Ep 949 ｜ What ‘He Gets Us’ Gets Wrong
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Summary
The Super Bowl was last night and He Gets Us ran a couple more ads. I will give you my take on that, as well as some other things on this Super Bowl themed episode of Relatable. Allie
Transcript
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The Super Bowl was last night and he gets us ran a couple more ads. I will give you my take on that
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as well as some other things on this Super Bowl themed episode of Relatable, which is brought to
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you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout.
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone is having a great day and that you had
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a great weekend. Remember, the only thing that we can ever do in any given moment is the next right
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thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God. So whether you're changing diapers,
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sending an email, making a major decision or a minor one, that is the only thing that we
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can really do or are called to do. And God promises to give us the strength to do that,
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to trust and obey in any given moment. So with all the chaos and the craziness,
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the confusion that goes on in our culture, in our world today, that is what we can focus on with
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the power of the Holy Spirit, putting one foot in front of the other for God's glory.
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All right. Just wanted to give you that Monday encouragement before we get into some Super Bowl
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craziness, but also of course, talking about some more serious theological stuff in relation to the
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He Gets Us campaign. Before we get into it, just look, look how cute this is, guys. If you're watching
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on YouTube, I've got my crew neck. Finally, it came in. The self-love won't save you crew neck. Self-love
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won't save you, but Jesus will. Christians are not called to self-adoration, nor are we called to
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self-loathing. Those are two sides of the same self-obsession coin. Christians are called to the
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beauty and the freedom and the liberation found in self-forgetfulness and self-denial,
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that we are given a new identity, a new self in Christ that lives fully and totally for Him.
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So people sometimes, when they see something like this, self-love won't save you. They might think
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that I'm saying that you should hate yourself. No, I don't think that we should obsess over ourselves
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at all. In a world that is constantly telling you that it's all about you, you have to psychoanalyze
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yourself and find yourself and fulfill yourself and make yourself happy in any given moment.
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The truth is, is that salvation and satisfaction will not come from those places. They won't come
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from yourself. They can only be found outside of you, namely in your creator. Self-love is not
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salvific. In fact, every place that we see this term, self-love, lovers of self in scripture,
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it's actually seen as a negative. The more we center the world and everything that happens on
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ourselves, the more miserable we are. I think we can see that in the state of the world today.
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So this is a great conversation starter. Self-love won't save you. It's up at alimerch.com.
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You probably can't get it for Valentine's Day at this point, but you can still get it. It's true
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all year round. Great conversation starter for sharing the gospel with the people that you know. You can get a
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stick or toe, all that good stuff. All right, let's get into some of this craziness. There was the
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Super Bowl yesterday. Did you know that? You might not have known that. If you're like me, you don't
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really know anything about football. It is actually incredible. My brain's complete inability, I would
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say unwillingness to digest anything about how football works. For as long as I have been around it,
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I mean, growing up in Texas, football's a big deal. I was a cheerleader for a couple years, so you kind of
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have to know something about football, right? I went to school in the Southeast. Football's a big deal
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there. I married a man who was a big UGA fan, his entire family, big UGA fans. My dad is University of
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Arkansas fan, so he likes football. I've been around football a lot. Texas, the SEC, big football guys
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in both those places. Yet, I really, beyond just I know that you're trying to get it into the end zone,
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I really could not tell you anything else about football. I really could not. I know you're supposed
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to tackle someone if you're on defense. The guy with the balls on offense, you're supposed to tackle
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him. I get that. Got it. I even played powder puff in high school. Can you believe it? And I still
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somehow don't know football. So yeah, I can't tell you anything about it other than two teams competed
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against each other last night. And it was the 49ers and the Chiefs. And obviously, there were more eyes
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on this than usual from a particular demographic, and that is the young female demographic, people
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who know about as much about football as I do, because Travis Kelsey, the guy who plays for the
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Chiefs, I don't even know what position he plays. I bet Brie could probably tell us. He is dating
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Taylor Swift. You've probably heard of Taylor Swift. She is a singer, a musician. And this is her first
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very public relationship, at least in a long time. So people have been excited about that. And so the
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Chiefs ended up winning. And I'm going to let Brie comment on this a little bit, because Brie is sad
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this morning. She told me when I walked in, she said she's sad because she was invested and she wanted
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the 49ers to win. Is that right? I'm devastated. Yeah. No, this was the first year I got really into
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football. Before that, I was like you. I didn't know anything. And believe it or not, it was not because
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of Taylor Swift. It just got into it. Essentially, my why I cared about this was because of Brock
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Purdy, who is the quarterback of the 49ers, who is an outspoken Christian and seems like very sweet
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and very humble. And it would have been if they had won a really cute underdog story, because in 2020,
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2022, he was drafted last draft pick, which then he was nicknamed Mr. Irrelevant. So no one thought
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he would go anywhere with his career. He was the third string quarterback for the 49ers. And then the
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two quarterbacks in front of him, I guess, both got injured. So he ended up playing starting for the
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49ers. And then he brought his team to the Super Bowl. So it was like lots of potential for an underdog
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story. And the Chiefs just win all the time. They won the Super Bowl last year, right? Yeah.
