Should Christians Speak in TONGUES!? | Live Free with Josh Howerton

The reason we don't pray is not because we're not disciplined enough, it's because we're not desperate enough.

God's will might not seem good to me, but it is always good for me.

When spiritual gifts are abused, people usually drink to one or two extremes. This order or denial. When we talk about the gifts of tongues, we don't want this order, we don't want denial, we want disarmance.

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Let us keep this big. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the live free podcast. My name is Carlos Zarazone. I'm here with Pastor Josh Howard and Pastor Paul Cunningham, aka Chat G. Posse. Let us keep this big.

Let us keep this big. Coming to you from Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. And today, we're going to be talking shoot Christians pray in tongues. Oh! We're going to be...

I think we're going to surprise some people. I mean, it's going to be a good one. I'm a serious and personal stories. I don't think it was shared outside of my fire pit before. I heard some.

So I'm looking forward to see... Well, let's see, and get one. There you go. Okay, a lot. Go ahead.

You're saying there's more. There's more. There's more. We're going to be talking about... What else are we going to talk about?

We're going to be talking about... What else are we going to talk about? How's it going to be a good one? We're going to talk about... How to pray?

Yeah. How to pray? That's right. We're going to have a prayer stuff. Deep cuts on the Lord's Prayer.

“As we're going to talk, we're going to talk...”

You are seeing play out in real time, the advance of Socialistic Economic Policy. And what we're going to talk about is Christians developing the ability to connect their theology to public policy in ways that they're not going to act. That's going to be great. That's going to be great.

Hey, first of all, I want to give a shout out.

I live for you, listener. Send this mug. Oh, because they heard that my favorite movie is back to the future. And Paul didn't know that. Literally everybody else knew that and Paul was like, "Well, I'm not sure how I missed

that." Paul was like, "Have you seen back to the future?" You didn't know Carmen. And I was like, "What are you bro?" I was like...

Hey, what's the guy that played Doc? The actor? Yeah, Christian for something. Christian for Louis. Okay, that's right.

You know, I'm at him. No way. That's how you did this. I think you did mention it. We're like, "I'm really jealous."

No, stop. So we were at this January anniversary. We went to this, it was like a resort in rural England. And we're sitting there at dinner and I'm like, "That's Doc." And it became very close that week.

I was walking past him, and yes, I was walking past him at all. He looks exactly the same. And I said hello. And he said, "Hi." And he said, "Now we're friends."

That he said, "Well, you still wearing your jeans off?" He did not. And I wanted to say it. Then I didn't say it. Did you share the gospel with him?

I did not. I said, "Hi." Okay. I said, "Hi."

“Is this where you were wearing your Jane Austen gear?”

I was not. Let's move. Okay. Wherever it is. Where's the camera?

Is it here? Oh, is it there? Thank you so much. Because they didn't say who it was. And so I appreciate that.

This is really blessed to me by the way. This is one of my loved languages right here. And they props to you. I'm still, have you seen Goodwill hunting yet? Because that was an assignment.

Have you seen Goodwill hunting yet? Because that was an assignment. Have you seen Goodwill hunting yet? Should I? Actually at this point, it is your fault.

You did warn me though. There are some things. Anyway, I'm impressed with that redeem some of it. Because I'm just, my hot take on back to the future. At least the first one.

Is this just still one of the most rewatchable movies that I like today? It's not boring. It keeps going. It's just one of the tops of it. I'd say 20 movies ever.

It's the greatest of all time in my humble opinion. Okay. There we go. Hey, we got some. We got some merch that we wouldn't give away.

You are ever in the area. If you're a live free nation, listener, and you come visit as a person to any of our physical locations. We'd love to give you a hat. Come say hi.

Find us in our first time guest tent.

And we'd love to meet you. We'd love to meet you. Let's go. I also, we want to celebrate anybody that we get to meet. We have a couple.

I want to show a photo of. This is Jason and Miranda. Let's know what Jason said.

This is what he said.

“After 14 years Miranda and I will finally be getting married.”

Let me to the podcast one around them day and through that. I turn my life to our Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ a month or so later during Pastor Josh's sermon. God spoke to Miranda. She gave her life to Jesus.

Thank you, brother. Congratulations. We're celebrating with you. Shout out. Before we move on, we'll start talking about the Bible.

Can I sell, or another thing? Please. Honestly, this last weekend was one of my, I think, the proudest of it. We've been at our church. So one.

Obviously, last week. Honestly, a really difficult message on divorce and remarriage. Marriage divorce remarriage. Thank you. Thank you.

It was very long, but every now and then you just got to do that. Dude, honestly, in previous times, I'm in a street. I would have walked into that sermon. No, and I'm going to take it on the chin for the next week. And dude, like the way the people of, like, point responded to that.

It was just, you, it was like unanimous. Just like we love what the word says. We love the word. And, and not just that, but submission to it. So you're going to celebrate.

If you didn't watch it, at the end of the sermon, after clearly explaining, you know, what got expects when it comes to marriage. You know, we're reaching thousands of young family, young adults, young families. So there's a bunch of people, very frankly, who are visiting our church, that are sleeping together, living together, having kids together, that are not married yet.

So at the end of the message, after we clearly explained, you know, what God commands us to do because he loves us. We did this thing.

We're like, "Hey, man, we never want to look down on somebody unless we're giving him a hand up."

That's good.

“If you are coming under conviction and want to be married, that you realize you need to be married to”

Honor God, we want to do it. And, dude, with the, I don't know what the number is now. I'm sure it's higher within 24 hours of the end of that sermon over 60 couples. 60 couples had gone, amen. We've come under conviction.

We want to honor God and what we're doing and had signed up. So we're going to have a big mass wedding. At Lake Point, here in a few weeks, obviously all those people are going to meet with pastors for counsel, all the things. But, dude, it's going to be amazing.

I've never seen anything like that. It's just, if it comes right after the love life series, then the pod, and then this sermon, now it's like, that's awesome. Good moment. That's awesome.

We'll start in families. Hey, every single week we have a had to go away. So to participate in this week's giveaway comment hat here on YouTube or Spotify. We got some hats for you. And also, we got these hats to give away as well.

Oh. From, uh, need, those are legit. They're great. Look. Check it out.

I can't do a flat bill. I can't do it out there. Yeah. Carlos, good night. I'm back in the day, maybe.

Today. And so comment hat and you will be participating. You can also buy some live free merch at livefree.shop. Or you can text the word had to do zero for one one. Last thing to find our daily Bible reading plan.

Plus the weekly sermon. Plus an early release of the live free podcast episode. Plus a discipleship guide. You can go to the late point church app. You can text app to do zero for one one.

Or go to the app or Google Play store to get it. Good job, Carlos. Thank you. Best regards. Have a question for you.

I will allow it. I was waiting for you to say that. What did it make it to the server? Dude, I got it. I started saying that at home and I'm like,

I sound like a total jerk. I get it. I got to quit doing it. Just for me to have been here. Yeah.

Wait, no, not really. Oh, you're right. Sorry to say it. Yeah. But before that, it's from another show, right?

I think it was, yeah. I was from the office. All right. You know what? Listen.

Okay. You know what I'm talking about? Let's get right at it. So obviously, so this week, we, uh, was week two of a series. We're calling investigating Jesus.

And so each week of the series, we're doing this thing. We're asking a question that is a very frequently asked question about Jesus. Because the gospel, we're preaching through gospel loop.

“Honestly, man, it's like, I'm chopping up Luke.”

And, you know, it's a way to preach.

First by verse through a book and people not even notice.

So Luke begins the gospel. Talking to his one more. I've got him the awfulest thing going on. Hey, man, I've carefully investigated Jesus. And I want to unique understanding things.

So this week, what we hit is, um, if Jesus is real, why didn't he answer my prayer. It's like a very, very real thing. So here in a second, I'm going to play a Sean Ryan clip. Um, that, uh, that I, I want to use with a message. Um, so a couple things, essentially what we did this week is we preached the,

uh, what's called the Lord's Prayer. So a couple interesting things about this. Um, first of all, when you guys were growing up, so in Kentucky, we did the Lord's Prayer like before football games. And here's how we would do it.

We do it in King James. We would do our father who are didn't have him. Hall of the Year name. Your kingdom, that kingdom, that will be done on earth. This isn't heaven.

Give us his day or daily bread and forgive us. Or try it all the other things. And then at the end, what we would say is we would say, um, for a vine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen. Mm-hmm.

Okay. That's not in the Lord's Prayer. And none of the gospels.

So I grew up always thinking that was in the Lord's Prayer.

Like literally, I'm a little embarrassed until this week. I just learned that right now.

So what happens to people is they'll read like they'll read the Lord's Prayer in Luke. And they'll think, oh, that must be in the Matthew version. And then read in Matthew, oh, it must be in Luke version. Maybe that's, maybe that's in Mark or whatever. It's in none of them.

And what it is is around the fifth century. Um, some, you know, Christian early church fathers. They grabbed it. That's actually a statement from 1 Chronicles 29/11. And they grabbed it and they sort of like, you just kind of get a rigged it onto the end of the Lord's Prayer.

So that's a little interesting. Interesting. Let me do another one.

“So, uh, honestly, the biggest thing about this section on prayer is it is a radical.”

We do not understand how radically disorienting it was for people. For Jesus to pray with and explicit our Father. Okay. So like just to put this, this in perspective. Some of this was in the sermon, so it wasn't.

Um, in the entire Old Testament, 39 books, 36, 39 books. 39 books spanning thousands of years. Uh, God has referred to his Father 14 times in the entire Old Testament. Um, Jesus comes and he immediately, he just starts praying Father Father Father Father Father. Now, well, this is amazing.

Let me talk about why this is a really, really big deal. So what I'm going to show you right here is not going to make sense. And then when we get done, it's going to make a whole lot of sense. Okay. So here's why this is a big deal when Jesus starts praying, um, our Father in heaven.

All right. So throughout that first holy of Holy's pick.

So here's what you're seeing.

And this is in 2019, we went to Israel. Everybody should come to some point.

“If you go up on the top of the Temple Mount at, you're, you mean it actually?”

I'm leaving in two days. You're going to see this. I won't be here with you. I'll be there. Okay.

Yeah. You're going to see that in three days then. Um, if you go up to the top of the Temple Mount in, uh, in Jerusalem. Um, there is one spot. First of all, orthodox Jews, some orthodox Jews, they will not even step on the Temple Mount.

The reason is the Temple Mount, the flat structure is where it's called second Temple Judaism.

The second Temple was there during Jesus' time. The reason is they feel like they are unsure where the Holy of Holy's was. They won't even step on top of the Temple Mount. Less today accidentally tread in wherever the spot was, where the Holy of Holy was. And, uh, and, you know, that was the death penalty in the Old Testament.

All right. That was amazing. If you walk up on top of the Holy of Holy, this is all going to make sense here in a second. You're going to see this little pavilion structure with a little octagonal thing at the bottom. Now, um, uh, most, uh, most Jews think that this structure was built directly on top of exactly where the Holy of Holy stood.

