The NXR Podcast - THE CONFERENCE - Turns Out, You Win By Winning - Steve Deace - Session 3

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00:00:03.800 I get it. It's annoying. Everybody asks, but I'm going to tell you why.

00:00:07.540 When you give us a positive review, what that does is it triggers the algorithm

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00:00:26.800 we are going to discuss we win by winning all right i like winning um you guys may be here

00:00:39.440 my oldest daughter anastasia on the show sometimes she she can tell you stories about

00:00:45.400 wiffle ball in the backyard i still live in the same house that she grew up in

00:00:49.880 we would play wiffle ball in the backyard and i'd hit every single one of her pitches over 0.98

00:00:54.360 the fence every time. And I'd make her go get every single one of them. And she'd be, 0.98

00:01:01.140 you know, tearing up. Can we stop? When you stop me, we will stop. When you catch the

00:01:09.220 ball, I'm out. Right? I mean, I didn't let our kids win ever at anything. Not once. We're

00:01:18.640 about to say goodbye to our final kid. Noah graduates here in about a month, and Amy is

00:01:27.040 starting to tell me. He's starting to remind me more and more of you as he gets older.

00:01:30.900 I think that is a compliment. I'm going to take that as such, okay? But show me a gracious

00:01:36.940 loser, man, and I'll show you a loser every single time, all right? I like winning, and 0.80

00:01:43.660 And one of my real addictions and vices is competition.

00:01:47.360 I will look to compete at anything.

00:01:50.700 Shoots and ladders, candy land with the kids, it's a competition.

00:01:54.960 We might play board games in our home about once a year, all right?

00:01:59.580 Because this is going to end in a family feud, a divorce, estrangement, all right?

00:02:05.080 I mean, let's just say I set the mood in our home for a very competitive environment.

00:02:10.540 And when I first started out in what God called me to do, I had to learn some lessons about what this means in the kingdom of God compared to what it means in the city of man.

00:02:28.540 And over the years, I made some mistakes, some costly ones, in fact.

00:02:34.200 One of them I alluded to on the panel earlier today.

00:02:37.700 And so, you know, I loved Kenny Rogers when I was a kid.

00:02:43.060 So my talk here today is to quote the great prophet Kenny Rogers from his great hymn, Coward of the County.

00:02:53.220 All right.

00:02:54.140 Basically, what I'm going to do here for the next 40 minutes or so is urge you to promise me, son, not to do the things that I've done.

00:03:01.700 All right.

00:03:02.420 To learn from the mistakes people like I that have gone down roads that many of you in this room are trying now to go down.

00:03:13.980 And to learn from the mistakes people like me made.

00:03:19.580 When there was never going to be conversations like this, there were never going to be conferences like this.

00:03:25.760 Or in Moscow or in Ogden, there were never going to be these sorts of conversations.

00:03:31.100 It was verboten.

00:03:34.880 And, you know, I proudly believe that we should support the nation of Israel. 0.99

00:03:45.300 If for no other reason, then it's a nice cudgel against Islam in the Middle East. 0.99

00:03:50.220 But there is something wrong with the fact that the last generation of believers were way more aware 0.88

00:03:55.120 of what was going on with the Israeli Defense Force on a given day than in their own country.

00:04:01.100 All right? And so a lot of the redirection that you're trying to do, I'm in favor of it. That's

00:04:08.860 why I'm here. That's why I met so many of you already that tune into our show, because you

00:04:15.280 can sense the common themes and the common goals. So I want to state that up front. Maybe you sense

00:04:21.580 a but coming. And you're right. But I want to make sure that you can learn from my mistakes.

00:04:29.040 And then hold what I'm about to tell you up against the word of God.

00:04:33.220 If you're a believer, you have the Holy Spirit inside of you.

00:04:35.900 I believe in the priesthood of every believer.

00:04:38.780 All right?

00:04:39.580 Chew the meat, spit out the bones.

00:04:41.660 Maybe some of this will be of some use to you.

00:04:43.840 Maybe all of it will be.

00:04:45.040 Maybe none of it will be.

00:04:47.860 But after a lot of prayer and consideration, I'm going to say for the next few minutes

00:04:51.720 something that I truly believe God wants me to say to those of you in this room

00:04:56.500 and in other rooms like this around the country,

00:04:58.980 and I hope you receive it with the heart that it's intended.