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So I was like, no one needed to see them win again. Yeah. And a lot of people are annoyed by
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Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback of the Chiefs and Travis Kelsey. They just have a reputation for being
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really arrogant. And I thought people like Patrick Mahomes. They like him because he's talented. Yeah.
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But both of them have very, very big egos. And you can tell Travis Kelsey has a huge attitude and a lot
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of anger issues when he is... We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that. Do we have the saw of
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Brock Purdy talking about his faith? I think that we do. Let's play that.
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Our identity isn't in the sport of football. It's in who God calls us to be and what he wants us to do in
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life and what he says in the Bible. And for us, obviously, we're playing football. It's our job,
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but it's not who we are. And we're loved no matter what because of what Jesus has done for us on the
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cross. And we get to go and be transformed and love people through that. I love him. I know. I love
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him so much. Okay. Just as a parent, that is what you want to see. If your son or daughter stands up,
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takes the opportunity that he has to share the gospel like that, you as a parent have to watch
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that and be like, yep, that's all. All my dreams have come true. That's all you want as a Christian
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parent. You want your child, whether they go to the Super Bowl or not, to just know who they are in
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Christ and what actually matters and be so satisfied and secure. And that's a great job,
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not just Brock Purdy, but Brock Purdy's parents. Okay. We have another video of him talking about
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prayer during games. I talked to your dad a couple of days ago. He said he prays his guts out when he
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watches you play. Yeah. Do you pray when you're playing during a game? Yeah. Yeah, I do. You know,
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it's not, can we, God, can we win here? Can we do something great here? It's more just to have
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that, that peace, that steadfastness and all the chaos. That's really what it is. It's sinking
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back into like Holy Spirit, you know, take over and, and lead me here in this moment and allow me
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to think clearly, allow me to, you know, obviously go through my reads. And like I said, just have a
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even keeled state of mind that I get from the Holy Spirit. So. Love him. I love that he made that
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distinction that he's not like, Oh, Philippians 4.13. That means that I'm going to win this game. If I pray,
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you know, God is going to give me the strength to, to, to win here that he's distinguishing
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between, no, I'm just asking for peace. I'm asking for presence of mind. I'm asking for steadiness.
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And so he seems really solid. He talks a lot about how his main goal is to serve his team and,
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and to love on them. And I just think it's really sweet how he talks about that. And they cut to his
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dad, obviously during the game a few times, and you could tell his dad was just like standing there
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praying like the whole time. It was very sweet. So sweet. I just love that so much. He just got
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engaged. Yeah. He posted a picture of, um, I guess this was on Instagram and it was his fiance's
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Instagram posting a picture of them reading their Bibles together, which is really sweet. We love to
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see that. We love couples that pray and read the Bible together. Um, also we have a researcher note
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here and my husband told me a little bit about this. So Brock pretty salary is famously low for
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an NFL quarterback, um, over $900,000 a year, which we understand in general is a lot of money,
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but you know, Dak Prescott, I think my husband said he's making, I don't know how much tens of
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millions of dollars a year. So different. So ranks 54th among NFL quarterbacks in the lowest salary for
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a starting quarterback Babylon B joked that he was excited to finally see Taylor Swift in person at the
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Superbowl because he couldn't afford air store tickets. That's funny. Yet he made a clear
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proclamation of the gospel than the $20 million. Uh, he gets us advertising campaign. Ooh. Okay.
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We'll talk about that in a little bit. So that's why I also was cheering for the 49ers now, not very,
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I wasn't cheering very hard for the 49ers to be fair because I wasn't really paying attention to the
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game, but I wanted them to win. And the other reason I wanted them to win is because as I said
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on Instagram, um, Travis Kelsey is a poo poo head. Yeah. The definite, like, I don't think I've ever
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called anyone that, but he is the definition, the definition. I'm sorry. He just is. I think it's,
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it's the arrogance that gets me. Yeah. Well, a couple of games ago, he, I forget what game it was,
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but he was so mad about something that he went off to the sidelines and he threw his helmet down
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on the ground and it bounced up and almost hit one of the, like the water girls. And then in this,
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in the Superbowl helmet, he was so mad in the Superbowl. He was so mad that his coach wasn't
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putting him in the game that he came up and pushed him and was screaming at him to put him in the game.
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Okay. I don't know if we have that. Do we have that video?
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Um, that is red flag. That is a red, that's a red flag. Like I understand tensions flare
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and things like that, but I, this is not the first time that he's done something like that.
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And I just think that you need to, I need like, you need to look out for personality traits like that
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because we know that a man who doesn't have self-control is like a city broken into and left
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without walls. So you can take that as you will, Taylor Swift. But I heard someone say recently,
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I think it was a pastor that like you can have all the safety and security in your home, in your
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family that you can possibly have to keep yourself safe from, you know, outside intruders. But if you
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are living with a man inside your home who cannot control his anger, then you are more at risk than
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you would be even without those protections. And I'm not, I'm just talking like emotionally,
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spiritually and things like that too. And I'm just saying, you got to look out for a guy that
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cannot control his anger. We don't be throwing helmets on the ground. We don't be pushing 65 year
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old men on the side. You don't, I don't care if it's a Super Bowl. Because you're mad about a game.
