of Israel. And then Jesus said this, "For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." So from the minute Paul's converted, he knows, wow, you're going to trade your life for this thing, brother. But when you read his letters, you don't get the sense that, oh, and he's miserable because of it. Like in Philippians, he's, you know, he's in a situation where he's in jail. And that's where you see him over and over again say, "Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice." He just over and over again talks about how this thing that he feels called to is bring him joy even as he's suffering in the midst of 100%. Yeah. In fact, so this is like super cool Bible nerdy stuff. Um, so I'm going to give away. We're going to do like an old Lost Flash Forward. If you remember the TV show Lost, I do. Carlos, you didn't watch Lost. I actually did for Yeah, I did. All right. You're like so surprised like a couple seasons. Yeah. And I stopped. He gave up. But I did hear you like you totally spoil it. Like they do flash forwards. End of season 3. Epic. There you go. Sorry. Go ahead. So, I'm going to do a flash forward because it ties in. Um, so what happens to the Apostle Paul is he does all of he does Acts. Uh, he goes to Rome, he gets thrown in prison. Apparently, he gets out. Acts chapter 28, which is the last, uh, chapter of the book of Acts, ends with Paul under house arrest. Church history tells us he apparently gets out and then he gets he gets thrown back into prison and he eventually um he's beheaded in Rome. Uh, and that's how his life ends. Okay, so that's how it ends. Now, what's really, really stinking cool is if you go to Rome, you can walk into the jail cell that the Apostle Paul was imprisoned in before his um, go ahead and toss that picture up on the screen. This is we were debating before this thing. Is it Mamertine or Mamortine prison? But this is it. Now, here's what's d This is a little This is amazing. We know this is the um we know this is the jail cell that he's in. He was in for a few reasons. Um uh and I'm going to do the coolest reasons last. Number one, this is the jail cell that is closest to the Roman Forum. In fact, if you walk out, I was just there with a group from Lake Point last year. If you walk out of Mambertine prison and you look to the right, you're looking at the road that ends up running right through the Roman forum, which church his historians uh are, you know, they they say that's almost certainly the road the Apostle Paul walked down to go to the place where he was beheaded. So you walk out of that thing and look to the right and you see that road and you see the Roman forum. Okay. Number two, so it's close to where he was beheaded. Two, um, the history of Maverine prison says this is where Nero kept uh, prisoners who were under threat of public execution. Like this was the one. So, we know that. So, it's the only prison around there. It's close to the Roman Forum. It's the one that that Nero uh, kept capital um, you know, people are awaiting uh, capital offense, you know, public execution in. Um, but then, dude, this is really this is amazing. There are three letters that church historians say Paul wrote from whatever jail cell he was in um before his death. Uh they're the three they're called the pastoral epistles. First, second Timothy and Titus. So, he writes these three letters to these three young pastors. Now, dude, all right, this this is going to run run a chill down your spine. So, you can barely see it in this picture, but what's right above Hang on. Hang on. Let me see something real quick. Yeah. All right. So in Mayine prison, you go in and this this jail this prison cell is the only one that's under the ground. So that's where they kept the people waiting public execution because it was the safest uh most uh confined one. So it's underground. Bookmark that in your head. Number two, if you look real close under that little sign, you're going to see these little holes in the wall. Those are the holes where they would run chains through the wall so that they could chain prisoners um on that that little seat and uh and and that you know they would be bound right there. Okay. Now, with all that in mind, remember Paul writes the books first and 2 Timothy and Titus from whatever jail cell he's in. Now, this is crazy. Number one, 2 Timothy 4:13 says, Paul says, "When you come, bring the cloak that I left with carpass at Trrowaz and my scrolls and especially the parchment parchments." Now, a lot of people read that and they go, "Man, why would Paul be asking for a cloak? He's in Rome. Rome's hot, okay? But when you walk into that jail cell, it's far enough underground it's cold." So, you're going, "Huh?" Wow. He was apparent. Number one, that's it. Now, number two, 2 Timothy 2:8:9, Paul says, "Remember Christ Jesus, risen from the dead, the offspring of David as preached in my gospel." Listen to this. "For which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal, but the word of God is not bound." And then you look on the holes in that wall and literally those are the holes in the wall where the chains he's referencing in 2 Timothy 2:8-9 went right through those holes and he's writing about it right there. Wow. So dude, you right there are staring at the exact jail cell that the Apostle Paul was in. Just two things come to mind when you you talked about that. Number one is