00:05:02.160 That's why I gave you the disclaimer that I just did.

00:05:05.460 All right?

00:05:05.980 Because I want you to be successful.

00:05:08.960 But here's a truth I have learned in my life,

00:05:11.320 and I did not want to learn this.

00:05:15.460 I can be stubborn, I can be petty,

00:05:18.740 and that's on a good day.

00:05:21.880 All right?

00:05:22.540 But the Lord finally taught me a lesson.

00:05:26.200 He always gets his way.

00:05:27.960 I don't.

00:05:30.300 And the Lord cares quite a bit about the way things are done.

00:05:35.940 And we've kind of had this political duopoly.

00:05:39.260 Some of you may have heard of it.

00:05:40.300 It's called the Uniparty.

00:05:42.000 And if you look at the American left, they like to be defined by their intentions.

00:05:48.220 Well, yes, it's true.

00:05:49.340 I completely bankrupted the next generation with a welfare state.

00:05:51.840 and all of the societal maladies and markers I claimed I was doing something about

00:05:56.920 are now all way worse than they were before I got started.

00:06:00.900 But my intentions were good, so don't judge me.

00:06:05.720 Of course, I get to judge you.

00:06:08.160 But then on the right, we like to be judged by results.

00:06:12.360 We made the trains run on time.

00:06:15.740 We got things done.

00:06:17.060 the thing about the kingdom of God

00:06:19.940 is his ways are not our ways

00:06:21.900 and his thoughts are not our thoughts

00:06:23.080 I know we've heard that so often it's a cliche

00:06:24.960 but have we really heard it

00:06:27.740 as the great prophet Wesley Snipes

00:06:31.660 once said in white men can't jump 0.98

00:06:33.220 you can listen to Jimmy

00:06:37.660 but can you hear Jimmy

00:06:39.080 we've heard that line a lot

00:06:41.960 but have we listened to it

00:06:43.860 because the kingdom of God

00:06:46.640 is primarily judged by motivations.

00:06:52.780 Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

00:06:55.260 Whom do the people say that I am?

00:07:00.740 Why are we doing what we're doing?

00:07:03.100 More importantly, for whom are we doing it for?

00:07:09.480 And I think if the motivations are not right,

00:07:11.820 the results on the outside for a while may seem like it is working.

00:07:19.040 And I come from a business where you get all kinds of instant incentives

00:07:22.080 to see what seems to be working for now.

00:07:26.200 Instant engagement, instant recognition, instant growth in a followership.

00:07:33.320 But those things can be good things,

00:07:36.280 but they don't guarantee necessarily that you are displaying discipleship.

00:07:41.820 and so I think someone amongst us here

00:07:49.160 has got to stand up and be the Columbo.

00:07:52.400 One more thing.

00:07:54.320 Remember that show from when I was a little kid?

00:07:56.620 And I figured I'm so used to being disliked,

00:08:00.640 I'll just go ahead and nominate myself for the job, all right?

00:08:04.940 Because I want us to be successful,

00:08:08.380 but I can promise you this.

00:08:10.880 If we do not attempt to advance the kingdom of God by the rules of his kingdom, we will not be.

00:08:19.560 We will not be.

00:08:21.260 And it won't matter how clever we are.

00:08:23.300 It won't matter how brave we are.

00:08:25.920 It won't matter how blunt or bold we are.

00:08:28.820 If we do not do this by the methods of God's kingdom and for his glory, he will not bless it.

00:08:34.240 now over the last generation of third way big eva scam religion that usually meant i i can see some

00:08:44.880 of you bristling and i used to sit in seats where you are hearing speakers say this and i would

00:08:49.680 bristle too because i knew what was coming out comes the sweater vests out comes the hawaiian

00:08:55.420 shirts and out comes the pleated khakis and the unstated 11th commandment on the third tablet

00:09:02.140 that God just forgot to give Moses,

00:09:04.900 which is the most important commandment of them all.

00:09:09.500 Above all, thou must be nice at all times.

00:09:13.920 Nice.

00:09:15.820 Right?

00:09:17.220 That's not what I'm here for.

00:09:19.980 If you listen to our show,

00:09:21.980 we're not very nice most of the time.

00:09:26.040 All right?

00:09:27.080 And maybe, you know, as Spock once said,

00:09:29.880 only Nixon could go to China.