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Yeah. Come on, come on. We don't act like toddlers. We really don't. So yeah, that's part of why I
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wanted the 49ers to win. The anti-poo-poo head. And plus, I, you know, you know, I don't like that
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he shills for Pfizer and all that good stuff. Yeah, there's that too. Yeah.
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Okay. Speaking of Travis and Taylor, there's this whole conspiracy theory that we talked about. I
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think it was last week in the episode is Taylor Swift to PSYOP. And it has to do with basically
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Democrats and major governmental institutions, intelligence agencies using Taylor Swift as a
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psychological operation to try to get more people to vote Democrat. I don't know why there is a
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conspiracy centering on her when there are so many super influential celebrities that are left-wing.
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She is left-wing or she thinks she's left-wing like a lot of celebrities. And yeah, she does have a lot
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of influence, but I don't think that it is some orchestrated thing. But people are saying that
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this is all rigged. It's all a very highly orchestrated PR push that basically it was arranged
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that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey would get together and they would start dating and there
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would be a ton of attention on the, on the chiefs and all that. And then it was already rigged that
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the chiefs were going to win the Superbowl. And I guess the purpose of this is to get everyone like
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talking about them, looking at them, and then they'll, you know, vote Democrat in November or
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something like that. Travis and Taylor will get engaged sometime this year and it's all carefully
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orchestrated. Well, Joe Biden, not Joe Biden himself. We know that he was already asleep at
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this point, but someone on his team decided to play on this and tweeted, tweeted this just like we drew
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it up. And then you've got Joe Biden with laser eyes. I think that's hilarious. I think it's so funny.
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I saw a lot of people replying under it conservatives being like, Oh, this is awful. This is not funny.
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This is so cringe. Oh, come on. It's so funny. That's so funny. Playing on people's just, I don't
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know, paranoia about conspiracy theories and things like that. No, I'm not saying that her influence
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won't be leveraged to try to get people to vote Democrat. Duh. Absolutely. That's probably going to
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happen. Do I think that this was all secretly orchestrated for the chiefs to win the Superbowl?
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No, I don't. So you know what? I don't typically give kudos to Joe Biden and his team, but I will
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today. That was a funny, funny tweet. All right, let's move on to some other things that happened
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at the, uh, at the Superbowl. There was a black national anthem. Andra Day performed lift every voice
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and sing. And we have the video. I don't even think we need, we need to play it, but they sing
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it last year too, or maybe they've, yeah. Okay. So the NFL started to play the black national anthem
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in the 2020 season. Following the death of George Floyd, the NAACP began to promote lift every voice
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and sing as the black national anthem in 1917. Look, there's no such thing as the black national
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anthem. There's no such thing. This might be a song that a lot of black people in America like.
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Probably most black people in America don't even know it. Most people in America don't know it.
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There's no black national anthem. The national anthem, it is for everyone. We live in one country,
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like it or not. As much as the two sides of the aisle might not like each other,
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as much as there may be tension between people of different ethnicities and different backgrounds,
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different classes, different states, whatever it is, we live in one nation. We have one national
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anthem. It is stupid. It is divisive. It is completely counterproductive to have a national anthem
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for one subset of American society who happens to have a particular melanin count. Now, I'm not saying
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that there is no significance to the differences of our skin color in that, yes, we know the history.
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We know slavery happened. We know Jim Crow happened. We know that there have been injustices
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perpetrated against people simply because of their melanin count or in cases of Japanese Americans or
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Chinese Americans because of their nationality or even perceived nationality. Of course,
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these things are true. But to highlight those fissures, to highlight those divisions and to glorify
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them by giving one group a different anthem that is segregated from everyone else's anthem,
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that's silly. That's silly. That does nothing. That only harms. It does not help. So that happened.
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And then we had Reba. We had Reba. She sang the actual national anthem. And I thought that she did
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a great job. I like Reba. I've been listening to Reba for a long time. Then there were quite a few
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commercials. I think that probably my favorite commercial was the I didn't see all of them. I like
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I said, I wasn't paying that close of attention, but it was the Dunkin Donuts commercial.
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And it had Ben Affleck. And it had Tom Brady. And it had J-Lo and Matt Damon.
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I don't think you should do this. Last year, she came to my work. Now I got to show her what I
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can do. He's here. Affleck on the track. What up, Bronx? For your consideration, here comes the
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Boston Massacre. The Dunk Kings. Touchdown Tommy on them keys. Play a coach. Got it. I'm open.
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And need no introduction, my partner. Sometimes it's really hard to be your friend. You said you were
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just bought me. So that one I liked. What I did not like was the He Gets Us ad. Surprise,
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surprise. We talked about this last year. We talked about this a couple times last year,
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actually. And I gave you my thoughts on it, but I'm going to give you my thoughts on it again.