just to remind people like this is not fairy tales. This is not these are real people in real places and these things really happened. I think it's just always important to remember that when we're seeing pictures of this like like to your point this happened. Um number two I love just a connection. Do you know what the last word in the book of Acts is in the Greek? I don't unhindered or unhinderedly. And so it ends I'll even just read for us in the English. Basically he was there in prison. He was basically under house proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. It doesn't say without opposition. So that's the idea is we're always going to have opposition, but the idea is is unhindered because the end of the day nothing can stop the movement of the gospel. And so the thing is is that's not an excuse for us to not get in the game. God, it's going to happen anyway, so I don't need to do anything. Like the whole point is is because nothing can hinder the spread of the gospel God can do through you. It's your reason to get in the game and use your life to advance the gospel. Come on, man. That's good, man. Man, this is really good. That was really good. I know, man. That's awesome. That's amazing. I think that's uh uh Yeah. Yeah. That's That's it. Oh, wait, wait, one more thing. Let me do a little fun fact. Two other little fun facts about uh Acts 20. This is the only sermon in the whole book of Acts that Paul preaches to Christians. Wait, we just talked about Udicus last week. I think I got a bad Bible fact. We'll call that a Bible study. No, disregard that. Okay. Yeah, it's just that's not true. We just talked about Udicus last week. Disregard that. Okay. I got that from a a a Bible commentary, but I'm like I think that's wrong. All right. But this one is right. In verse 35, Paul quotes Jesus as saying, "It's more blessed to give than receive." But if you go read all four gospels, Jesus never says that in the Gospels. So this is what was called part of the loia, part of the oral tradition. Like you know the gospel of John says many more things Jesus did and taught. If I were to record all of them all essentially goes all the books in the world would not record. So this is one of the things that Jesus definitely did say that just didn't get recorded in the four gospels as part of the oral tradition. Yeah. Amazing. There you go. Man, I have a I have a question for you guys. So obviously thank you for allowing it. Yeah, I'm going to stop saying that. It sounds great. I know. I was tempted to say that multiple times before and I myself man the so in this passage the apostle Paul talks about the two things he mentions elders and overseers and obviously he's talking about church leadership so you know first of all is there a difference between those two terms and if so what do they mean and I'm curious what is lake points you know church governance thing so Paul the prophet or whatever we got to come up with a nickname for Paul he's going to talk about this real quick but it is interesting. You got two words here. Uh uh presbutereroy. In the Greek it's presbutereroy, not presbuteros. Oi is the plural suffix for a Greek word that gets translated elders. And then uh later in the passage you have episcopis episcopus. Episcop is the plural version of episcop and it gets translated overseers. And so it's two different words that refer to the elders of the church um um at Ephesus. I'll say one thing and I'm going to give it to Paul. Um, the WordPress buty in particular, honestly, here's all it means. It means old guys. I'm I'm not joking. Like, literally, if you go read that book, it's referring to like ancient like first century tribal cultures where there would be a group of the oldest men in the city that were considered wise men and they would almost form like a tribal council. I'm not talking about survivor. They would form like a tribal council and they would sort of like help make decisions on behalf of the tribe. It's talking about those guys. So like in the church, we have this at Lake Point. We have a group of elders. They're no offense to any of them. They're old guys. They're old guys. They got great families, great marriages. They love Jesus. They lead life groups. And they serve as like this council that helps for us guard the doctrine of the church and the policy of the church. And they walk alongside of me for encouragement, accountability, that kind of thing. Now, Paul, you want to talk about like we're going to real quick for Bible nerds, we're going to do a, you know, a short crash course on church governance structures. Honestly, a lot of people probably don't know that's a thing. It's a thing. It's a thing. The church governance. Okay, I know everybody gets really excited, but it actually is really important when done correctly because it's basically how Christ leads now through people on earth. Um, and so that's actually probably the best starting point is to actually say Jesus Christ is the leader of the church. That he is the chief shepherd of the church. But the we also see in the Bible is that he leads through biblically qualified leaders here on earth through his extension. So basic sometimes people use a word not often used popularly but basically that elders are undersheperds and the lead pastor is the undersheperd underneath Jesus Christ. But then the question that comes straight from the New