When the Temple was there. Now, Trinity, can you zoom in on this picture? So this is on the Temple Mount. Oh, good job. That's right.

A few reasons. So first of all, they, they know in general where the Temple was before it's knocked down. Now, there's a big, uh, muzzle mosque is all al-Aqsa on the Temple Mount. But there's another part of the Temple Mount where the actual Temple was. If you look, it's the, it's one of the only places on the top of this thing. Everywhere there's tile except this one spot.

They left this one spot and you can see, uh, on the corner outside of this little octagonal thing, there's this, you can see a spot right there. You see it where there's bedrock. Okay. So that's the spot where they didn't tile over Where the rock used to be. Now, that's exactly five cubits by five cubits.

“That's what you've got right there. So it's a, it's a perfect square.”

Now, what they believed happened. So one, it lines up to the exact spot where they think the Holy of Holy's would have been. Okay. Number two is five by five cubits. There's a reason for that in the Old Testament. What they think happened is there was another stone that they placed because they didn't have the arc of the covenant in the second temple. What they think they did is they took another stone that was two by two cubits.

And they put it on top of that five by five cubits stone that was the same dimension as the arc of the covenant. And they put that there. Okay. Now, they blocked this off so that nobody will go in there. And you guys know the whole deal is this was the spot where the arc of the covenant stood at the top of the arc of the covenant. It was two cherubs that were fashioned by gold.

And it says that the presence of God stayed right there in between the wings of these two cherubs. So like just get this in your head. It's all going to make sense here in a second. So this is the spot where the presence of God himself dwell. And nobody could ever go there ever because if they did and walked into God's presence, they would die. There's literally tradition that when once a year the high priest would go in to intercede for the people that they would tie a little string around his ankle.

Lest he walked in with any impurified sin and died and God's presence and then they could pull him out.

All right. So just stay with me. This is this is why this prayer is amazing what Jesus does here.

So so what you had is first of all on the very outside you had something called that was called the Gentile court and that's as far as any Gentile person could go.

“Beggers, sick poor people, ceremonial and clean. They could only go to the Gentile court. Okay. There were literally signs we've showed a before on the podcast.”

Literally signs posted above the spot from the Gentile court farther in that threatened a death penalty. If you didn't belong anywhere inside of the Gentile court and you went farther. All right. So then inside the Gentile court, there was some called outer court. That's as far as women could go. Okay. Inside of the outer court, there was something called the inner court and this is where male is the only people go there. Male is relates where the only people they could go there. If they were ceremonially unclean, total silence.

And that was where they made offerings sin offerings. Okay. Then inside of the inner court was the Holy of Holies and you could only go there. So there, only priests could go there. And that's the spot where you go and you reach your Old Testament and there's the candlestick and the incense that's going up the table of presents that was all in there.

And then right in between that thing you just saw and the Holy Place, it was called the Holy Place.

We talked about this was a veil as thick as your hand. The separated the Holy Place from the most Holy Place. And on the inside of that, the only person who could ever go there was the high priest and he could go in one day per year. And only after a whole day of cleansing from sin, they would towel a rope around his leg. And that's where the ark of the covenant was and the glory of God dwell between the Cherubim. Okay. Now. Jesus comes along in the Lord's prayer. And He just starts praying our Father, our dad.

Literally, the Greek or air may it could have been something like Ava. Our dad, our dad, our dad is an heaven.

“And He just starts going, hey man, do you know what you can do now?”

You can just walk up and talk to God like he's your dad. All right. Now, here's a big point.

I want you to imagine you get in a time machine. You go back.

You get in a time machine. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I want you to imagine, let's say none of us are this, but let's say you were a Gentile woman. And you're there. And all of a sudden you're at the temple and you're on the very outer side. And you're like, man, I can't go into God's presence. And somebody you don't know. I just want you to imagine that somebody you don't know grabs your hand. And He just says, come with me.

And you just start going, wow, I'm not allowed. I'm not allowed. I'm a Gentile woman. I'm not allowed to do that. And He's like, you're good if you're with me. Yeah. So then he takes him all the way. You know, it takes her all the way and they go through to the outer court, where women are supposed to be. And then he goes, come with me even farther. And then he takes you into the inner court. And it's only male is relaxed. You know, like, I'm not allowed. He's like, you are with your, if you're with me.

“And then he's got, let's go a little farther. He still got you about the hand. He says, well, why do we go into the holy place?”

You know, I'm not a priest. He says, it's okay if you're with me. And then you walk right up to that veil thick as your hand. And with terror on your face, he pulls that veil to the side. And you know, anybody that's ever entered that thing that didn't belong in there has died. Yeah. And you go, I can't go there. You know, and he says, sluggish it with me. You're good. And then I want you to imagine that you walk in right there is the arch of the covenant that only a handful of people have ever seen.

And you look right between the wings of those cherubs. And you see the face of God. And then all of a sudden, something blows your mind. You look at that face. And then you look at the face of your guide. And you see the likeness of a son in the face of your guide and you're gone. Boom, boom, boom. And all of a sudden, you realize that your guide is the son of the presence of God, the son of.

And then you get to Hebrews chapter 10. And it says this. It all of a sudden, the reason that Jesus is saying, you know how you can pray now. You can just talk to God like he's your dad and walk right up to him. And you read Hebrews chapter 10 and it says therefore brothers and sisters. Since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, open for us through the curtain.

That is his body because when Jesus died that curtain was torn from top to bottom, the reason was this next verse. And since we have a great priest Jesus over the house of God, let us draw near to God with this sincere heart and with a full assurance that faith brings. And all of a sudden, it dawns on you that when Jesus died, that curtain was torn. Because now God's saying now, Jesus has made Hebrews 10 a new and living way, just come talk to me like a kid.

Wow. I couldn't not do it.

“When nobody else was looking, I stepped right over that little octagonal barrier.”

And that's my feet standing right on the holy of Holy's where before the death of Jesus, anybody that stood would die.

And I could stand there as a son of the Father why, because Jesus Christ made a new and living way into the presence of God. And now we're sons. That's right. Talk to my kids. That's amazing.

When I love even as you're saying, it's through the blood of Jesus and that's connected the idea of the judgment that we deserve fell on Jesus. That's right. And that's this leads me to two of my favorite quotes that are connected to this ever as J. I. Packer and his book no one got, which by the way, like fantastic. That's what you're talking about.

Yeah. As he said, it's one thing to no longer have God as your judge. But it's a whole thing altogether to now have them as your father. Amen. It's like Jesus died, yes, to take on the judgment, but so that he would no longer be your judge, but even more than that.

That's right. But he would now become your father. That's right, man. And then I'll love this from Tim Keller. He wants to talk about how, you know, only the child, only a child will go and wake up a king at 3 a.m. for a glass of water.

And we have that kind of accident. We have that kind of accident. And so it's just reminds us of just the grand privilege of being sons and daughters of God. And the access that we now have to go through prayer that we can go into his throne room at any time. Just talk to him like a kid, man.

Amen. Let me do a kind of do one more thing here. Please. All right. So I got in some service that didn't get in all services.

So I want to I want to respond to it because essentially this sermon, it responded. It responds to this question, the guest raised here. So by the way, huge fan of Sean Ryan, I'll listen to this stuff. In fact, I kind of hope this makes it to know somehow because I want to answer his question here. I'm sure he will.

All right. So check this out. And you're going to hear essentially he's asking the question this sermon response to check this out. And I know it's funny, but it's true. But, you know, this morning I was reading it.

You know, it was a couple of days behind. So I've caught up, but, you know, we're talking about a common thing in there is.

So it's always talking about hand over your problems to me hand them over me.

He's worried about. He's worried about their end of the day. I'll take care of it. And I was just I don't understand what that means. I mean, I've got all kinds of problems.

I pray for them all the time. Years some of these problems. And I'm not saying I have more problems or less problems than anybody else. They're just problems. You know, and I pray about them.

A lot of them don't get answered. And then I think about it. I'm like, what is that mean? Okay. So he says, what's that mean?

I'm praying for something that didn't get answered. What's that mean? I would like to as a pastor respond to Sean's right. Sean rise question. Okay.

So a lot of people know this. The Bible actually lists eight very specific reasons that God might not be answering your prayer. All right.

“And a lot of people know like, I think it's very, very specific.”

All right. So I'm around three. This is like super fast. One. God might not be answering your prayer.

Or one because you didn't pray the prayer. Yes. That's like something. Just sit around like I'm just sort of like. Yeah.

I ain't asking, but I might. Oh, this is James 42. It says, you have not because you asked not. So like, hey, man, we got to ask. God's a daddy wants to ask.

God number two. God might not be answering your prayer. The Bible says, because you got un. It says unconfessed or cherished sin in your life. Like, this is a specific thing.

Psalm 66 18 says this, if I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. Okay. Now, I just want to point this out. It doesn't say if I sin.

It says, if I cherished sin. So it's like, man, I'm protecting sin in my life. I'm covering sin in my life. I'm intentionally trying to grow and stay in sin in my life. That's what's talking about.

Okay. So if I cherished sin in my life. Okay, number three. The Bible says that God might not be answering prayers in your life because of doubt. Because of doubt.

By the way, I'll just say this. A lot of times modern progressiveism and progressive Christians, they will reframe doubt as like a positive thing. It's like a virtue. It's a virtue.

Literally in the Bible doubt is never.

Never, ever, ever. A good thing. Never.

“James one says this, but when you ask, you must believe and not doubt because the one who doubts”

is like a wave of the seed blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Okay. So there it is. Because of doubt.

Number four. The Bible says you might not. God might not be answering your prayers because of wrong motives. So this is James four three. It says, when you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may

spend what you get on your pleasures. By the way, this right here is what clears up the confusion about what Jesus means when He says, hey, if you ask anything in my name, it will be enough for you.

like whatever you want. Like, you know, millions of dollars in Bentley's and vacations and hot girlfriends and then go on.

You know, what what it means to ask something in Jesus name, think about the is the is the third

commandment.

“You should not take the name of the Lord.”

You got a vein. That doesn't just mean using God's name like a cuss word. It means not putting God's name on something that's not from God. So when somebody when God didn't speak to somebody and somebody goes, hey man, I got a word from the Lord.

That's taking God's name and vein in the same way. So praying in Jesus name is putting something is praying for something that you know is from Him. I know Jesus would want this on praying for him. Number five, the Bible says, God might not be answering your prayer because you have

unforgiveness in your life. Yeah. This is this is a big human. Mark 11, 25 and 26 says, and whenever you stand praying for give, if you have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

In other words, and man, two Christians being reconciled is such a big deal to the father just like with me with my kids. I'm not going to talk to you about anything till you get with your brother's sister. God's going, hey, same thing, man. I got one thing.

“I'm willing to talk to you about right now.”

Get right with your brother's sister. Okay. Number six, God might not be answering your prayers because you are ignoring hurting people. This is Proverbs 2113. Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be heard.