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So let me play the, at least a few seconds of the He Gets Us ad that played at the Super Bowl last night.
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Two worlds collided, and they could never tear us apart.
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Okay, so if you're just listening to this, there were different depictions of people washing each
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other's feet. And I'll pull up a couple of the pictures. One of them you'll see is a woman
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washing the feet of another woman in front of the family planning clinic. And off to the side are a
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bunch of what look like pro-life protesters. They've got different signs that depict their pro-life
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meeting. And you've got this woman washing the feet of another woman who, I don't know if she is
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supposed to be someone who works at the abortion clinic or someone who has had an abortion. And so
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you're supposed to see the contrast there between the people who are in front of the building, who
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are protesting, standing there talking to themselves, and this woman who is actually bending down,
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washing the feet of this woman outside of the abortion clinic. And then you've got this other
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picture. And here is what looks like a priest that is washing the feet of a very noticeably flamboyantly
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gay man on a beach. I don't know. Do you, are these AI images? Do you think they're AI images,
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which is very like, I don't know, strange choice. They just look very AI. And I'm just thinking now,
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like what they had to type in in order to get this, like, uh, Orthodox priest, um, washes the feet of a
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gay black man. It's just, I don't know. It's, it's, it's very strange. And so a lot of people had a lot
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of thoughts about these various images. Uh, let me play you the other, he gets us out before I comment on
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it. Okay. Before I talk about the ad specifically, let me just, I'll just remind you, uh, about,
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uh, of my thoughts about he gets us in general. And then we'll talk a little bit about who's behind
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it, the funding and all of that, just a review of what we talked about last year. Even if I didn't
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know anything about who was behind it, or if I didn't have any of the problems with the mission
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that stated on their website, I wouldn't like these ads. So many of you have messaged me over
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the past couple of years saying, I don't know why, but I just get the heebie-jeebies about these ads.
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Something just doesn't feel right about them. It feels like it's almost, it feels like we want
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to like it. Like we want to cheer it on. We want to say, yes, at least Jesus is being proclaimed to
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the masses. And wow, what a crazy opportunity that a Superbowl ad is being dedicated to Jesus
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and the gospel. We all want to say that. Okay. And so I know that people are going to hear this and
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they're going to say, wow, you're just being critical. You're just being a naysayer. You're
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just not excited about Christians proclaiming Jesus in a way that might be compelling and
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persuasive to a dying world. That's not true at all. I very much just want to say, yay,
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at least Jesus is being preached. At least his name is getting out there. Yes. And amen. Praise God for
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the people who put this together. Praise God for the funders behind this. Who knows what this might do
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for the kingdom of God. Hallelujah. That's what I want to say, but I don't want to ignore. And I
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don't want you to ignore that nagging feeling that we all have, that this is just not right. I want to
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try my best to give words to it as I did last year. And to tell you that I think that nagging is
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conviction. I think that nagging is wisdom given to you by the Lord. I think the years of your Bible
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reading and you're praying and you're asking for discernment is pricking your heart and telling you
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this is not quite right. And when it comes to the gospel, when it comes to Jesus, that matters.
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It matters that we get it right. And I don't think that this is any small thing. The reason just from
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a big picture perspective, I'm not on board with He Gets Us, even as a slogan, is because it makes
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Jesus about you, who you are, what you want, what you're like, trying to create this relatable Jesus
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who is just like you. And in an effort to do that, they end up saying things that are not true.
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They have an ad that says Jesus was an immigrant. Jesus was a refugee. And it looks like they are
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comparing Him to the immigrants who are illegally crossing over the border to say Jesus is just like
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you. Well, Jesus was not a refugee in today's sense. He didn't leave the kingdom that He was in. He
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wasn't certainly moving illegally into a place where He was not allowed to go. He stayed within
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the same kingdom. It would be like going from one state to another state. So that's just not biblically
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or historically accurate. They have an ad that talks about poverty, that Jesus also struggled to make
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ends meet. Jesus did not struggle to make ends meet. That's just not accurate. That is not the Jesus of
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the Bible that is not the Jesus of history. And even when you're looking at this feet washing,
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it still misses the point. It misses the point of who Jesus is and why He came and what the church is
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and what His followers are and what we are called to. It does not actually share the gospel. It does not
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actually depict the biblical Jesus. Instead, what it affirms to a people that already don't like
00:26:54.760
Christians, that already hate Christ's church, that already have a problem with Christianity in general,
00:27:03.400
what it affirms to them is, yeah, it actually is all about you. Jesus came to affirm you. He came to be
00:27:12.200
like you. He came to affirm and celebrate your identity, your status, your choices, and that's it.