Testament. It says Jesus the chief shepherd. Chief shepherd. And so then the question is okay like how are how is that leadership arranged? To whom do they report? How do they come about? Historically you have three different overarching models of of how that comes about. We're just going to walk I think we actually have some stuff for the screen comes from our guy John Wayne Grudum. Um his middle name Wayne. Well I I was actually joking. I was going to say his name is not John Wayne Gam. I've never heard that before. Now that I've said it should be. Um but no Wayne Grem theologian of the church. And so you have episcipellian really the idea of episcipellian is you actually said episcopos uh is the word that is used for overseer. And so episcopelian form this is not just by the way the denomination this would also be the form that the catholic church follows. Anglican church you have archbishops who oversee bishops who oversee recctors who would kind of be like the lead pastor of a local congregation. Very hierarchical very top down. So authority comes from the top down. The archbishop appoints the bishops who appoints directors and so on so forth. much more of a top- down structure and very centralized. So at the end of the day, bishops and archbishops are going to decide what is the official doctrine of that church and everybody must fall in line. So if you're the director or lead pastor of that church and you don't like it, well that's nice, but get out. You fall in line or you get out kind of a thing. So more of a hierarchical structure. If you go to the next one, we see more of what's called a Presbyterian form of government. The idea here is that you see a dotted line from the congregation up is that in a Presbyterian form of government, you kind of have authority going both top down and bottom up. Local congregations choose their own elders. Elders being the people who lead the church. You look throughout the New Testament, the elders are the people who are leading and then protecting uh the church. So they will pick their own elders, but then those elders have shared leadership. So the lead pastor, lead elder usually is called the first among equals. So lead pastor is on the elder board. First among equals. Okay. Can I interrupt? Oh goodness. where we're going. Is there uh is there a biblical precedent for the concept of a senior pastor? I would say yes. Definitely. Yes. So you have the church at Jerusalem, but you have James. Yes. You have the church at Ephesus, but you have Timothy. Now those guys are are one of the elders of the church, but there is kind of that first among equals. First among equals and those and it even says those who lead by teaching. I always say that I run into guys um especially like a lot of reform guys and and house church guys. Shocker. Yeah. Shout out to people now. Amen. I'll refrain from coming. But but there you do run into people who are like, "Ah, there shouldn't even be a senior pastor. It should just be a bunch of equal, you know, that kind of thing." And that's kind of the thing of uh you know, a body without a head's a corpse, a body with multiple heads a freak. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. Apart from the biblical argument, then usually when I'm talking to people, I'm like, "Then why wasn't that done from the early history of the church?" That's the obvious thing. You know, no one else came that conclusion uh for a long long time. Um anyway, so moving on, but here's a key thing because you'll see in actually the next the next one. Don't put it up there yet. Um more of what's called a congregational style, which is a third model, can have elders. Here's a key distinction is that you'll see that elders, what's called a session, as the elders at each church, they also report up to what's called a presbyter, which is the idea of elders from multiple churches get together and they have authority over the elder boards of those churches. Let's say you get a local church, their elder board goes off the rails, starts teaching things that are not in the Bible. It's like, okay, well, what do we do? The congregation can't actually do anything. They have to submit to their elders. That's why they would say we have a presbyatory who can actually remove a board of elders from a local church. So, there is a structure where it still goes up. So, even though local churches elect their elders, they have people outside of their church that they are still under their authority and report to. is uh which which one did the United Methodist Church that went apostate? Which one were they? They so they actually have a little bit of a mixture. And that's I will say that's this is a good this is a good clarification here is that sometimes they'll be mixtures and so they actually do have bishops that they appoint and they can actually appoint them to local churches or say hey we're going to take this person out as well. So they had a little bit of a mixed thing. Gotcha. So yeah. Um let's go to the final one congregational. So this is the third major form here. You have a big distinction. And this is why you don't see anything above the the church board. And I say the church board because some churches will call them elders, which I think they should be called. Some will um have them be called deacons. There's nothing above because in a congregational model, the local church is autonomous. Now, they