Yeah. So God is saying, and then you can't ignore people made in my image and then ask for my help. Okay. Number seven, I know this is a weird one. This is only for the husbands.

So ladies, close your ears. You know, I'll listen. But this is a Bible verse. Yeah. God might not be answering your prayers because you are being a bad husband.

Yes. Yes. We, this is a verse. Love people don't. Don't realize.

First Peter 37. It says, husbands likewise dwell with your wives in an understanding way, giving honor to your wife as the weaker vessel as being heirs together of the grace of life. Listen, so that your prayers may not be hindered. So God is literally saying, like, hey, man, you think you're going to mistreat my daughter and then come and ask me for stuff and we're going to be good. He's like, no, that's not how this works.

It's just like, if you were mistreating one of my daughters, it's like mistreat her and request things for me. And I punch you. That's how that triangles don't work. It's like, not really, but, you know, now, and then last one, number eight, God might not be answering your prayers very frankly because he's got something better. Right.

And he actually is answering your prayer. That's right. Just in a way, you didn't expect. That's right. So this was super emotional for me.

And this week at message prep, and I got this in some of the service now. Throw that picture up, Trinity. I ran across this note in my Bible this last year when I was doing my bubble reading plan. And this is in Genesis. And right over the verse where it says, and Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren.

And the Lord granted his prayer. Right above that verse, I noticed this last year, I had the ink is fading. Because on January 7th, 2013, I wrote him my Bible. I prayed this today for Janna, because we were eight years in fertility at that point. And that was very hard for Janna.

And I prayed for eight years. And it's right there.

And God never answered my prayer.

And if somebody asked me today, like, "Hey man, why didn't God answer your prayer?" Very frankly, part of me just goes, "I don't know." But I will say this. Every time I look at one of my three adopted kids, or every time somebody walks up to me and Janna and the lobby. And they tell us that their family chose to adopt because they were inspired by what they saw in our family.

What I think is, I'm glad he didn't. And sometimes God is not answering your prayer because his thoughts are higher than your thoughts. And his ways are higher than your ways. And you're praying for something. And he has something better for you.

That's right. That's good, man. That's really good.

“Yeah, I think especially for somebody who becomes a Christian and they wrestle with that idea of, like, man.”

But I thought now I'm supposed to just ask anything and God's supposed to give it to me. I think it's, you know, a gentle reminder would be, God is a loving father. That's right. Not a vending machine. That's right.

And a vending machine gives you what you always want and a loving father gives you what you always need.

And so I think that's why I think Jesus in the Lord's prayer says, "Your will be done."

“And so we tend to think that your will be done means God I want you to adapt to what I want.”

But oftentimes when you pray your will be done is really God help me align to what you want. And because we usually ask things for that we think, "Oh, if I have this, it will make me happy." And that's God wants you to be happy, but more than that he wants you to be holy. And so when you are in that spot, there is something to be said about hey, it takes time for you to work out that muscle of trust and faith that he is good. He is a good father, you can keep asking and you can keep trusting.

That's exactly right.

And I think with that is just have to remember, like, God's will might not seem good to me, but it is always good for me.

Yes. It may not seem good to me, but it is always good for me. I think even though about tracking a little bit, I think maybe in just a practical thing that people can do going to that list is like if you're feels like your prayers are hitting a ceiling and they're not getting answered. It's probably out of the church people just go back to that list that you just gave. That's exactly right.

And just almost like, okay, there's a thing here. And if you find that, by the way, the beautiful thing again is that we have access to God the Father. And it says, man, it actually, first on one says that if we will confess our sin, he is faithful and just and will forgive us or sin and cleanse us from all and righteousness. So, maybe if you find those things confess them, but then in what you've done those, I think it was the first seven. You get to, and I hate, it could be that number right now.

It could also be weight by the way. One of the things that I saw as I worked through Genesis this year is often they would pray for a child and God said, yeah, I'm going to give you one. And then they have to wait like decades. Thirty years. Yeah.

That's right. And so it could be just in the way. By the way, we do not want to get pregnant. We're 70 times going to get that on the records. It gives me the reason I'm going to clear my prayer.

Let me put that here right now.

Dear Lord, just let you know.

“But I think with that is this is that idea is like, if you get out last Wednesday, it feels like I know you have to remember that what might not seem good to you is good for you.”

And even like I love to see I just put some like actually storage to that from Scripture. It's like, if you're Joseph in the book of Genesis and you've been even though if you were a little bit of a turkey or brothers, it's still unjust to, you know, get sold into slavery and then throw in prison for stuff you didn't do. And he was in slavery and prison for a decade of his life. And I have to imagine even though it's at the Lord, it was with him. It probably that's that situation didn't seem good to him.

And yet at the end, he was able to see what God was doing. It's been done through it all. And he realized it was good for him and good for his family and good for the whole world. That's right. Because it allowed God to save lives because of what he had to go through.

So it's just a reminder that God can be trusted. That's right. If we knew everything God knows we would answer the prayer just the way he does. That's right. Let's get practical.

Yeah, let's do that. So somebody's like, great. How do I pray? Let's give some tips. I pride the complications.

Okay. Let's do some things. Yeah. You want me to start? Yeah, let's go.

Okay. So I'll do a couple things. One of my favorite stories ever. Do you ever heard that Paul, I bet you have. You heard the story about Martin Luther with his hair.

It was this barber. This is amazing. What do you know what the name of that is? Seeking pull it up. Seeking pull the name of a thing up.

So this is a true story. Martin Luther gets to have the Protestant Reformation. Apparently his barber one time was like, hey, man, I'm real bad at prayer. What should I do? Yeah.

And total Martin Luther move.

“I think he wrote him like a 20 page treatis.”

Yeah. Peter Beskendorf. Peter Beskendorf was his name. Oh, man. Yeah.

Yeah. And then he wrote, and there's a simple way to pray. I'm, I'm, I'm fine. I'm not going to show it to you. It's generally as German.

It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray.

It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray.

It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray.

It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray.

It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. It's a simple way to pray. So what he did is Martin Luther said, So what some guys will do dude is like,

Honestly, Catholics will do this. I would say don't do this.

Well, first of all, let me back up.

What we don't, number one, we pray to God. Yeah. Now, Jesus is our mediator. We can pray, we can go directly into the presence of the Father. We can pray too, God.

You do not have to pray to saints. You don't have to pray to Mary. You don't need any mediator. Between you and God, you can go right in because now is your dead. That's literally Hebrews 10 is meaning.

Now we've been given a new and living way, so that's number one, number two. My dead taught me this, and he may have gotten it from Martin Luther. Because what Martin Luther did for his barber is he went, Hey, man, use the Lord's prayer as a model prayer,

but don't just recite it. So like what I'll do is for me,

There's this. I'm going to actually I'm going to pull it out real quick. There's a, you know on movies, they'll say that the fifth character is the soundtrack. Hmm.

So that's sure. Absolutely. Do you know what this is? Do you, do you see this? It's just like a random YouTube story.

It's about William Augusto.

“It's called, I think the album is called Soking in his presence.”

Since you put this out on social, I've started using it. Okay. So I don't know what it is, dude. Maybe this gap rate over his little thing.

I'll, I'll put this on. I got a room in my house and we're nobody can hear me. I'll put that on for some reason. I'm just getting super practical. What else?

I'll put that on. And then what I'll do sometimes is I'll use the Lord's prayer as prayer prompts. Yes. So like, it's just get super, maybe vulnerable. You know, so it starts.

I'll pray like our father who aren't having. May God today. I receive a spirit of sonship. Now, I thank you that I'm no longer a slave. Thank you for adopting me as a son.

And Lord, I just wanted today. Just crawl up into your presence and press my head. Real tight up against the chest of my father. And I'll just pray. And then our father who aren't having. Hallowed be your name.

And then I'll take a few minutes to say, God, you are holy. My father, thank you for what you've done for me. You are just, you are righteous.

I could spend the rest of my life and if you never did anything else for me,

you've done enough for me to spend the rest of my life giving thanks to you. Hallowed be your name. Bless your name, Father. And then it goes, your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as earth as is in heaven.

And I'll just start praying. Yeah, man, whatever it is, my father, please save these people. Father, I'm praying for this unreached people group that we're getting ready to step into over in India. I pray that you're kingdom will come. Father, I'm praying against the rising tide of evil and Godlessness in our nation.

But you can use the Lord's prayer almost as jumping off points. Mm.

“That's why I found that to be very, very helpful.”

All right. Let's round rob in this thing. I may give some other thing. What are tips you all got? Yep.

I love that one. I mean, I've done the same thing. Lord's prayers a great win.

Actually, Chris Hodges wrote a great book called Pray First.

And he's got some model prayers in there. That's, I believe, is one of them. But these got some others. I think part of the tabernacle prayer. Yeah, the tabernacle prayer.

Oh, that's my favorite. That's my favorite. That's my favorite. I want to steal it from him. But I'm just a part of it is the course.

Like Lord's prayers a great one. I mean, it's literally the one he gave us as a model. But there's just, if you can find a model, that can help get shaped to it. Because I think, especially as you're learning to pray. But all the way, but even if you've been praying for a while,

sometimes it just feels like it's just you getting a rut, it's a great way to keep you focused. And it kind of works through those kind of big category sets. That's a big one that I use. I use the Lord's prayer also. I encourage you.

This is a great one to punch as you talk to a few weeks ago about being people of the word. And diving to Bible like when you get like when you're into a Bible, then pray through whatever passage you just read. Yes. I mean, I was, I was in Psalm 1111 yesterday.

And it talked about offering thanks and worship in the congregation. So I just took moments at lower when I'm in worship with the people of God this week in the word. Do you let that be authentic? Would you fire me? Would you make us into a worshiping people?

Like, I don't have to pray on it. I'm like, I just, a few simple prayers over that verse. And you don't have to do that for every verse. I don't want to make it something that I want to say. Like, I saw that, something started me.

And I just said a quick prayer.

“So I think when you've been combined, when you start combining your reading of God's word,”

within your prayer to God, it becomes this back and forth conversation.

Here's what I would say too.

I think we just, we think that prayer is primarily us initiating a conversation with God. And obviously that can be true. You can start a conversation with God at any point. But in what you see in scripture is prayer is primarily us responding to God who has already initiated a conversation with us.

The Bible says that the first one to communicate is actually God. He reveals himself through his word. He speaks and so to echo what you just said. This is literally what I do every single morning. I open up the word, I read first, and my prayer is my response to what I'm reading.

To what God is speaking. That's right. I'll give an example of this. Because when people learn to instead of just reading the word, it's like, I'm praying what I'm reading.

Your Bible reading changes radically. So like this morning, I'm in Second Timothy. I read today, the whole book of Second Timothy was my Bible reading. So it's, I'm going to give an example. So it starts Paul on a apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.

And dude, what I, here's how it would have noticed for me. Is if I read something and like, there's an emotion that rises in my heart. It's almost like deep calls to deep. It's like the Holy Spirit is prompting something in me and I'll want to turn it. So I want to somehow read that verse and I just thought, man, like, God.