00:27:21.300
End of story. And I know some people say, well, that's the beginning of the conversation. And then
00:27:26.280
people can be curious. They can ask questions. And look, praise God if that happens. I know that they
00:27:31.940
do have a mechanism on their website where you can go and you can ask, hey, like, can you connect me to
00:27:37.740
a church? Can you tell me more about the gospel? Actually, last year, because I was curious, I did
00:27:42.060
ask some questions to the person on the other end, at the other end of the website. And I just asked
00:27:50.040
them to explain the gospel to me. And I asked them, how do you get into heaven? And let me give this
00:27:55.540
person credit. They did tell me the right answers. I was very encouraged by that. So if that is what's
00:28:01.840
happening, if people are connecting and hearing the gospel through the website, then I am happy
00:28:07.840
about that. I truly am. But I also know, because I've talked to some of you who have worked on the
00:28:12.420
campaign for the last couple of years, how you have realized that you have a lot of concerns with how
00:28:17.520
things are being run, the mission, the message, what's going on behind the scenes, and actually what
00:28:22.760
is being portrayed to the public. And so I don't know if everyone who is going to the He Gets His
00:28:29.420
website is really hearing the gospel and is being connected to a gospel preaching church. Now, God
00:28:36.680
can use a lot of things. He doesn't need our perfection to be glorified or to advance His
00:28:42.520
kingdom. And I genuinely pray that He uses the He Gets His campaign to do that. But what I fear,
00:28:48.680
and I think it is a completely legitimate fear, is that it is just affirming what people, what
00:28:56.760
unbelievers, non-believers, already erroneously think about Jesus and think about Christianity.
00:29:04.020
That really, all of these Christians out there who are pro-life, all of these Christians out there
00:29:11.300
who care about, say, illegal immigration, all of these Christians out there who care about the LGBTQ
00:29:18.040
issue, that they're just haters, that that's just hate. And really, all they're supposed to do is
00:29:25.880
love, and that means be quiet, sit down, pretend like moral differences don't exist, pretend like
00:29:35.420
God doesn't call us to repentance, pretend like there is no sin. The He Gets His campaign is all about
00:29:43.280
you. It's all about affirming you. And maybe that's not what they really mean, but that is certainly the
00:29:51.840
message that comes across. And unfortunately, I saw a lot of people online talking about the campaign.
00:29:59.980
And there were just a lot of jokes about, because they don't understand, non-believers don't
00:30:06.360
understand what washing feet is. And so you had a lot of people being like, what, is this a foot fetish?
00:30:13.220
Did Quentin Tarantino, did he direct this? Because he famously has a foot fetish.
00:30:19.880
And so they were making fun of it in that sense, because I think we forget the washing of the feet
00:30:26.640
depiction that we see in Scripture, which we do see in Scripture. Now it's a symbol of spiritual
00:30:31.960
cleansing and Jesus's servanthood and the salvation that's found in him. So it's not exactly what's
00:30:40.260
depicted in this, but it is not something that everyone is familiar with. It's not really a picture
00:30:48.240
necessarily that the world is going to see and say, wow, that shows me a lot of humility. That
00:30:52.900
shows me a lot of kindness. I want to know more about this Jesus. Instead, again, I think it just
00:31:00.780
confirms the suspicions of a dying world, that all of the Christians who ever talk about sin,
00:31:06.840
who ever talk about Jesus being the only way to heaven, all the Christians who care about
00:31:10.480
politics, they're just hateful. They're just divisive. They're just wrong. This is a progressive
00:31:17.320
depiction of what Jesus and Christianity are, which is just this mushy, mumbo-jumbo, wishy-washy
00:31:28.820
stuff. And I don't think it's powerful. I don't think it's compelling. I don't think it's persuasive.
00:31:36.300
And you saw in that picture of the woman who was washing the feet in front of the abortion clinic,
00:31:44.240
off to the side, you've got the pro-life protesters. That's supposed to be a contrast.
00:31:49.520
The Heat Gets' campaign is saying, look at these hateful people over here who are protesting in front
00:31:55.040
of the abortion clinic when really you're just supposed to be washing the feet of the woman
00:31:58.840
who just had an abortion. Well, first of all, that is a false choice. All of those people,
00:32:05.080
I mean, I don't know then. They're AI generated. But all the people I know who are protesting against
00:32:11.580
abortion are also showing up at the pregnancy centers and serving these women who are in crisis,
00:32:18.180
who are pregnant, and who are in need of resources and tools and spiritual and emotional guidance.
00:32:26.060
It doesn't have to be either or. But what the Heat Gets' campaign wants you to think is that
00:32:31.740
protesting or being adamantly pro-life, that that is on the side of hate. Again, that just confirms
00:32:37.860
what the secular liberal thinks that Christians should be, which is completely weak and silent.
00:32:43.900
I'm not against us being compassionate and being humble and, yes, washing feet metaphorically and
00:32:53.340
literally. But that does not have to preclude speaking the truth. Because Jesus did not just
00:33:06.260
wash feet. He didn't just serve. He did. But he also rebuked. He also called people to repentance.
00:33:13.680
He also told people to go and sin no more. That was the utmost form of his compassion because he
00:33:21.100
didn't only care about their physical state. He also cared infinitely more about their hearts
00:33:27.480
and about their souls, about their salvation. And in order to be saved, we have to know that we need
00:33:33.460
a Savior. And we only need a Savior if we've sinned. And so that is an important message to convey.