may belong to a denomination in a sense of partnership, but at the end of the day, there's not an outside church or an outside board that's saying you have to do this. Rather, it's saying, "Hey, if we're going to partner with this denomination, then yeah, we need to believe the same big things." But there's not a sense of, hey, you have to believe this or we're going to remove your church board kind of thing. Here's the other distinction is that the congregations, if you see those dotted lines, a congregation will vote for their lead pastor and then will often vote for their elders, but then will submit to the leadership of those people. Um, I I will add maybe one more thing and and Josh, we can you can lean in if you have or you too, Carlos, if you have any questions. On the congregational model, there is a pretty big spectrum. So some congregational models literally it is you have a lead pastor but every decision is made by the entire church. You'll have business meetings where you have to vote to change the color of the walls, the carpet, all that kind of stuff. Total disaster. Yes. Total disaster. Not biblical. Can I tell you my favorite quote on Yeah. You said not biblical. Can I tell you my favorite quote on congregationalism? I think I think it was Driscoll. I think uh Driscoll one time said um there's more evidence for unicorns in the Bible than congregational leadership. I thought it was hilarious. That's not it though, right? Obviously, is that congregational leadership? Is that it? Well, and so the idea here is it can function on an extreme where literally the entire congregation, but really I would say that we're supposed to I think this may be where we're going is that the congregation would vote on who the lead pastor is and who the elders are and then those people oversee and lead the congregation. In a sense, it's almost like representative government a little bit is the best maybe. Can you use to describe it? Yeah, that's the idea. That's what's supposed to happen. And I grew up at Southern Baptist churches. I'm a third generation Baptist pastor. What happens in toxic congregational cultures is um this is not the case at Lake Point in any way, shape, or form. uh in toxic congregational cultures, the church members, imm spiritually immature church members, like some dude that literally got saved last week and has the spiritual maturity of like an aunt. He he all of a sudden is like, "Well, that's congregational church, you know, I guess I'm I'm in charge here now." And then you get people like that that view themselves as in authority over their pastors. It's extremely extremely toxic because the sheep are acting like they're in authority over the shepherds. That is a that's a great way to destroy a flock. You often not not always be careful not to stereotype too much, but you often get the most spiritually immature people and dysfunctional people making decisions for the entire church and just all they got to do is have a majority vote. Whereas if you actually go to like Titus um 1, Timothy 3, when you look at the qualifications for elders, um only actually one is a skill, the ability to teach. All of the other are character attributes. So, you're looking for people of high spiritual maturity, high character who can lead the church and then protect the church. That's actually the big thing that um Paul hits here in Acts 20. He's like he's like, "Hey, wolves are going to come and you got to protect." So, to your point, you got to be a shepherd and be willing to fight off the wolves and fight off uh bad teaching. So, makes sense. And that turns to that overview. Yes. So, Lake Point is we are first of all, we obviously have a senior pastor. I'm one of the elders. So, we say is that we are staff uh staff guided, elder guarded. Mhm. So, um, at Lake Point, actually, let me, let me go back biblically. Um, so there's, you know, what people sometimes do is they'll look at passages like Acts 20 and and they'll kind of parse down preseroy and episcapoo, episcopoo, that kind of thing, and try to extract like from tiny little wisps of of hints. This is what the Bible sent. Honestly, man, the New Testament doesn't have a ton of specific things to say about that. Here's what it does. Um, it's very clear. Churches should have elders. Yes. You can't get away from 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1. Churches should have elders. Then you go to Acts chapter 7, and this I'm going to be like, I'm we're going to be a little church nerdy for a second here and just like I'm everybody's going to think like a pastor for a second. You go to Acts chapter 7, church starts growing. Acts chapter 7, all of a sudden, what's h happens is the widows in the church, they essentially they're benevolence funds. We got that at Lake Point. How do we help people in need? And the people in need start going, "Hey, we're the stuff's not getting to us." Like, "Hey, because they're going, man, the apostles who were leading the church, like, there's only like 12 of you guys and the church's real big and we can't how are we going to get your attention?" So, what they do is uh they go, "Oh, you know what we should do? We should add a layer of leadership." And they add, it's said that it's called uh I think it's called Seven Chosen to Serve is how it's the the passage is titled. And they add a layer of leadership that um often gets called