00:09:31.000 And so maybe someone like me needs to be the one to bring this message.

00:09:38.040 Because I've been defying nice all along.

00:09:40.380 I remember the first time I ever spoke for my faith.

00:09:43.100 I'd just gotten converted.

00:09:44.640 I'm a fairly well-known local sports talk radio host.

00:09:47.360 And one of the big mega churches in town has me come and invites me to come speak to the men.

00:09:53.420 And I have no idea what to say.

00:09:56.380 I've been a Christian for about 15 minutes.

00:09:59.520 And so I began a tradition that I just renewed here

00:10:02.100 before I came out to speak to you guys here this afternoon.

00:10:04.720 I went and found the corner stall in the bathroom

00:10:07.160 and just prayed fervently,

00:10:10.660 Lord, I don't know what I'm doing.

00:10:11.780 I'm going to open my mouth.

00:10:13.000 Please make it your words that come out.

00:10:16.120 And I've just done that now ever since.

00:10:19.660 Another reason I do that is I get plausible deniability.

00:10:22.460 If you don't like it and you're offended, don't blame me.

00:10:26.180 All right?

00:10:27.440 I'm just the vessel in the vehicle here.

00:10:30.080 And I got done, and I went out there and spoke,

00:10:32.420 and I've had this happen so many times in my career.

00:10:35.380 I said things I don't even remember them.

00:10:38.500 And I have like a photographic memory.

00:10:40.580 I go back and read the book A Nefarious Plot sometimes,

00:10:43.140 and I'm like, who wrote this?

00:10:45.080 This guy's way smarter than me.

00:10:49.140 And when I got done, the pastor who invited me,

00:10:53.260 the men are cheering me, and the pastor who invited me

00:10:55.180 comes up and he puts his arm around me and says, you did a great job. Very impressive. And I,

00:11:01.020 you know, got really bowed up. Then he whispered something in my ear I have never forgotten.

00:11:07.780 He said, you remind me of one of those Old Testament prophets, he told me, but

00:11:11.540 just remember what people like me did to all the prophets.

00:11:19.700 I've had that experience a lot. Over the course of my career, I've had friends, enemies,

00:11:24.860 enemies become friends. Friends that became enemies, and then friends and enemies again.

00:11:29.300 Basically, relationships with me are like the transfer portal in college sports, okay? There's

00:11:35.340 one kid, he started at South Carolina, went and played at Ohio State, went back to South Carolina,

00:11:39.760 went back to Ohio State, just announced yesterday he's going to South Carolina again. My kids can

00:11:44.960 tell you there's all kinds of people that have been in and out of our home. They were friends

00:11:48.640 with me for a while, and then when what they wanted out of me didn't line up with what I

00:11:53.860 thought God was calling me to do, suddenly we become enemies. Any of this sound familiar to

00:11:57.940 any of you guys at all? This has been my life for the last 15, 20 years, trying to take the

00:12:04.920 message of a narrow road to a broad audience. And so it comes with its own pitfalls, even if

00:12:14.340 you're even better at not stepping on rakes than I have proven to be.

00:12:18.420 So we have to check our motivations all of the time

00:12:23.560 One day my wife and I were in the airport

00:12:30.500 Getting ready to go do a speaking engagement in Atlanta, Georgia

00:12:33.540 It was the first time I'd ever been invited to speak outside of Iowa