00:33:41.020
And look, I understand that there's only 30 seconds or so that they had. But if you've got
00:33:48.040
the money, you've got the time, you've got the opportunity to talk about Jesus in a Super Bowl
00:33:53.660
ad, wow, what an amazing chance you have to tell people about Christ. Let's do it right. Let's not do
00:34:02.260
this wishy-washy mumbo-jumbo, ambiguous, nonsense, like pseudo-political statements instead of just
00:34:13.360
sharing the gospel. Like, just do that. And if you say, okay, well, you can't get a Super Bowl ad by
00:34:18.620
just sharing the gospel. It's just not going to be possible to do that. And then there are better ways
00:34:23.540
to go about it. There are better ways to say, hey, are you miserable? Are you sad? Are you wondering
00:34:31.080
why you're here? Are you looking for love in all the wrong places? Are you trying and failing to find
00:34:38.520
happiness and purpose and belonging in yourself, in your relationships, in alcohol, in success,
00:34:46.980
in work, in drugs, in sex? Yeah, all of us are on a quest to try to find fulfillment and satisfaction
00:34:54.540
and identity. It's innate. We were made with those longings. But you are going to continue showing up
00:35:01.660
at a dead end until you try to find those things in the only place where they exist, and that is in
00:35:10.860
Jesus Christ. If you want to know more about Jesus Christ, then go to our website, whatever it is.
00:35:17.940
It could be something that simple. There are a lot of creative ways to depict the gospel accurately
00:35:24.360
and to depict Jesus accurately. I don't think the He Gets Us campaign does that at all. At all.
00:35:33.380
Okay, I'm going to talk a little bit more about who's behind it, what's behind it, and all that good stuff.
00:35:40.860
Okay, so there's been some changes at the He Gets Us campaign. A newly formed non-profit called
00:36:00.100
Come Near now spearheads the He Gets Us initiative. The campaign was previously funded by the non-profit
00:36:07.740
Servant Foundation. That's what we talked about last year. This caused the marketing campaign to
00:36:14.220
be criticized last year by the left because the Servant Foundation reportedly donates to
00:36:19.760
Alliance Defending Freedom. Alliance Defending Freedom, obviously, as you guys know, we've had
00:36:24.380
them on several times. They are protecting freedoms like the First Amendment, for example, particularly
00:36:29.360
religious liberty against the onslaught of the LGBTQ sexual revolution that is trying very hard to
00:36:39.360
trample upon the rights of people to say and express and work in a way that aligns with their
00:36:46.020
Christian values. And so the left, of course, didn't like that. So they criticized the He Gets Us
00:36:51.540
initiative. Because of that, the spokesman said that the change in leadership was necessary for
00:36:56.080
heat gets us to grow rather than as a response to previous affiliation and controversy. So that's
00:37:00.760
been the criticism that they wanted to get the Servant Foundation out of the way because they were
00:37:07.300
possibly in some way anti-LGBTQ. And so now they're under new leadership, but they're saying it's not
00:37:12.860
because of that controversy. We just needed different people at the helm. Now people are talking about the
00:37:21.680
evangelical billionaire family that is funding the He Gets Us initiative. Rolling Stone actually
00:37:29.260
reported on that. The Super Bowl once again featured ads promoting Jesus, thanks in large part
00:37:35.400
to the billionaire family that leads Hobby Lobby. This year, a new charity organization Come Near is
00:37:42.680
leading the He Gets Us ad campaign. The group is led by CEO Ken Caldwell, previously the chief marketing
00:37:48.080
officer of the Christian charity Compassion International, though not many other details are
00:37:53.440
known about the organization still in its infancy. And so we do know that the Hobby Lobby co-founder
00:38:02.000
is really who is kind of funding it, who is putting out the money for the campaign. Here's what he said
00:38:09.180
to Glenn back in 2022. What we're known as as Christians, we're known as haters. We're beginning to be known
00:38:14.860
as haters. We hate this group. We hate that group, but we're not. We are people that have the very,
00:38:20.080
very best love story ever written, and we need to tell that love story. So our idea is let's tell
00:38:24.860
the story. Look, okay. Okay. I do think that we should be telling the love story of the gospel.
00:38:33.340
Absolutely. Christians should not be known by the things or the people that we hate. We should primarily
00:38:38.600
be known by what we love. But there is a way to do that without creating ads that seem like they're
00:38:46.840
just chastising Christians. They seem like they're just going over here to the secular libs that have
00:38:53.700
and will always hate Christians until they are converted to Christ and saying, yeah, you know those
00:38:59.540
Christians over there who are pro-life, who aren't for drag queen story hour, who are against chopping off
00:39:07.280
the genitals of kids? Yeah, I know. I know. They're a little much. I know. It's kind of embarrassing.