deacons. The Greek word is just diacinos I think. And it literally a lot of times churches will turn that into like an official office. Deaconos just means servant. Yeah. When Jesus says I did not come to serve but not to come to be serve but to serve. He literally says I had not come to be deacons but to deacon. But to deacon. Yeah. Yeah. So so honestly man it's like in in one sense all it's talking about is we added volunteer ministry team members. So basically what happens is they restructure the organizational structure of the church in Acts chapter 7 they're reverse engineering the organizational structure of the church from what would best accomplish the mission. M so really man you know it's like at Lake Point just like the Bible we have elders we have we have elders just like the Bible we have a senior pastor just like the Bible um and then uh we are uh we are uh led by the uh guided by the staff guarded by the elders the the elders guard the doctrine and the policy of the church they walk alongside of me for help encouragement accountability and um the elders are a bunch of you know they're old guys that love Jesus and are men of character got great families and that's how we And just so people know, I mean, well, two things in terms of like you said, sometimes people like really parse out the words. That's where even going back to the Episcopalian model like, oh, there is an episcop, there was a bishop, but we have to realize in Acts 20 that's being used interchangeably because he calls the elders to him and then he's talking to that same group of people and then he says, you serve as overseers as episcopal. So, we got to be careful not to make these two fine distinctions when it's not there. And the thing just so people know like why this matters practically is that if you show me a dysfunctional weak church, I will show you a church that has dysfunctional weak leadership every single time. Every single time. So with that being said, I would just encourage in terms of what like what does this mean for me practically? Number one, be praying for your leaders. Be praying for your pastors, for your elders. Number two, we need more godly men and women, especially more godly men to like be developing as leaders in the local church who can one day be pastors who going to be elders. So like it matters big time, man. By the grace of God, here at Lake, we have very strong leadership by the grace of God. Unbelievable. Um Josh, speaking of that, you mentioned in at least one of the services that you at some point made a shift in your uh yes, leadership, but more specifically your preaching Yeah. strategy. Say, say more. Yeah. Dude, I do want to talk about this just real quick. So, in this passage, one of the things Paul does, um and this is another thing that didn't make it into the sermon in all the services is Paul mentions, he uses this phrase. He says, um, I did not shrink back from declaring anything that was profitable to you. Um, instead I declared the whole council of God. And then he says, publicly and from house to house. I'll just point out that's how Lake Point's structured. We gather on the weekends and we proclaim the word of God publicly. And then you just saw a picture of my root group in my living room and then we we sc gather and then we scatter house to house uh to get around the word of God uh from house to house. So publicly from house to house. And then he uses this phrase. He says, "I am innocent of the blood of all of you." And what he's doing is he's he's actually, bro, he's he's pointing back to Ezekiel, I think it's Ezekiel 33, if I remember right, where Ezekiel, God gives him this vision of, "Hey, man, I'm appointing you as a watchman on the wall." Like a military thing. I'm appointing you as a watchman on the wall. Ezekiel 3. Ezekiel 3. I knew there's a three in there somewhere. I'm appointing you as a watchman on the wall. And then God tells Ezekiel the prophet, he goes, "Hey man, if um um uh in the same way that if a watchman's on the wall and an enemy approaches and the watchman on the wall sounds a clear warning, an enemy is coming, but then the people don't do anything in response to his call. The people might die and get killed by the enemy, but the watchman is innocent because he sounded the warning. On the other hand, if an enemy approaches and the watchman's asleep at the wheel and he sounds no alarm and then the enemy breaks in and ravages the people, then not only do the people die, but the wa the God says, "I will require their blood at your hands because you were the watchman and you didn't do your job." And what Paul's saying in this passage is he's going, "Listen, man. I did my job. There is nothing in the word that I failed to declare to you and your families and your children. And after I did that, it was your responsibility to to walk in in a loving relationship with the father and obedience to his word. And Paul Paul with a totally clear conscience can say, "I am innocent of your blood because there was not one thing that I back I shrank back from uh in the word." Now, real quick, um I I will just real briefly. Um I made a shift in my preaching strategy where I realized a way that I was quote shrinking back and I didn't realize it. And it it happened in 2020, I'll be honest. So, here's what I used to do. I used to I'd sit down and I wanted to be a good evangelistic pastor and I