I can't believe you set me apart to be a pastor. And I just, I just stopped reading the verse. So I'm one verse in, and I'm just like, thought, thank you for set me apart. Thank you that you set apart Christians from the world. Thank you that you set me apart from ministry.

Father, would you make me a holy vessel? Would you cleanse me from anything dishonorable? So that I might be a vessel for honorable use? Lord, is there any, you know, I just prayed it right there?

Search me and try me. And it's just like, if you will start reading the word through the lens of, I'm looking for a prayer prompt from the Spirit. That's when deep calls to deep. And then, with that, I love first John 514 says, if we ask anything according to his will,

that's right. Then those are answered. Well, how do I know his will? His will is word. That's right.

Through his word.

“And so that I think that's even connecting that.”

It's like, man, as I'm seeing these things. My call, I see what God's was. I want to pray that over myself. I want to pray for my family, my church. That's even sometimes what I'll do is, okay.

That's right. How can I pray this over myself? My family, my church, and even if I go not into the world,

it's just a really powerful way.

If you could see my journal right now, I even sometimes divide the page into two. One is just notes and things I'm seeing from the passage and then the other prayers from the passage. I try to do both at the same time. Dude, now this hack, and now I want to come to you, Carl, as I'm going to make you give it to it. Because you're a man of prayer, and I know that your wife tells me you're a man of prayer,

which by the way, that, that is the win. That's amazing. Yeah. To have it, that you're a wife, and you're not around. She'll tell it.

Like, I'll ask Brooke. I was checking on you. Is he praying? No. No.

Oh, okay. Fire in that guy. That's a joke. That's a joke. That's a joke.

That's a joke. Watch vlogger. Make a church pastor. We'll fire somebody. That's a bread.

I'm always podcasting. Why is it so weird? Two seconds. I'm going to be here in a second. Now, that is just to get super radical.

And here's what we're listening.

Here's what we're doing is you will never grow as a Christian and a disciple,

a pastor prayer life. So it's like the reason we're getting super radical here is it past going to change you. This is what changes your family. How are you going to be a man that has three generations deep after you're hugging

“Jesus that are still faithfully serving God on this planet?”

Because you built monuments of prayer for the generations that would come after you when you're gone. So it's like this stuff matters, man. Just to get super practical to what Paul said. Like, my prayer life radically changed when I started sitting there with a journal in front of me.

There's two reasons for that. I didn't plan to talk about this. There's two reasons for that. One very frequently what God will do is he'll speak to you while you're praying. So you guys may disagree with this.

And this I'm going to get a little kind of castle here for a second. So actually after two says it says I'm going to pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters are going to prophesy. We're going to talk about tongues here in a second. It's going to be great.

And then it says your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams. Very frankly, what will happen to me? I don't know if this ever happened to you.

I've never talked about this before.

What will happen to me when I'm praying? If I'm like caught up in a moment of deep and passionate prayer, is it's almost like what's verbal will become visual? This happened to me through four days ago. And it's like what I'm praying?

I'll get a very vivid. It's almost like a spiritual day dream. And I'll give an example of this. A couple of weeks ago I was praying through a gospel of John, where Jesus is like, "Hey, I'm the vineyard of the branches.

You can't do anything without me." And I'm praying. I'm just like, "Lord, I want roots dug all the way deep." Now, you know, I'm praying. Like, "I hope my grandchildren think about their granddad

as a man who had deep roots." He was a man of praying that. And while I'm praying, it's like this. A very vivid visual. The verbal becomes visual.

And I'll just see this almost like a big root or a trunk. And then he's little. I know this sounds weird, I'm doing my best here. These little roots like growing really rapidly and wrapping themselves around the vine.

And honestly, man, there was a heat on that thing. And it's like a spiritual day dream.

“Very frankly, I sometimes think that's what acts”

to means when it says, "You're gonna see visions." It's almost like spiritual day dreams. You'll be in prayer and the verbal becomes visual. I honestly think sometimes people are having spiritual visions and they didn't even know it.

Because they're having a spiritual day dream, the verbal becomes visual. And by the way, that lines right up with actual verses. So how do I know that it's an alignment with God's will? Because it's an alignment with God's words.

So the reason that it's like a prayer is a total cheat code to sit there where the journal is two things. One, I got the worst attention span in the world. So when I start praying, every dead gum thing from a whole to do list is right there.

I want to pray for my three kids. And I'm thinking about the sermon I got to write and the guy I got to email and the speaking event that I got to, so one is helpful. If I can just grab my journal and I'll just,

okay, I thought of this, do you list that? I don't got to keep it in my head. But then two, when God speaks to you in prayer, write that stuff down man. Yes, absolutely.

You want to be able to go back to that in 10 years and go, that's what God spoke to me. God speaks to me. Well, I'm not, no, just real quick. I do have a notes on my iPhone.

God speaking to me. And this is every single day. There's something I need to know. What is God speaking to me today? And so I agree to everything you just said.

Man, I think for me, you know, when I think about my prayer life,

And so before God, that is a legitimate fear that I have before God. I know God opposes a proud and he lifted the humble. And so to me, once you know that,

for me, that was a game changer.

I think one thing that when people say, man, I, you know, I don't want to pray, but I don't have time to pray. I'm really busy. And what a lot of people I think miss is oftentimes

“like of prayer in your life is not a time issue.”

It is a pride issue. Yeah. And so people want to pray more. But, you know, maybe you're in a business season. I'm at jobs, kids.

Like, you know, I have time to pray. The deeper issue I believe is, man, we don't realize how much you need God. You actually need him way more than you think. And, you know, what people don't understand is

when somebody prays a lot is not necessarily because you have a lot of self-discipline or because we really spiritually strong. In fact, the opposite is true. The reason someone prays a lot is because

they realize how spiritually weak they are

and how much they actually need God.

And so, the reason we don't pray is not because we're not disciplined enough. It's because we're not desperate enough. Prayer is the language of the dependent. And so, when you look at scripture,

the Bible says Jesus prayed in the mornings. He prayed all night. He prayed regularly as he withdrew. Often, he prayed before miracles. He prayed in crisis.

“And so, if Jesus who is the son of God incarnate,”

if he prioritized prayer and prayed a lot, how much pride do I have in my heart to think I need less of the power of God in my life than Jesus himself. And so, very practically, for me, is I have to pray in the mornings first thing.

I have to. If I don't, I know at this point, I know myself enough. If I don't pray in the mornings first thing, it's going to be extremely hard for me to pray

later throughout the day. I have to pray in the mornings first things first. I have a spot in my house. I go to every single morning.

I always have the word with me.

I always have to write in my, I use my phone. I have a moment of worship. I started doing this recently, and it's been a game changer where, like, you know, I just play a worship song.

By the way, worship music is not my genre of preference. I never, I was not that guy. You know, I've been into, you know, a little bit of my passive into, like, hip-hop, and kind of, like, the opposite of worship music.

Because it helps my soul connect, abide with my father. And I'm curious to hear what you guys think about this, but I time it. So I commit myself,

every single morning has specific time. And for me, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, it's a floor. So not a ceiling. So every single morning, you know,

it's a spiritual discipline. And the same way that if you go to the gym, and, you know, you don't want to go to the gym for 10 minutes. I mean, generally speaking, shoot for like an hour, but, you know,

so I was biases. Get up soon now and I'm gonna go to beat him in an hour. (laughing) Sorry. I'm going to do it because I'm,

I'm going to do it because I'm physically strong. I don't go to the gym because I'm physically strong. I go there because I'm physically weak. I don't think I better. So let's go.

I mean, I have to time it. So, so yes, I, I time it. I have to time it. And so like I shoot for it. Now, I don't hit it every single time,

but it helps me commit. Hey, I'm making a commit man that I'm shooting for this amount of time. Every single day. And I have a conviction in my heart. You're not praying enough.

Because if, if I want to see you got moving my life,

“I ask myself, and what if I doubled my life of prayer?”

What if, you know, instead of 30 minutes, you're doing hours instead of an hour, you do two, like literally nobody does that, generally speaking, but what if I did, what would God want to give me in that,

those moments? What would he want to do in my life? And I, I hate the idea of missing out on something that God has for me, on his annoying thing, his power, and I need it. I just want to say that is so God honoring.

God loves. It's why you are the man that you are. And, you know, what you just said there is something I don't think a lot of Christians internalize. That's a, you have not, because you ask not.

Dude, everybody's needs to get in their spirit, like every one of us is a man. We got kids. We're going to have grandkids got willing someday. And what we want, we want people with our last name

to be thrown haymakers so they kingdom where we're all gone. There are things that God is willing to do. They God wants to do. They God has not yet done, because we have not yet prayed.

That is a simple, biblical fact. So why would we not? Why would we not? You may do this, um, you may do this one last thing right here. Yeah.

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Let's invite courageously. We will see you there. All right. So last thing, I'm gonna talk about this tabernacle prayer thing. And if you're listening, and you're like, "Oh, is this right here?"

Just, completely changed my prayer life. So when it's warm enough, what I do is I take a walk in the morning. And this is how I pray. It takes me about 30 minutes, just not the whole day. This is how I do it.

So I got this from old Chris Hodges. And what you got is in the Old Testament. You've got, there was a way to approach God. Obviously, we just went through a mirror layer. It was like, you know, phases of the temple.

“And when you were trying to get into the Holy of Holy,”

as you're trying to get in the presence of God, you would pass through these parts of the temple. Well, the book of Hebrews says that everything that was written, you know, in the passing Old Testament was written as a model in pattern for us. So what Chris Hodges did is he turned this into a pattern for prayer.

And I will say, man, unless you are the type of person I've never met before,

having a mental model and map. It keeps your mind and your spirit focused and moving. Yes. Like, I'm just kind of guy dude. Honestly, I'm just going to be honest.

I'm going to get bored, and my mind's going to wander. If I don't have something in front of me, it's like, "Okay, here's my model." Okay, so here's what I did, just let me run through this real quick. And if you're listening, we're going to stick this in the show notes. Study God, whatever we call now.

We're going to stick this in here. What I have done is I've got a note on my iPhone with each of these. And then I will put verses that correspond to each of these in the iPhone note. So I'll be taking my prayer walk. I have the iPhone note up, and I'll pray the verses that correspond.

Now, let me explain it, okay. So when you came to the temple first thing was the outer courts. Okay, well, the Bible says to enter his gates with. Thanks, Kevin. So that's how you start.

I'll just, okay, Lord. I'm here to enter with Thanksgiving. And I'll just think, I'll stop thinking.

“What are, what's every blessing that I experienced yesterday?”

And I want to make sure that, you know, Jesus healed the ten lepers. Only one came back and said, "Thank you." And every, almost every day I say the same thing. Today Lord, I'm going to be the one. Every single thing you gave me yesterday.

Thank you for that sweet time with Hudson before Ben.

I thank you for the, you know, the incredible generosity of the people.