00:12:37.340 And we're very excited

00:12:39.700 And I get a phone call

00:12:41.100 And it's one of the most important people

00:12:45.600 In the history of American Christian media is on the phone

00:12:48.360 and if you've ever worked or followed Christian media

00:12:52.240 it would be a name you would know

00:12:53.460 and he says hey do you have a minute

00:12:59.240 I'm like for you I've got I'll miss the flight

00:13:01.580 I'm thinking my ship has come in

00:13:04.540 this is the moment

00:13:05.980 this is the kind of call in my line of work you've been waiting for

00:13:09.380 that's not what happened

00:13:12.000 over the next 10 minutes he berated me

00:13:15.580 I eventually I just had to hold the phone away from my ear

00:13:18.120 and he kept saying to me over and over again

00:13:23.540 you're too radical

00:13:24.460 you'll drive yourself out of the mainstream

00:13:27.600 you won't be successful

00:13:29.300 you'll blow yourself up and you'll burn out

00:13:31.480 before anybody knows who you are 0.98

00:13:33.160 he said to me I used to be like you

00:13:36.140 then I ran for office

00:13:39.900 and found out you can't be successful

00:13:42.600 and do what you're trying to do

00:13:44.580 he said to me

00:13:45.420 And I'm really trying to be the young man

00:13:49.660 Listen to my elder

00:13:51.300 I'm thankful God had placed

00:13:55.860 I didn't grow up in the best home

00:13:57.140 Didn't have a good father example

00:13:58.620 Thankfully God put strategically placed

00:14:01.140 Men, role models in my life

00:14:03.460 Right at the right time I needed them

00:14:05.200 To stop me from blowing myself up

00:14:07.240 And my family along with me

00:14:08.560 So I'm thinking, at first I'm thinking

00:14:10.680 Maybe this is one of those calls

00:14:12.300 And I need to hear this

00:14:13.200 But when he said that

00:14:14.520 That's when I knew that's not what this was.

00:14:17.380 That there's a difference between accountability and gatekeeping.

00:14:23.220 I used to be like you.

00:14:26.560 Translation, you now need to be like me.

00:14:30.700 That's not follow me as I follow Christ.

00:14:34.920 That's just follow me.

00:14:37.840 Jesus is the only one that gets to say follow me.

00:14:41.120 We don't.

00:14:41.880 and then he said to me

00:14:44.480 can you think of anyone in the Bible

00:14:47.720 who says the things you say

00:14:52.260 and is as provocative as you are

00:14:54.320 and I

00:14:57.860 my mouth got the better of me

00:15:00.720 and I

00:15:03.760 I want you to know the Lord is my witness

00:15:06.160 I did try listening to this for a good 10 solid minutes

00:15:08.520 okay I did

00:15:09.040 I did. And I shot back. John the Baptist stood in the street, told King Herod he was a whoremonger

00:15:17.800 and called his wife a whore in front of the entire town. And Jesus said, no man born of 0.99

00:15:21.980 women is more blessed than he. And it got real quiet on the other end of the phone.

00:15:34.260 And he said, what did you say? I said, nothing. And I just let him go on.

00:15:39.040 Now, here's the thing. Years later, that exact same man, I would not be where I'm at in my career and standing before you with the audience I have now if it were not for him.

00:15:52.080 Years later, he sponsored me. Years later, he wrote a letter to his board of directors, personally recommending they create a time slot in their network for me. And they did.

00:16:09.040 I think the example we want to follow here

00:16:13.020 and that at least I want to give to you

00:16:14.860 is the name that I just mentioned, John the Baptist.

00:16:20.560 Now this is a provocative figure.

00:16:24.880 The bluntest of language.

00:16:27.900 The plainest of rebuke.

00:16:32.440 Yet he baptizes our Lord.

00:16:35.200 Yet he is actually the first to recognize our Lord. 0.76

00:16:38.400 He does so in the womb.

00:16:42.200 He baptizes our Lord, gives his life for our Lord.

00:16:50.740 Which just goes to show faithfulness isn't a tone.

00:16:57.820 It can be.

00:17:00.680 But most of the time in our culture, when we say things like,

00:17:04.480 it's not what you said, but how you say it, we don't really mean that.

00:17:08.400 We don't really mean that.

00:17:10.520 What we really mean is there's no way you could say it that would be good.

00:17:14.540 For example, the Christian school my son now goes to,

00:17:17.840 years ago I came in and addressed the senior class.

00:17:21.420 And I decided I was going to make my whole talk about,

00:17:23.620 is it true that it's not what you say but how you say it?

00:17:25.920 And so I had the boys of the senior class and on one end of the gym

00:17:29.380 and the girls on the other.

00:17:30.520 And I asked the whole senior class, I said,

00:17:32.640 hey, who agrees with me that it's not what you say but how you say it?

00:17:35.800 How many hands in the room went up, do you think?

00:17:38.040 All of them did.

00:17:39.520 And I said, all right, I'm going to test that theorem right now.

00:17:42.240 And I walked over to the girls and I said the following.

00:17:44.440 I said, hey, 10 years from now, one of you is going to be cooking dinner in a home

00:17:49.260 with kids that you're overseeing.

00:17:52.940 Your husband's going to come home from work.