would sit down and start writing my sermon and I would like have this imaginary lost person in my head and it was usually like you know like yeah aggressively you know secular progressive hates the Bible hates Jesus you know all the things and I would write my whole sermon with that reverse engineering with that person in mind like how can I get them to to like this sermon and Then um and what that would do is honestly man there would be passages in the Bible that I would almost take like a soft approach on. I would almost sometimes come across apologetic like man this is really tough. Dude I I man I I wish the word didn't say this but but it does. I would take that approach. Um, and then I would say I would teach it real gentle and soft and then I'll look out and if that type of person didn't like it, then I would feel like I did something wrong and I would say it even softer. And then I'll be really honest, I I started watching around in 2020, 2021, and I started noticing like, man, there's these like actually really ungodly ideologies and I'm watching large segments of my people that are actually getting persuaded by these things. Mhm. And I started realizing like, well, hey man, you're the watchman. And so I I noticed that one, I noticed a few things. One, the Christians and the families in my churches weren't getting like clear teaching that they needed to grow in their faith, have confidence and boldness when they walked out the door. This is a big one, dude. um their kids weren't hearing like clear, you know, just like clear unapologetic, like actually joyful Bible teaching about what the word said. Um and the world was being more bold and courageous with its preaching than I was with mine at the points of conflict. So, here's a decision I made. And some people in our church have even said this like, "Man, I kind of noticed like somewhere around 2021, it just felt like something was different in you." And uh it's because I was repenting. And uh and so once upon a time, you know, there was a bit of a seeker time where I would sit down and write my sermon with what a lost person, man, what would a lost person think of this? And then if I'm being really honest, there was a little like almost like a uh a social justice era where I would sit down and I would have an imagined agrieved group in my mind and I would like, okay, what would that agrieved group think about my sermon or reverse engineer it from that? And I I read a passage like this about how I did not shrink back from declaring anything to you. And I realized I was accidentally doing that. And the shift I made was, you know, now I'm not going to think about will a lost person like it. And I'm not going to think about will an agrieved group like it. The only question I'm gonna ask is will God like it? Is God gonna like this? And when I made that shift, what I realized I had been doing is I'd been starving the sheep to try to attract some goats. And I just made that decision like, man, okay, here's what I'm going to do now. And here's how I write my sermons now. Is Galatians 1:10. For am I am I trying to please man or am I trying to please God? But if I'm trying to please man, I'm no longer a servant of Christ. So what I do now is I try to write my sermons and kind of go, man, what I want to do is build up the wise people, the Christians in the church that love Jesus, committed to his word. I want to build them up in their faith, their confidence, their courage, their boldness, all those things. I want to correct foolish people, people who are like, man, you know, I'm in on the word, but I just struggle with these things. That's a person that's foolish, but they're going to get there because the spirit's inside of them, and they just need some help. And then this is the part that can be a little like sticky with some people when they hear it is there are the Bible says there are evil people. This passage in fact says it says when I leave fierce wolves and it says will arise from among you. So it says there's going to be divisive church members in your church that they're going to walk out of the sermon and then they're going to walk into their life group and be like I don't know. I don't know man. I I didn't like how he said that that kind of thing. and uh and there there are evil people. And so what I just decided is I want to build up the wise, correct the foolish, and then I intentionally want to drive out the evil people from my church because they'll get up in our life groups and they'll do they'll do division and they'll do reverse disciplehip among the people. Yeah. And by the way, you do that because you love the sheep. Because I love the That's it. Not because you're trying to be Oh, that's so mean. You're not trying to be mean. You love the sheep. And it's in this passage even as you're speaking about Ezekiel uh episcopos literally means to watch over or to be in a sense a watchman. I did not know that. And so even like that's the episcopos is just to watch over to look out to guard. And so that's the idea is I mean that is part of the role of leaders in the church is to watch out because not everybody is a sheep. There are people that are wolves that are wearing sheep's clothing to try to get in and deceive people intentionally. It's part of our role. Man, last thing before we start talking about Charlie Kirk and some of the lights out there. I got one thing I