You know, that kind of thing. Lord, thank you for, what was it I was praying for yesterday? Lord, thank you for that conversation. I have a Jan or we talked about it. Thank you for my house.

Thank you all those things. Okay, enter his gates with Thanksgiving. Then the next thing you would encounter as soon as you walked in, the first thing you would see in the temple was the bronze altar where sin offerings were made.

So here's how I do it. As I roll right into thanking God for all the stuff he gave me. Into the biggest thing I'm thankful for is the sin offering of Jesus Christ on the cross. So then I'll just start praying. My father, thank you for Christ crucified for sinners.

Man, thank you that your, your word says that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness or remission of sin. But thank you that with the shedding of blood, there is a guarantee of forgiveness and remission of sin. Thank you that there is, therefore, now no condemnation.

For those who are in Christ Jesus. Thank you that, you know, I'll just, here's how I pray. I'll just start praying. Thank you that there's old hymns. I'll start praying.

Thank you that five bleeding wounds he bears received on Calvary. They poor affectual prayers and they strongly plead for me. Forgive him, O Lord. Forgive him, Lord. Forgive they cry.

Forgive him, Lord. Forgive they cry. Don't let that ransom center die. So I'll pray to sin. Then as you moved farther into the temple,

the next thing the priest would encounter was called the Lavor. It was this little thing that, like mirrors almost with water in it, and they would cleanse themselves. And this is the spot where now I'll just start praying. If there's any unconfessed in my life, I'm praying it.

But then here's the big thing I've started doing is I'll just start, they would wash parts of their body. I've started going body part by body part. So I'll just go Lord today. I want to have the mind of Jesus Christ.

Father, would you concentrate my mind to set my mind on things that are above and not the things of this world? Father today, I give you my, I have made a covenant with my as not to look lustfully at a woman. Father, my as or your as today.

Lord, I consecrate my tongue to you. I pray that there would not be one word of cursing that would come off my tongue. That it would be used to bless and not curse. And I'll just go through Lord, I pray that you, my hands. Lord, I got work to do today and I got a lot of work to do today.

Would you please multiply the work of my hands?

Well, then the next as the priest would go in.

So if you're listening, here's what you want to do.

You want to get these down and then just use these as eat start with 30 seconds. Yeah, don't start long. Start with 30 seconds. I'm going to pray through each face because there's a way to enter God's presence. Okay.

So then the priest after the labor, they'd go into the holy place. And the first thing I would see was that seven prong candlestick. And everywhere in the Bible, by the way, when you see fire and smoke, that's almost always a symbol of the Holy Spirit. So that's where what I'll do is there's a passage in Isaiah 11.

That talks about the sevenfold spirit of God, a spirit of wisdom in my mind, a spirit of, you know, as you go through seven, everything. And I'll pray through that. Sometimes I'll pray through the fruit of the Spirit. Yeah.

Father, would you make me, man, make me a father and a pastor today of the love, joy, peace, patience, kind of. Sometimes I'll pray for the gifts of the Spirit. Yeah. You're really pray for the gifts of the Spirit.

We're going to talk about just being a praying and tongues here in a second. What that doesn't mean, I'll pray for all those things. And it says, especially that you may prophesy. And so I'll literally just be like, Lord, I especially want to prophesy today.

“Would you give me a word of encouragement for something?”

So that's the next one. Well, then the next thing they would see is it was called the table of show bread. And there's these little loaves on there. Well, you get to the new testament. And Jesus goes, man, man does not live on bread alone.

But by every word that proceeds to a mouth of God. So the word of God is actually like bread that feeds our soul. And this is where what I'll do. And I'm not saying you got to do it. It's all be on my prayer walk.

I'll pull up my Bible app. And then I'll take the two chapters that I'm going to read. And I'll read them on my prayer walk. And then I'm turning versus into prayer while I'm praying. So I'm doing that.

Then the next thing they would see is the altar of incense. As they would love farther in. That's a representative of worship. And so sometimes I'll pause. I'll find a quick worship song.

Or a hymn. I'm a hymn guy. I just like hymns. So I got like, I fun notes with my favorite hymns and all their lyrics. And I'm my prayer walk as long as nobody else is around.

I'll just be singing. You know, my favorite hymns. I'll just be singing. You know, my favorite hymns. Then Christ.

And then he's one of them. Yes, but that is what's a great song. I'll be singing it.

“And then the last place after the altar of incense.”

Holy of Holies. And this is really important. When the high priest got into the Holy of Holies. They weren't in there. Just to be like, oh great.

Now I'm just enjoying your presence. So that's where for me. I'll start going. I'm praying. I'm in the presence of God now.

I'm praying for everybody. This is not with me right now. And I'm mediating for them. So that's when I'm praying for Janna. I'll work my way down.

I'm praying for Janna. I'm praying for my three kids. I'm just be really vulnerable with you. I'm already praying for the future spouses of my three kids. I'm praying for people in the church.

I'm praying for friends. But I'll go through that little. I know that was long. But that's like, this is what pattern I'll use. Well, even like not deconstructing.

But based like almost examining what you just said is like, imagine if some people are listening like, man, that's a lot. And what I wanted to just point out is you were just rather than those things off. And then sing versus just off the top of your head. And it's because you've been doing them for a while.

So now I'll just sometimes like to use with this weather. It's tabernacle prayer using the Lord's prayer.

Any of these as it first is like if you've ever learned to play golf,

it feels really mechanical learning how to swing. It's a great analogy. I've taken it out. I've taken it out. I took lessons a few years ago.

I need to go back and take more, but literally when I took lessons, he put these straps in my arms that made me swing in a certain way. And it felt really constricted. And he just had me build the swing a thing at a time. It's like, right now, I just want you back to here.

And he would correct it and do some things. At first, it felt really constricting. And it felt really mechanical. But what happened is when I did it over time, it just felt natural. I was just swinging a golf club.

And the same thing as I say, and any of these models at first is probably going to feel a bit more mechanical. And you're going to have to look up the versus you're going to look at the songs. But what will happen is the more you do it, you're just going to be praying.

That's right.

“And so that's how we like, you know what the best we learn how to pray is.”

To pray. To pray. And to do it. And the last thing, and then we got to get to speak in tongues. I say, hey, this has been like a model.

I'd also say a little thing that I like to do to incorporate prayers. That's all my day, which because Paul really says he says prayer without seizing.

And that obviously can't mean that we literally every second of every day.

But it's like weaving prayer to your old day. I call them either, tweet prayers or hinge prayers, tweet out of the school. And it was 140 characters or less. Oh, sometimes the wish that would come back back in the day. Oh, school.

It's, I've just done like, you know, repairs don't have to be long. I think now we even call them magic prayers. It's like sometimes they're out of day out of say a brief prayer. And it could be that I'm walking by someone. I'm like, hey, Lord, would you just bless that person?

Seems like they're down. Just saying quick prayers. And then hinge prayers is the idea of hate. The hinges of my day are the transition times of my day. When I'm going from work to home.

When I'm going from one meeting to the next meeting. If I were to just take even again, it doesn't have to be five minutes. It can be 15 seconds. So God, thank you for being that meeting. Would you give me wisdom for my next one?

God is I'm going home.

So I can point my kids. So I just, that's just a thing. If you incorporate short prayer start your day. That's part of how you become a man or woman of prayer. Should Christians pray in tongues?

Well, he just went there. There it is. Where it was. Okay, I want to go and talk about this because it is one of the most common.

Honestly, it's probably not even close. One of the most frequent questions we get anytime we talk about prayer. Yep. So let's talk about it. And I want to share some things.

Paul, do you want to walk us through real quick? Like, let's, let's, let's get theological put on our thinking gaps real quick here. Let's do a fast. Yep. Give us, give us like a quick theological outlay of different views of this.

And then I'm going to talk about, I'm going to talk about what I want to talk about.

“Well, with that, I'd say, one thing to help, I think, take some of the”

weirdness of this is the word tongue in the original language. Just means language. Which right? The right way. Yeah.

It just literally means language. The reason why often the word tongues are used is because maybe don't want to make people think, oh, this is a language like Spanish. It can mean that.

It'll get to that here in a second with the views.

But that's part of the reason why. I do think it helps to take some of the weirdness of self. So let me talk about two broad views in terms of, do they still exist or not? And then I'll talk about three views of what tongues are. You've got two broad views of if they exist or not.

One is cessationism. Sensationism is cessationism is the idea that gifts like speaking in tongues, prophecy healing were for the time of the apostles. But after the apostles died and after the scripture was closed, it was written.

They ceased to the no longer. That's what it's called cessationism. It's ceased. It ceased. So, and they, by the way, they view any of those gifts as

quoting what sign gifts. Sign gifts. These are gifts. Only the apostles got as a sign to the watching world of their apostles. To authenticate their authority and their message.

12 dudes, 12 dudes only. The next three 13. Yeah, I got Paul. Yeah, get Paul. The idea of continuationism is to be kind of the same thing.

Is the idea of these gifts, these specifics, gives continued after the time of the apostles. So it's kind of the views in terms of are the existing and are still not. In terms of specifically tongues. And what those are, there's really three broad views.

I would go as far as say, there are three types of tongues. Inscriptory. Proof tongues, prophetic tongues, and private tongues. Hang on. Can I say that one more time?

Proof tongues, prophetic tongues, and private tongues. Okay, can I, let me do something real quick. And then I want to, you can double tell this. I want to say it. So here's, I'll give my, here's how I view this.

Yeah. And then I want to see if you're going the same way. So essentially what Paul's alluding to is there's one word. This is where a person's get tripped up. Yes.

“There's one word in the New Testament that we, I think we both”

believe means three different things. So the Greek word is glossolalia. This is really important. Okay. So this word that gets translated tongues.

People say speaking in tongues comes to the Greek word glossolalia. I think it means three different things. I want to see if you think the same thing. Okay. So number one.

You got, it means that word is sometimes the New Testament used to refer to preaching in other languages for the purpose of, of cross cultural evangelism. Yes. So for instance, this is what you have in Acts chapter two.

It's specific. It talks about them. Now we're hearing them in our own languages. There's a bunch of like rural, Hickdown, Nazareth guys.

It'd be like, (laughs) It'd be like somebody from Kentucky in French. Yeah. Do it.

Yeah. German. Do you like a kid from rural Kentucky speaking for a friend? There you go. You know it.

I know what. And that did.

“That's a proof tongue because it is part of proof.”

Like the people that we're hearing the apostles at

Pinnacles were like wait a second.

Yeah. What is there at all? There's a number of maze. It helped authenticate the authority and the authenticity of what they're saying.

Not only authenticate, but communicate. Yeah, communicate. Because that is the both answer. Dude, I'm going to give an example of this. So Jack Haferd.

This is recorded in RT Kindle's book word and spirit. By the way, strong recommend. If you're wanting to deep dive theology of the Holy Spirit, RT Kindle's book word and spirit is fantastic. So he records this.

Jack Haferd, who is a man of integrity. Jack Haferd is kind of that. This is not a guy that makes stuff up. No. He records this story.