00:39:14.340
But look, just ignore them. No, no. Jesus is totally on your side on these issues. He doesn't
00:39:22.000
care about all that stuff. They're just haters. They're just, I know. They're making a mountain out
00:39:28.340
of a molehill. Don't worry about them. Yeah, we're kind of embarrassed of them too. Look this way. No,
00:39:34.420
you're totally right about illegal immigration. You're totally right about all of these other
00:39:40.020
issues. Oh, no, no, no. We don't have to talk about sin and salvation and things like that. Don't you
00:39:43.720
worry about that. We don't do fire and brimstone. That's what it seems like. They really seem like
00:39:49.140
ads that are not for the non-believer, but are for the conservative Christian to tell you to stop
00:39:55.700
being the way that you are, to stop caring about the things that you care about, to stop being so
00:40:01.400
political, to stop being so quote unquote divisive. It's definitely an implicit knock on you for caring
00:40:08.100
about the things that you care about. And you know what? I know it might feel like effective
00:40:13.160
propaganda because it sucks when even people on your side chastise you, don't like you, think that you
00:40:20.320
care too much about things, think that you're too political and too divisive. Meanwhile, all of these ads
00:40:25.060
are at least subliminally political. And they're all making fun of you, conservative Christian. It
00:40:32.560
never goes the other direction. Isn't that interesting? It's just affirming, again, this
00:40:37.780
idea that Christian conservatives are hateful because we are pro-biblical marriage, because we tend to be
00:40:44.680
conservative on a lot of issues like immigration, because yeah, we are against the transition of
00:40:52.900
people, attempted transition from one sex to the next, especially when it comes to children. And so
00:41:00.000
that's really the message, I think, that these are portraying, which is really unfortunate because
00:41:05.080
that's not the gospel. You're actually just stoking the culture war fires even more. So don't be
00:41:12.800
dissuaded by this. Don't be discouraged by this. Don't be convinced. Just like the after party,
00:41:20.660
just like so many of these organizations that are dedicated to telling you, Christian conservative,
00:41:26.680
that you and you alone must have a certain form of humility that shames you into silence about issues
00:41:32.380
like abortion and gender and sexuality and marriage and immigration and all of these things. Just don't
00:41:40.300
even let it get to you. What do we always say? What have we been saying for years now? Politics matter
00:41:46.800
because policy matters because people matter. Politics affects policy. Policy affects people.
00:41:53.280
And we know as Christians that people matter, not just to us, but also to God. And that's why we have
00:42:01.060
to care about politics. That's why we care about abortion. That's why we care about immigration. That's
00:42:04.940
why we care about crime. That's why we care about what the definition of justice is. That's why we care
00:42:10.600
about gender and marriage and all of these things, things like surrogacy and reproductive technology.
00:42:16.640
The things that we talk about, we don't talk about just to be angry. We don't talk about to be haters.
00:42:21.380
We talk about them because we need clarity on these issues because the church as a refuge in a world
00:42:29.800
that is tossed to and fro by the chaos of our culture, like we have to know what is true on these
00:42:36.900
things. We have to provide the answer for these things. We are agents of order as Christians.
00:42:43.320
That is part of what we do and why we are here. That's what Christians have done throughout history.
00:42:49.400
We have been agents of order. We have been agents of civilization. We have been ambassadors of the
00:42:57.700
message that you have innate rights as a human being because you were given them by a creator in whose
00:43:05.060
whose image you are made. And that, yes, has laid a foundation politically for the greatest country
00:43:13.820
and the freest country and the best country that has ever existed. And so, of course, Christians,
00:43:20.320
conservative Christians, Christians who believe the Bible is a final authority, of course,
00:43:24.660
we need to continue speaking up about the things that matter. Because if we stop, if we conservative
00:43:29.940
evangelicals that the world calls hateful and all that stuff, if we stop caring about the unborn,
00:43:36.280
like if we stop pushing for legislation to protect them, if we stop caring about the gender transition
00:43:41.720
of children, if we stop caring about the definition of marriage, if we stop caring about the dignity and
00:43:47.960
the sanctity of life, if we stop caring about borders and sovereignty, the right to protect yourself,
00:43:52.440
the right to speak up, the right to worship freely, if we stop caring about that, then that's it.
00:43:57.180
It's done. It's done. And we will reach the point of no return if we have it already.
00:44:03.160
So that's personally what I think these ads are about. I don't see the gospel in them.
00:44:10.560
Now, again, I pray that the Lord would use them to bring people to himself because he could do that.
00:44:16.220
He can absolutely do that. And we should all be praying that. We should. We should all be praying
00:44:21.900
that through this and through whatever means God has ordained, that people would hear the gospel,
00:44:28.160
that they would be connected to a Bible-believing church. Yes and amen.
00:44:34.300
I'm going to link a link that we've linked in the past. I believe it is founders.org slash church
00:44:40.780
search. I'm going to do a couple of church searches and put the link in the description of this episode.