want. Oh, one more thing. Yeah. You want to do yours first? You want No. No. Well, I was gonna ask you something. Okay. Well, let me take this on. So, here here's what Dude, here's what's really interesting is I thought when I made that shift like, "Oh, dang. We're not going to reach as many lost people." And like, dude, the exact opposite. I just And here's my math on this thing. What I found is that the clearer I preach, it's like the clearer I preach, the bigger we get. It's like the the more lost we we we will baptize more than 2,500 people this year. Wow. In in a year. And here's my math on this thing is that the spirit of God authored the word of God. And so the spirit of God is always going to anoint the teaching of the word of God. So now I'm like, dude, I don't got to always just focus on quote unquote attracting people. Yes, we are good myologists. Yes, I became all things to all men in order that I might save some. All the things, blah blah blah. But at the end of the day, the the foundation is, man, I want to preach in such a way that the preaching attracts the presence of God. And if you attract the presence of God, the presence of God will attract the people. So honestly, it's been the opposite. We're reaching more people than ever before. Man, somebody's listening right now and they're probably thinking, "Man, that's awesome. Josh, you're a pastor. Obviously, you know, when it comes to that verse in Acts 20, my only aim is to finish the task. You you seem to have a very clear task, but what about like what about me?" If somebody maybe might be asking, well, you know, I have a a quote unquote non-church related job. How do people know, man, this is my task? This is what I need to be focusing on, and how do I complete it? The biggest thing that somebody needs to do is they need to walk out of this week and go, what's the task the Lord Jesus is asking me to do, and I'm going to do that this week. Um, so not everything from heaven has your name on it, but something does. M. So I honestly here's a prayer that I found God never doesn't answer for me. Father, what do you want me to do this week? Yeah. To be more conformed into the image of Jesus or what do you want me to do this week to advance the purposes of God? And man, there's a verse in in the Gospel of John. Uh it's at the wedding at Kaa where somebody just says it's the uh it's Jesus' mom, Mary. She looks at the the the wedding host and she's getting ready to do a miracle and she says, "Do whatever he tells you to do." And I would just say for any person like, "Man, pause. Ask the Holy Spirit, what do you want me to do this week to be more conformed into your image or to advance your purposes, ask the Holy Spirit that and then do whatever he tells you do." May it may have this week been, I need to be publicly baptized. There may be somebody that's like, I need to share my faith with that person. I need to start reading the word for the first whatever it is, man. But just ask. He's going to answer that prayer. I think with that, one thing that I I used to do when I worked with young adults mainly, but I think it works for all of us in case you you're even wondering how how do I take my career and do that is you just draw three circles. I I took this from someone else is basically is like, hey, what are what is the intersection of uh my passions, my talents, and my experiences. And and really what's at most of the intersection? Because I might have some passions, but I might not be good at it. Those are the people in American Idol who stink and no one will tell them they stink. So you're looking for the intersection of all those things and in experiences. One thing I'd also say is like, hey, what is misery I've been through? Because often God will turn our greatest misery into our greatest ministry. And so just saying, okay, where do those overlap? And then asking, hey, what has God called all of us to do? And then how do I do those things as I'm doing the specific thing he's called me to do, which is where they overlap at. So like to your point, we've all been called to make disciples. We've all been called to raise our families if you're in a family. So, as you're doing the specific thing God has called you to do, do the things he's called all of us to do. And I I'll just share one more thing in case you're you're just wondering even more. Um I get this from Nehemiah. When Nehemiah um heard about the broken down walls of the city, he it caused him to weep. And so sometimes what I'll ask people say, "What is brokenness in the world that produces brokenness inside of you?" And by the way, it may not be the same thing for everybody. Probably isn't. I think God has actually put different burdens on different people so that he can do more ministry in more places. And so nothing else just be asking like and when I say the world it doesn't have to be overseas. It can literally be in your neighborhood. It can be in your home. What is the brokenness in your home in the world neighborhood whatever it is that's producing a brokenness inside of you? And then to be like just simply ask and God what do you want me to do about it? And then go do it. Amen. That's really helpful. Thank you. We have a special guest Sabrina Cosman coming up in just a second. So we're going to be debunking some lies of Charlie Kirk. So stay tuned. Well hey guys. One of the reasons we are intentional