He's on a plane. And he all of a sudden gets this like uncontrollable urge to utter syllables to the guy sitting next to him that he doesn't know. He doesn't know what they are. Some I'm a re what it said.

Felt led to utter a tongue to the person sitting next to him. He dreaded doing it and tried to avoid it. But it was on him. The desire was on him so strong. He gave in, turned to the man next to him and uttered a strange set of

syllables. He did not understand.

First of all, I can't even imagine doing it.

That's like I got it. And let me just say like, well, he couldn't help it. Right? You don't want to do it. But he did it.

That's that happened. So let me say, if you're a weird person, this prone to emotional outbursts, I do not recommend just going with every. But this will happen to him. Okay.

However, this is how it concludes. However, the man next to him was an Indian,

tribe speaks. Hmm. Okay. So that's number one. It's preaching the gospel in languages.

You don't know. Yeah. Number two, I think you've got a private prayer language in First Corinthians 14. So listen, I just, I think it's going to take a pair of scissors to get

this out of the Bible.

I'm going to talk about this here in a second.

Yeah. So you have first Corinthians 14, 14, this specifically says, I pray with my spirit, but my mind is unfruitful. And then with that, if people are belges this so much,

“but it's, I'm like, you know, you have to cut it out.”

And it's so hard to explain. Like Paul on verse 18 says, he speaks in tongues more than all the Corinthians. By the way, we're speaking in tongues. Yeah.

They were gone. Yep. But in the next verse he says, but I would rather in the church. Speak five and tellage boards than 10,000 words in a tongue.

So in other words, he's saying, when I've been church, I don't really do this. So then the question is, if he has done it more than any of them, but if he doesn't do it in the church, then where exactly is he doing?

And it seems very obvious. And it's a, it's a serious prayer call. Yeah. Because also in verse two of chapter of that chapter, you see that speaking in tongues is primarily,

not only, but primarily prayer and praise to God. That's right. So this is, I'll say, this is, and this is my view. This is also what, for instance, Roman's eight means. When I talk about the spirit intercedes with

us with ground city for words, if you tie that passage to June 20. It's only one chapter in Jude. So Jude 120, it's Jude 20. Yeah. It's specifically says, hey, build up your faith.

And it says, by praying in the spirit. Well, if you get a Romans eight, it says, man, the spirit intercedes with us with us with, with ground city for words. I think what Jude 20 and Romans eight are talking about is sometimes a person with the gift of tongues in, in terms of

their prior prayer language. They will be so overwhelmed with something the spirit is birthing in their heart to pray for, that it's too much for normal human words. And so they pray in the spirit.

And it builds their faith. I also think, I don't know if you're, I'm, I'm actually curious, it's okay to disagree with me.

I think when Paul gets the first Corinthians 13.

Yeah. Yeah. And he opens up first Corinthians 13. And he says, if I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am nothing.

I think what Paul's doing is he's acknowledging the reality that in the Corinthian church, I don't know if you agree with this, that in the Corinthian church, when they had a private prayer language, their understanding of that was, I think I'm praying in the language of angels, the language of heaven.

And Paul's going, that's great. Yeah. Hey, you are doing that. That's great. But there's actually something that's even more important

that you're a person who operates in love. That's right. That's your, so I think, number two, you've got that. You've got that. Okay.

I will say this. What some people do, my Pentecostal friends, that I will gently disagree with and they'll disagree with me and we'll still love each other. Is they will say that praying in tongues is the evidence. In fact, I think the language they'll use is the initial physical evidence

of being filled with the spirit. I disagree. Yeah. I disagree. You have examples in the book of Acts where people are filled with the spirit.

They do, they are not recorded as speaking in tongues. And what the book of Acts says is evidence of being filled with the spirit is evangelism.

“That's, if you want to know if you're filled with spirit,”

do you become somebody who is rabid in reaching one more? Part of being a witness. Yes. It says that. But you receive power.

But you receive power in the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you, it doesn't say, and you will speak in tongues. It says, and you will be my witnesses. Right. Okay.

And then the third one I'll just say is a, a peer, a third, a use of time.

I want to know if this is what you think. The third thing that glossolally it can mean in the New Testament. Is it seems like at least pre-canonization of the New Testament. This sometimes God would in a like a house church setting. He would like download a word of prophecy to somebody.

And then he would also give somebody else in the room an interpretation of that prophecy. And that was almost like a two key system to authenticate. That's actually from the Lord. Yeah. That's what I was referring to as prophetic tongue.

And so like I think in 1 Corinthians 14, you see both definitely obviously private prayer language. But I think you also see in 1 Corinthians 14 where he's saying, hey, if you're doing this in the gathered, like gathering of the church, but again, in homes, that's probably their member is that. Applying this modern day church is just so difficult because of the other principle of Paul Gives. But I think he then says, there has to be an interpretation.

And if you go back to the first part of 1 Corinthians 14, he talks about words of encouragement and prophecy and teaching.

“So I think that's what it's talking about is on certain occasions.”

These people are getting some kind of a prophetic or encouraging word in the church. But it is for the purpose of building up the church. But it is in an unknown language that the people do not understand. That's right. That's right.

So yeah, so I'm right there with you. So I'll give a way. No, no, no, no. Keep going. Oh, all that's in color.

But I'll let you guys finish. I'll just say like that as far as rules go.

Yeah. I will just put the so one.

“I think some people make the mistake of that they're too essentially.”

I would say they're too against something that's clearly a bit. It's biblical madness right there. It's going to take a pair of scissors to get out of the bottle. We literally have a verse that says, do not forbid speaking talks. Like I said, literally a bottle verse.

Okay. On the other hand, I think some people that they're a little too liberal with it. And they'll they'll get in services. I know some people disagree with this. But this is how this how we approach you here.

We're charismatic with a seat belt. And here's the seat belt.

It is we got specific commands in the book of first Corinthians 1 Corinthians 14.

This says, hey man, this is not something for you to publicly. Because if you do it publicly, people are going to think you're out of your mind. And he's talking about a private prayer language or if you've received quote unquote a word of prophecy. Yeah. And there's not interpreter.

I'm going to read the verse. If anyone speaks in a tongue too or at most three should speak one at a time. And someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God. So I'll just I'll just say this.

If you're planning a after you hear this podcast roll up into a late point service and start speaking and telling us in the most service. We will gently escort you out. We'll tell you not because we got Bible verses for how that shouldn't do not happen in the church. Let me just add basically what she just said. So this is what happens when you know a normal person kind of tries to make sense of this.

When spiritual gifts are abused people usually swing to one of the two extremes. This order or denial. Yeah. That's good. This order.

This is a bad bet pocket for the charismatic circles. Everything goes. No boundaries. Emotion over education. Experience elevators is authority.

And then on the other extreme is denial. This is the our association is friends hyper reform circles. Shut it down, ban it for bid it. It's not a thing. That's, you know, Paul in 1 Corinthians 14.

He refuses both. So he corrects that this order. Verse 40, let all things be done decently and in order. But he also guards against denial. Do not forbid speaking in tongues.

“And so when somebody's trying to figure out, man, what do I do with this?”

When I see him, I don't see it. When we talk about the gifts of tongues. We don't want this order. We don't want denial. We want disarmant.

Yeah. And when you see somebody, maybe use it or you're in a church setting or you see somebody. Or maybe you're, you know, maybe speaking in tongue. You want to Holy Spirit, whatever it is, you want to have for me. I want it.

If it's a gift for me, I want it. And help me distinguish between what is true and biblical and what is not. That's right. Well, last thing I'll say is and we specifically have a verse. This is not a spiritual gift.

Everybody's going to get. No. So I'll read this. This is 1 Corinthians 14. Actually, 1 Corinthians 12.

They're all rhetorical questions. So Paul's asking a series of rhetorical questions. He goes, are all apostles? Now, what's the implied answer? No.

Are all prophets? No. Are all teachers? No. Do all work miracles?

No. Do all have gifts of healing? No. And then he says, do all speak in tongues. And the obvious implied answer is no.

No. No.

“Yeah, and I think with that is, is people are disheartening this.”

It's really just that. I don't know what you're saying. It's like for for friends who are more of us with the continuationist. But then who kind of like, oh, well, I'm just going to do whatever I want.

Like, no, no, like the Holy Spirit would never have us use his gifts in a way that undermine

his purposes. There you go. Yeah. Ever. And as purpose is to point people to Jesus into bringing unity to the church.

And so often people use this gift in a way that is divisive or distracting. I'll give you some more to you. So that's the ones that you gave us divisive or distracting. And so in that point, it's like saying, no, like, actually, Paul would say, like this, like the spirit of our prophet is basically, you can submit it.

Yeah, such as the prophet. In other words, like, you can control it. You can control it. You can control it. But then I'll say, for those who are still resisting, you know,

people like, well, it's been abused. I'm like, and so has preaching. And so has evangelism. And so has every other spiritual gift that is listed. The abusive something does not negate the right use of it.

And I'll just be honest. I'll try to say this in love. The case that people try to make biblically that they have seized is one of the flimsy and weakest arguments I've ever encountered. And it's just, it's not there.

It's just not there. And so I just say, hey, like, to me, when you say charismatic with a seat about this rose in, like, and I hope this doesn't sound near. I don't mean to be, like, when I've heard you say in the past, like, well, you just mean a biblical Christian.

Yeah, I got this. I mean, that's just biblical Christianity. Is that you're saying, hey, the gifts are there. We should use them if we've been given them, but we should also use them, according to biblical God.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's great, man. I mean, if I know where it's on, tongues or you.

So let me, I'll give a little, I've never shared this before.

Yeah. Can I give a little person? Oh, you mentioned that earlier. Okay. So this is not a gift that I've ever experienced.

I had ever, I had ever experienced before. And so I, you know, I honestly is same thing. I'm doing my Bible study and I come to this conviction like, oh, this is like, this is a thing. It's like this.

There you go. It's going to take Pharisees or get out of the Bible. So I, I'm studying this thing. And I've read a book about Martin Lujon. This is old Presbyterian Super Theological Guy.

Books called Joy on Speakable.

for his reform, Presbyterian perspective is really good.

While I'm reading it, and I'm coming to this conclusion, honestly, man, there's like an agony. I'm taking my prayer walks.

“The only way I can describe it is like an agony”

began to build in me. Like an agony. And it was this thing where I was like, Lord, if there is anything that you have on offer for me that I have not experienced, I want all of it.

And so I just start asking him like, if this is a thing, I really, I want it. I don't know what it is. I want this, you know. So I'm pray for it.

I've got a pastor buddy that is a, a sane charismatic. That's what I'll say it that way. It's kind of like you have to say like a fun Presbyterian or baptism.

He's the same charismatic. And I want to say who he is. But he's a, he's a god of man. So I literally, I paid for a plane ticket to fly to and from him in the same day.