00:44:46.480
And I've done this several times and I always love getting the stories a few months later from those
00:44:51.460
of you who you found a Bible-preaching church in your area through these links and it's just
00:44:56.440
transformed your family's life. I love hearing that. And so I'm going to link those because I too
00:45:02.960
want you to find a Bible-believing church. I too want you to find a pastor who is going to preach
00:45:08.800
the true gospel to you every Sunday. All right. There was a shooting at Joel Osteen's Lakewood
00:45:28.200
Church over the weekend. The shooter was killed and identified as Janesse Moreno, also went by
00:45:37.940
Jeffrey. So apparently this person is so-called trans-identifying. Now, I think it's always so
00:45:44.320
confusing in these situations. This is another reason why Satan loves this ideology because it just
00:45:51.240
compounds chaos and confusion in these types of situations. So I think that this is actually a
00:45:58.880
woman who started identifying as a man. Now, the reason that that is significant, I think, is because we
00:46:06.260
know that testosterone, if this person was on testosterone, that testosterone hormones,
00:46:14.540
synthetic hormones can make you extremely aggressive, extremely agitated, prone to anger and
00:46:20.520
prone to violence, especially when it comes to women. Our bodies just weren't created to house that
00:46:27.260
much testosterone. And so it's going to affect our mind. Now, some people would say that when they got
00:46:33.280
on testosterone, it made them feel great, their depression went away, things like that, that is,
00:46:37.600
of course, temporary. That can happen. There can be some euphoria when a woman who wants to be the
00:46:42.660
opposite sex starts going on testosterone. But still, you're going to get that aggression, that
00:46:48.580
violence, that agitation that also comes with it, especially the more that you start to use.
00:46:52.900
Was that the case here? We are not completely sure. This is according to the Post Millennial.
00:46:57.440
The Harris County Sheriff's Office said deputies responded to an active shooting
00:47:01.800
at Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church. Now, if you're not familiar, this is a huge, huge mega church down
00:47:06.380
in Houston. Shortly after 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, police said a woman in her mid-30s
00:47:12.060
entered the church armed with a long rifle wearing a trench coat and a backpack. She was reportedly
00:47:16.220
accompanied by a five-year-old boy, which just breaks my heart for the little boy. Who knows what
00:47:21.520
he had been through? The shooter used an AR-15 that had Free Palestine written on it. According
00:47:27.360
to KHOU reporter Jeremy Rogalski, multiple independent sources confirmed that Jeunesse
00:47:33.680
Yvonne Moreno, 36, is the person responsible for the shooting. According to law enforcement
00:47:38.040
records, Moreno also identified as Jeffrey Escalante and had prior arrests for assault, forgery,
00:47:46.020
marijuana, possession, theft, evading, and unlawful carrying of weapons. So we don't really know
00:47:55.200
that much about her. We do know that two off-duty officers engaged and fired at the suspect,
00:48:04.380
killing her at the scene. According to authorities, the child was hit, is in critical condition at the
00:48:08.860
hospital. Let's just pray for that little boy. Let's pray for that five-year-old. I mean,
00:48:13.540
how much trauma has he already experienced? I pray that he lives. I pray that God would redeem
00:48:18.260
his life. I pray that he is sent to live with someone who can care for him and love him and
00:48:23.560
show him the love of Jesus. Just how awful is that? A 57-year-old man was also shot in the leg
00:48:29.540
as a bystander, taken to the hospital for treatment. He is reportedly okay. So praise God for that. I mean,
00:48:36.060
I just praise God that more people were not hurt. This could have been absolutely devastating,
00:48:40.260
especially if she had come just like a couple hours earlier. I would assume that they would
00:48:44.660
have all been at church still at that point. And so, oh my goodness, thank God for these police
00:48:49.560
officers doing their job. It's just absolutely tragic. And I mean, there's a lot at play here.
00:48:57.640
There's a lot to discuss why she was there, what was going on, what the motives were. But I do think
00:49:02.920
it is relevant to talk about also what substances she had in her body, what ideology she was ascribing
00:49:10.480
to. And this is true no matter what side of the aisle that someone is on. We should take a look at
00:49:15.680
the ideology that is motivating them. And yet again, we always hear in a case like this, it will be that
00:49:21.500
the gun is the problem because you can't talk about the toxic patriarchy, toxic masculinity. You can't
00:49:27.220
talk about white supremacy or white privilege. She's not a white woman. You can't talk about
00:49:32.300
right-wing extremist hate here. And so it's going to be about the guns. When the identity changes,
00:49:37.900
when any of those other factors change, then we have to talk about white supremacy and we have to
00:49:43.380
talk about right-wing extremism and MAGA Republicans and how crazy they are. But when the rest of it doesn't
00:49:49.500
fit that narrative, then you just focus on the guns. It's very cynical and awful and stupid. It's
00:49:54.960
terrible how these conversations typically go after a shooting. But just pray for that child.
00:50:01.060
Pray for his health and his salvation too. Gosh, awful, just terrible story. And again, praise God for
00:50:09.000
the police officers and hopefully they can preempt any future threats. So we should just continue
00:50:15.940
praying for this church community too, because this will be traumatizing for many years to come.
00:50:24.960
All right, guys, thank you so much for listening. We've got a lot going on this week. Don't forget
00:50:37.880
tomorrow we've got Candace Cameron Bure, y'all. Candace Cameron Bure. It's going to be an amazing
00:50:42.940
conversation. I cannot wait for you to hear it. We will see you back here then.