in creating these kind of podcast episodes is because we believe that disciplehip happens in relationships. Having said that, what we want to do through the live free podcast is we want to model what it looks like to be in a disciplehip group where we come together and open up the word of God together and honestly just grow together as followers of Jesus to live free in Christ. for this reason. We love that you're tuning in, but honestly, we don't just want you to be a passive listener. We want you to be an active participant. And so, if you have not yet joined a group, whether that's in person or online, I want to challenge you to test drive one. To do that, just text the word group to 2041. Or you can also go to lakpoint.urch/groups. Because listen, you're not one podcast away, one habit away, one decision away, one book away, one sermon away. You are one relationship away to experience freedom in Christ in community. And now, let's get back to the podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, we are here with special guest Sabrina. And I say, make sure I pronounce it right. Sabrina Cosmo Cosmos. Cosmos. Cosmos. Cosmos. Like rhymes with Christmas a little bit. Yeah, exactly. Okay, Sabrina, the Cuban wonder. Yeah, we just learned uh your you were your parents are from Cuba. Both of them. First generation Cuban American. That's incredible. So, there's a few fun facts right here. So, first of all, worst. Now, I am very embarrassed. Early in the podcast, I called it Prageru. Sabrina works for Prager. Yeah. Prageru. Cosmos Prager. It's a lot of, you know, there's a lot there. I know that's right. There's a lot there. Uh, which again that's seriously like that platform is one of my favorite that's like one of my favorite platforms has been for years and like I mentioned with Carlos earlier when we first started in the podcast literally our texts were like dude we should build a a Prageru you for like Christian cultural engagement it's like you guys have inspired us man thank you that means a lot I know so a couple other fun facts about Sabrina so number one Cuban wonder number two works for Prager number three has a baby due this week one Yeah. From today. Wow. Yeah. Maybe earlier. Congratulations. Baby number three. Thank you. It's awesome. Sabrina and her man, our uh Lake Point members, just we love y'all. You guys have hopped up in an office before and it's just been really, really fun. Um and then the other thing that's really significant about you, Sabrina, um because, you know, we talked about this a little bit is, you know, you worked with and interacted with both Charlie and his team. And so, you know, the last week, probably like a lot of us, like it was felt kind of personal. Yeah. Very personal. Yeah. So, here's what we're going to do in the next few minutes. Um, so what happened is Char, you know, Charlie uh Charlie's assassinated. Then there's a big um outpouring of positive like, oh my gosh, we just lost a great one. And then what what always happens is then it was like a backfill of like just cra like I'm going to read some of the, you know, some of the things you started hearing. Charlie uh Charlie called somebody a racial slur. They called some he called somebody a Uh he said gun deaths are worth it. In fact, that that thing went crazy after because obviously, you know, he was shot. So then people were mocking him. Uh Charlie said the Civil Rights Act was bad. Charlie said black Americans were better off under Jim Crow. Lots of like racist, you know, stuff. Uh said gay people should be stoned to death. I mean, there's a bunch of stuff. We're gonna get into this and what you're the the this is what is claimed and then this is what was actual is insane. It is. It's insane. It's it's honestly surprising the amount of like it's just it's not hard to to find the context for some of these videos and people are very quick to to go ahead and jump the gun. Well, dude, so there's a reason for that. So, let me talk about like the spiritual dynam dynamic of this and why I wanted to do this and then me and Sabrina kind of we can get into it here. So, number there's a spiritual reason for that. Number one, Romans chapter 1 says that what people do is it says they suppress the truth in their unrighteousness. So when when people like they're committed to ideologies and actions that like are actually in rebellion against the Lord that what Romans 1 says is they have their conscience testifies. So then what they do is they have to come up with reasons that they can like suppress both the truth and the truth tellers. Mhm. And so what they'll do, you'll see, you will always see that you see truth or you see a truth teller and people will come up with reasons to delegitimize them. So there's a spiritual element to it. Um there also like just as a pastor, there were some people who heard the my sermon last week and they were like, "Ah, I didn't like that guy." And honestly, uh I think a lot of times is it's possible to have real feelings based on wrong thinking. And I think there's a lot of people who they they've just heard these little sound bites. And honestly, if I if this stuff was true, I I wouldn't feel great about Charlie if these things were actually true. So, I think there's that. And then here's the other reason, man, that I I wanted to hit this is Christians, you got to watch out for this. uh what can happen is lo