Literally, just like, can I get 30 minutes for a time? I just want you to pray for me that if God wants me to exercise this gift, that he would give it to me. And I go up there. And he prays for me is like, Josh,

if this is something that you feel like I've got to do in you, I just want you to, if you feel like some just do it.

“And we're there praying and nothing happened.”

Like nothing. I'm like weeping. Like I'm not a big, it's real weird. I'm not a super, I'm not cryer, except when I pray.

I've never understood that.

I start praying and it's your start flowing. So I'm like begging God for this. So then he explains me, hey, Josh, sometimes guys like you, her little more theological, you're a little more heady.

He's like, there's a reason that verse says, I pray with my spirit, but my mind is unfruful. And you can't get your mind to stop being unfruful. And so he just said, he said, hey, watch out. Because sometimes God will do something to you

to bypass your mind to teach you to pray with your spirit. And I was like, okay, whatever. I never shared this before. It was like three days later in the middle of the night. It's like 2 a.m.

I have this extremely vivid dream. And in the dream, I'm praying in a language I don't understand. Spanish. I don't know.

Maybe.

“You like totally killed the mood of this story.”

Of course I apologize. I think we're back. I'm going to make your passage. I'm praying. And it's like very, it's very, very vivid.

Yeah. And in the middle of that dream, I wake up. And this, the, whatever you want to call him, syllables, utterances, whatever you want to call him. They're just seared into my soul.

And I like, just wake up. And I just, I'm, I'm doing it. I'm just praying. I, I think praying in the spirit. And ever since then, whenever I get caught up in prayer

and it's just like, it's more than I have words to express, groans to deep for words. But I'll just start praying in that thing that was given to me. And I think that's what's happening.

And I guess what happened. Why did God have to do that in the dream? Because he had to bypass my mind. Hmm. So that I can pray with the spirit.

There you go. That's good. You're, well, hard emotional. You're serious. You're going to do it.

Mom, Donnie. I suppose we have to do that. I do want to talk about this. Let's go. Let's do it then.

Go back away. Thank you for sharing that. Yes. Thanks for your blood. That's amazing.

Press the look for that. Yeah. And then what God does to you. You can do it with us. And for the people listening.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Let's do this real quick. So I've been seeing this stuff on, actually.

Okay. I've been, we've been seeing this stuff. It's going on in your city. And by the way, you're seeing it in a bunch of cities right now. You're seeing the rise of a massive, at least.

Socialism light movement. Whatever you want to call it, rising. You're already starting to see not just this popularity, but it's fruit. Okay. So I want to give.

Let's give some examples. You want to start with this. Mom, Donnie. So we got this. So what we got is.

Zorim, I'm Donnie. He's a Muslim Socialist. He's actually using explicitly communist language. We've covered this before on the podcast. So he gets elected.

Just like always happens with socialists and communist on a.

A series of promises about everything they're going to make free. Okay. And then, you know, with somebody. I've heard it said before that the greatest enemy of progressiveism is reality. So so then he gets elected.

And then let's start here and just show what happened. And then what here's what I want to do. I want to teach Christians to think and apply their Christian convictions. To even things like economic policy and how we think about society. Okay.

So let's give an example of this and let's start right here.

All right. So this is.

“We are going to freeze the rent for more than 2 million rent stabilized.”

And then. And use it as free source at our disposal to build housing for everyone who needs it. Anyone. We are going to eliminate the fare on every single bus line. And make what are currently the slowest buses in the nation.

Move around this city with ease. And we are going to create universal childcare at no cost of parents. Free. So New Yorkers can raise their family in the city they love. A few moments later.

In order to get to this point of closing the gap on both this fiscal year and the next fiscal year. We are forced to raid the rainy day fund. The retiree health benefits trust reserve. And to increase property taxes across these other years. All right.

So like all right so everything's free.

“We're going to make housing affordable buses are free.”

Government control grocery stores. It's all going to be low cost. And then it's all going to be free. And then immediately like within months of getting elected. Man, I'm really sorry.

We need to raid billions of dollars of hundreds of millions of dollars. Whatever from the rainy day fund. And we need to raise your property taxes. Not 0.5%. Okay.

So what you're getting here is the greatest. And I'm a progressiveism is reality. Yes. Now, first of all, let me just explain a few things because Christians need to get their head around this. You will notice that in every system watch this, not just societies, but cities as godliness decreases socialism increases.

Now, most Christians they never think about that.

And they don't understand there is an actual spiritual and logical connection between those things. That is always true. Yes. Interesting. Historically globally whenever godliness decreases socialism increases.

Why. Well, there's two reasons that. First of all, when you subtract god from a society, then the government becomes god. Somebody's got to be at the top of the org chart. So the subtract god government becomes god because god, god was the highest story.

And now the government's highest authority. And people start looking to the government to do what Christians historically trust god to do. So there's a reason for that. But you also notice this. We didn't talk about this before on the podcast.

You will notice a theme that in every society less god requires more government. So I just get that axiom in your head and I want to explain this. I probably not make a sense right now.

In every society less god always requires more government.

So think about this. When you have a nation full of Jesus worshiping spirit filled, Bible believing and Bible obeying people, guess what you don't need a whole lot of police. When you've got a nation that are spirit filled people, they're reading verses like, "Hey man, if a guy won't provide for it, work hard and provide for his family, he's worse than an unbeliever."

So get out there and have a Protestant work ethic. When you have a nation full of those people, guess what you don't need a ton of. Government welfare. When you've got a nation this full of spirit filled people that like they actually want to conduct their lives and their businesses with integrity and repulousness, guess what you don't need a ton of. Government regulation. So here's what's interesting, man.

A lot of people, they do not connect these things. Whenever there is a rise in godlessness, it requires a rise in government to stem the tide of rising evil that results from the godlessness. That is why in globally, in societies in general, less god always requires more government and as godliness decreases, socialism increases. I will just point this out.

The same people, the exact same people who laugh at you guys for believing in an all-powerful, all-good god.

They think, "Man, if we just made the government all powerful, it'll be all good." I just want to point that out. So subtract god government who comes god now. Let me just get into this. What I want Christians to do, we're going to wrap it fire these.

What I want Christians to do when they see this because you're seeing it right now in New York City, you're seeing this. How I'm going to get to this here in a second, you're seeing the effects of this in Chicago. You've seen the effects of this in California, place like San Francisco, definitely in places like Washington, Portland, all those places. As you're seeing these things, Christians need to learn to think in a way where they apply their, their Christian convictions into how they view policies and government,

you know, apply those things in the social and political realm. So a few things I want Christians to be able to do, number one, you've got to be able to differentiate between a Christian vision and definition of what human and civil rights are, and what a secular progressive vision and definition of what human and civil rights are.

“Okay, do we have this other that mom doesn't click?”

So for instance, this is, I want to show you an example of this, so you as a Christian watch this. Once you see this, you can't unsee it, you'll see it everywhere and you'll start going, oh, that's that thing, that's that thing.

So watching the, both these clips watch the things that mom Donnie as a progressive person defines as rights.

“And then as the question are these things that a Christian would go, that's a human right.”

Okay, so we're going to have two examples, do this one first.

New Yorkers have a right to quality healthcare as do the nurses who provide that care. My job as mayor is to protect both of those rights to stand alongside the working people who stand with us every day. And to build a city where everyone can live a life of dignity, not just those with the most means. Sorry, sorry, so what you noticed is he said two things he said the way he said healthcare affordable healthcare is a right and they specifically talking about the wages of the people providing the healthcare.

That's also a right notice that now book if you're like, oh, maybe okay, we'll just stop let's stop and think we'll come back to that in a second. Now watch this he's going to he's not used words the word right, but he's going to use the word what's he say entitled.

“Which is rights language. Now watch in this clip, what does he refer to as an entitlement that comes from a human right, okay, listen, we're close.”

Of New York's commitment to a new era where every one of our neighbors even those who have made mistakes in their past is entitled to dignity and safety and to a home that they can call their own. That's it, okay, that's it. So did you know, so he's saying entitled. So owning house having a house, that's a right, okay, now when when you first hear that as a Christian, you might be like, well, maybe, I don't know, maybe. Okay, well, here's a big idea man historically Christians have defined the word right human or civil right differently than progressive people have.

All right, so for Christians thing about this, we have this in the constitution that was written by largely Christians. You have the right to life liberty, the pursuit of happiness, we'll talk about rights Christians will talk about rights like the right to free speech.

Right to freedom of assembly, worship that kind of thing. This is what Thomas Jefferson, now here's what what I want you to notice.

Notice when Christians talk about rights, they're talking about freedom from something. So all those rights, life liberty, pursuit of happiness, speech and worship. That's freedom from someone impeding me doing the thing that God has said, I'm allowed to do, okay. Well, what you'll notice is progressive, progressives use the word rights and define the word rights very differently. So progressives, they'll talk about rights in terms of things like affordable housing, health care, they'll talk about abortion as notices.

They'll reframe it as reproductive rights. They'll talk about, hey man, everybody has the right to an affordable education. So college, free college, quote unquote free college, by the way. That's a right, a child care he talked about, that's a right.

Now here's what I want you to notice, those things are not freedom from someone else impeding me to do something.

Those are rights, quote unquote freedom to have something. Now here's the big idea man, all of those rights, the way that progressives define rights, housing health care, reproductive rights, college, child care. Notice all of those quote unquote rights, they require something from someone else. So if it, here's a big idea, if one person has a right to have or consume something for free, that means that somebody else has the obligation to provide it for free. That's your problem. So if it, if it obligates somebody else to do something is actually not a right for you.

It's an obligation for them, all right. So what you're going to notice is, and that, what you're going to notice that progressives tend to do is the re label things that Christians would call privileges. The relay label them as rights in order to advance a socialistic vision. I want to get to bog down here. What's really happening is this call, it's called choice architecture. What choice architecture is is when somebody manipulates the options presented to you to force you to their desired conclusion.

“So like, you know, you'll have people be like, hey Carlos, are you pro choice, or are you against women's rights?”

I feel a little boxed in here, you know, Paul, are you affirming, or do you practice hate? Back in 2020 it was like, hey, do you support BLM, or are you complicit in white supremacy? So here you see this, now watch, this is a play that's getting run on you, and you don't know what's getting run on you. So the way the options are presented is intentionally manipulating you to it is our outcome. Now, what they'll do now, what progressives do is the language is whoever controls the terms wins the debate.

They'll relabel things the historically have been called privileges and call them rights. In order to advance a socialistic economic vision, so that if you oppose what I'm trying to do, we've set it up to where you're actually opposing civil and human rights.

You know, brief thought is that what's interesting in terms of the language is that of the way the lot of the terms progressive speak, is that rights come from the government. We have created these rights, whereas again, the constitution is like, no, no, no, like we've been in doubt by who are created within a liable rights. So even it goes into the whole thing of saying, hey, when God diminishes what has to become God in its place, the government, the government is, but we're over here to tell you what rights you have and don't have.

And I think all these things interplay together, that's the only comment I have. That's exactly right. Now, you know, when this happens, I mean, we need to wrap the fire this. When this happens, there's some very predictable results. Hey, play that play that next clip of the people. So what you can read is see as a clip of people who voted for mom Donnie finding out that he's going to raise property taxes proposing a property tax increase of 9.5% so these are mom Donnie voters finding out. So check this out.

Mayer with a greatest respect and every campaign speech and every debate where you engage, we open our ears to listen. Now today, except the words echoing from us now. Do your job as well and leave our taxes on.

Okay, all right, that's it. So here's a deal. Reality is undefeated. So what has to pay for stuff. So dude, here's what happened any time a social, somebody's got to pay for stuff.

“You know, so there's no such thing, there's no such thing as free healthcare free shot. There's no such thing because you have to obligate somebody to do it.”

So every time a socialistic vision is advanced, this is what happens every single time. Step one is tax the rich. Step two, the rich leave. By the way, that's what's happening. They're all moving forward and by the way, taxes. Oh, I, if you're here, welcome. You just not allowed to vote.

So number two, the rich leave. Step three, all the people who are left behind, they celebrate the rich people leaving.

Step four, oh crap, the government still needs money. Step five. Oh, now you're the richest people left.

“So we got to tax you. They raised taxes on you. Step six. Now you got to pay a lot of taxes. Step seven, melt down.”

Yeah. So the whole socialistic ideology is being surprised by the tradeoffs that are inevitable in any system. That's all it is. Okay. Now, here's the other thing Christians need to learn to, to get here is check this, just go with me, man. Forgressives think in terms of solutions, Christians and conservatives think in terms of tradeoffs. This is really, really important. Progressives think in terms of solutions, conservatives think in terms of tradeoffs. Okay. So for instance, people notice what progressives do is they'll just see a problem in a lot of times they see a legitimate problem.

They'll see a problem and they just automatically think of what's a straight line solution to solve that problem. So for instance, they'll see, man, some people don't have enough money problem. So there's got, well, this is really easy. We'll just take a whole bunch of money from the people who do have the money and we'll give it to the people that don't have the money and problem solved, duh, you know. But what happens? So progressives, what happens is somebody said progressives think about taxes like middle school boys think about ax body spray. If someone's good, more of a better.

“That's got to think of that. But that's what ends up happening. Okay. So they don't think in, it addresses things in terms of solutions, but they won't think about the reality of the second and third order consequences.”

That will happen when you implement your proposed solution. For instance, you get throw up that next. I want to throw up these pictures. So second and third order consequences. Oh, wait. If we take a bunch of money from the people who generate the most wealth and most jobs. One, a whole bunch of them are going to leave our state than who we're going to take. Oh, number two, we still got a pay for stuff. So you're seeing this right now in New York City, mom Donnie proposes 9.5 property tax increase.

Good. And next one, California right now is doing the same thing. This is watch this. What these are are the second and third order consequences that will always happen.

When you advance a high tax redistributive socialistic vision, California is having the largest wealth flight in California history. It's over up trillion dollars of net worth have left California as a new proposed tax increase. And then the big one, I'm a sports guy. This is crazy, man. I love y'all saw this. Like the Chicago bears are it looks like they're moving towards leaving the city of Chicago to move to a more conservative Indiana. It's like, you know, shame on Chicago is even a Smith. Okay. So where progressives just think in terms of solutions, what conservatives tend to do is they think in terms of trade offs.

So what's the best system we can get given the trade offs that are inevitable? Now you may be going, what's it got to do with the Bible? Well, the biblical category for this is just wisdom. Yes. Wisdom is the ability to maneuver the complexity of the world.

“Okay, so the biblical category wisdom. Any thoughts or comments here?”

No, we'll shut it down. Let's go to wisdom. No, thank you all, thank you. Thank you all. All right. Now the third one is here's the third axiom Christians need to get in their head is with governments.

You always are going to get more of what you incentivize and less of what you penalize.

So like another way to say this is show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome. Okay. So man, here's a quick theology of this and I just want to do this very briefly. So what Christians have historically done is Christian notice in the Bible God created three institutions. The family that church in the state. And in the Bible, what you're going to notice is every one of the institutions has primary responsibilities that got delegates to that institution. And it's that God given institution that's supposed to do that thing, not the other institutions.

So like families and these are just generalized. This is like chyperians fear sovereignty for theologians. You know, the family is responsible for the raising of children, the discipleship of children, you know, feeding kid like kind of thing. And individuals are called love the poor serve the poor help the poor. So you got the family got the church church is historical responsible for things like word and sacrament. It's the church's job in society to be equal a pillar and buttress of the church the truth to function as a immune system for society.

The church is also tasked with caring for the poor and helping people who are hurting.

And then the government is a third institution, Romans 13, book first Peter, the government's role is justice.

It's to reward the good and penalize what is evil. That's Romans 13 first Peter. Now, what you're going to notice is Christians acknowledge all three institutions. And they want every institution, individual family church state to do their job. What you're going to notice in general is a secular progressive people. They don't, they want the government to do the role of the individual, the family and the church.

So hey, will protect you, will provide for you, will decide what's right and wrong in society. Will do that, you know, will take care of the poor. So secular progressive people want the government to do the role of the individual family and church.

“And what you're going to honestly do, what you'll notice is that secular progressives want nobody to do the role of the government.”

So they don't want anybody meeting out, man, honestly like biblical justice.

So you'll just kind of notice this in general, it's very, very interesting.

So like that's where you get like hashtag defund the police. Hey, let's replace, you know, the police with therapists. Yeah, it's kind of the spirit of lawless. Anti death penalty. Yeah, that's a good example.

Oh, nobody should be doing that. Who's that evil? Sure, sure. That's right. Okay.

I love connect connect the two in the three real fast. Absolutely. And like you talk about, this is a wisdom issue. Wisdom is simply the idea of how has God designed the world and reality to work. That's right. And then how do we live in line with that?

So even like in the Otis move, the Proverbs, it often connects to wisdom with creation of world. That's the idea there. But then if you think about it, I don't want to be careful not to apply these verses to this. But I think there's some connections of how God has designed reality to work, including our relationship with him. Think about the idea of you get more of what you incentivize.

What do God do in the Old Testament after he laid down all of his laws? He says I put before you what life and death choose life that what reward that you may live.

“And then even thinking about Hebrews where it talks about if you want to please God, two things require.”

You must believe that he exists and then people read this again. And that he is what a rewarder of those who seek him. So actually the way that God is compelling people to obey and to be wise and to seek him is not saying because I was a zap you are else. There are consequences, but actually his primary thing he does is say I want to reward you and give you a lot of something. Highlight those two things because it's a part of how God has designed the world and reality to work.

So dude, so here's a big idea man is when everybody does their job. Good stuff. When churches care for the poor and when individual Christians care for the poor, poverty decreases and we actually help people. But when the government tries to do the role of the church, the family, and the individual, it's the exact opposite. Because with governments, you get more of what you incentivize and less of what you penalize.

So I'll give you an example of this. So for instance, when the government steps out of this justice lane and into the where the ones that are primarily going to care for the poor. Well here's a big idea. You're not solving poverty, you're incentivizing it.

And the government was like, dude, we're going to pour billions more dollars into quote unquote solving poverty. Essentially what they did is they went, okay, we're going to create a policy where if you make below a certain amount and you're not married, then we're going to give you a bunch of, we're going to give you government assistance.

“Well, guess what you got, you got more poverty and you got far less people getting married. Why?”

Because you set up policies that incentivized not working and staying on married. I'll give you another example of this. Think about this in states and cities that allocate billions of dollars towards quote unquote helping homelessness. In states and cities like that, you get states and cities that are overrun with homelessness. You do not solve homelessness. So I'll give you an example of this. This is a show that thing from the Hoover Institute.

Yeah, so like for instance, in the last X number of years, California has thrown 37 billion dollars at quote unquote solving homelessness.

And guess what they got more homelessness. Yeah, because again, what you're doing, you're not solving it, you're incentivizing it. And something similar, probably you could be said about the health crisis, then in the last, you know, whatever 15 20 years more money has been poured into mental health resources.

“And now you go to the doctor and you ask, how do you feeling?”

And then the more money has been put into that, the more increase in, you know, depression, anxiety, etc. That's the government trying to do the role of the home or the church in this case. You actually ain't great in commercial for it. And we've talked about this before, but to connect it to a book called When Helping Hearts. These are classic examples of that. So our heart and this is not to help. It's actually to your point of like when cutting in service, talk about what are trade offs. We're trying to do the most help possible, but you're trying to do things in a way that looks like it's helping, but it's actually hurting.

It's causing more damage. That's right. What you're doing is, hey, man, there's groups of people on society that are drowning and you're throwing them an anvil. You're throwing them an anvil and a feel good anvil is what you're doing. Okay. So let me just last thing. Again, what Christians have got to get good at is connecting our theology to our sociology and our political ideology.

We've got to get better at that. So essential what you've got right here is this really boils down to a difference in an understant is an and a biblical anthropology.

It boils down to an understanding of human nature. Okay. So Christian is Christian theology versus critical theory and Christian theology. What we understand is that man is inherently sinful. We have a sin nature. So we are by default mode, selfish. We do not by default do the right responsible and altruistic thing. So Christian theology understands that because of that, we have to create incentive structures in society that essentially hijack selfish motives

to get people to do the right thing within Senate structures.

Okay. By contrast, Marxist, progressive, critical theory, it does not think that mankind is inherently sinful.

It thinks that mankind is actually inherently good and that if man, honestly, if left to himself, man, if you just treat people nice enough and give them enough therapy, well, then everybody's going to do the right thing and work really hard and you know, just going to do it on their own. So really what all this boils down to is competing visions of human nature.

“That's it. That's why ideas matter and your theology, everybody's a phyologian.”

That's right. It's your theology matters. That's it, man. So here's what I'm saying. We're done. Well, I'm saying is let me just summarize. If you're a Christian and you're watching the news cycle, first of all, watch for moments when something that requires something from someone else is relabeled as a right. Watch for when privileges are relabeled as rights. Number two, watch watch out for the axiom with governments. You get more of what you incentivize and less of what you penalize.

And number three, do not be somebody that in a simple-minded way just thinks in terms of solutions. We're Christians that understand the complexity of the world and we think in terms of tradeoffs. Good, that's what it was for to pray for us. I will. Father, first of all, what a privilege it is to be sons of the living God and to walk right into your presence and approach your throne with boldness. So Father, I pray for everybody this listening that has had an unanswered prayer. I pray that you might lead them in a path of righteousness for your namesake.

God, you might show them what's going on. They would press their head real tight up against the chest. They're heavenly Father and love and serve you. So bless them in that Lord. Father, we do pray for our nation.

And so we pray for tons of people to get saved from mass revival and then for us to walk out as salt and light in this dark world.

“And to shine very brightly for the glory of your son. So I pray blessing on these people.”

I pray blessing on all it. Returns represented and pray blessing our society and pray for the glory of Jesus Christ.

Amen. Amen. Amen. The three brothers. (gentle music)