00:17:55.380 And he's going to say, oh, my goodness, you still fit in the same dress like it was when

00:18:00.100 we were dating.

00:18:00.780 It's incredible.

00:18:02.440 You're still as beautiful as the day we got married.

00:18:04.880 And look, the kids, you've got them, I mean, they're minding, they're doing their homework, they're doing their chores.

00:18:11.400 Is that my favorite dinner I'm smelling? What a blessed man I am.

00:18:14.940 Oh, by the way, you know that new receptionist I told you about at the office?

00:18:21.100 Man, we had quite the nooner this afternoon.

00:18:24.020 Anyway, what time is dinner?

00:18:28.760 As quiet as you all are right now is as quiet as it was in that gym.

00:18:31.640 And I said, now let me ask you, the senior class here at Iowa's largest Christian school,

00:18:38.220 let me ask you once more.

00:18:40.600 Are we sure it's not what you say, but how you say it?

00:18:44.380 Said it pretty nice.

00:18:46.600 Gave you all the requisite third way Christianity Seldom magazine compliments and disclaimers.

00:18:53.380 Complimented your beauty, your grace, your domestic proclivities.

00:18:58.720 He got that all out of the way and then dropped the hammer on you.

00:19:04.880 And then he even did it in like this really polite, uplifting, and hope-filled K-Love tone.

00:19:12.820 So we're good here, right?

00:19:14.160 We're good.

00:19:16.820 Issue is settled then?

00:19:18.480 No, it's not settled.

00:19:19.960 Because it can be not what you say but how you say it.

00:19:22.320 But most of the time, it's just what you say.

00:19:25.980 People hate truth.

00:19:27.960 particularly unregenerate ones.

00:19:29.480 I did. I hated it.

00:19:30.660 I didn't want to hear it.

00:19:33.160 I've come to the conclusion, really,

00:19:34.540 the only people on earth that really don't get what they want

00:19:36.420 are the Christians saved against their own will

00:19:38.480 by the mighty grace of God.

00:19:41.040 Everybody else gets what they want.

00:19:44.260 Front row, aisle seat in the eternal smoking section. 0.90

00:19:47.380 We want hell. We desire it. We crave it.

00:19:50.840 We want to go our own way.

00:19:53.800 And as the believers, we're the ones that don't get our way.

00:19:57.720 But here's the thing, that extends beyond our salvation, guys.

00:20:01.220 And it extends to our sanctification and our justification as well.

00:20:05.020 And to our witness as well.

00:20:08.520 I can promise you this.

00:20:11.400 Without accountability, you will become everything you hate.

00:20:19.140 Especially, I say this to the men.

00:20:22.640 Without accountability, you'll become everything you hate.

00:20:27.640 You'll become the distant father, too demanding,

00:20:31.120 that finds the one B or C on your son's report card

00:20:36.660 and fixates on that and ignores and bypasses all the A's.

00:20:40.440 You'll become that.

00:20:42.800 You'll become that.

00:20:44.540 You'll become the boss, widgets for widgets' sake,

00:20:47.800 profit for profit's sake.

00:20:49.660 We have no higher mission here other than the business must make a profit.

00:20:53.360 You'll become that.

00:20:54.560 You'll just mix some Bible verses in.

00:20:56.020 I see it in the homeschooling community.

00:20:58.020 We're coming up on homeschool graduation season,

00:21:00.460 otherwise known as, take Jeremiah 29, 11,

00:21:04.120 completely out of context, 10 million times every year season.

00:21:09.180 I mean, listen, I'm a big believer in homeschooling.

00:21:11.460 We homeschooled both of our daughters all the way through.

00:21:14.220 The only reason our son didn't get homeschooled all the way

00:21:16.380 through is because it was very clear when he got to seventh grade,

00:21:19.860 he needed a level of male competition that I just was not

00:21:24.860 able to provide in the home unless he competed with me, and that was going to be bad. That's why

00:21:29.200 he put him in a Christian school, so he would have to compete with other boys and learn what

00:21:34.080 that is like. We are big advocates for it. Longtime friend of mine, Michael Ferris, Patrick Henry

00:21:40.100 College, HSLDA, big believers in it. So it absolutely has its place.

00:21:54.260 But the thing we have to remember too, though, is what are we equipping them for?

00:22:03.200 Do we want them to just live a lifestyle that looks like holiness? Or do we want them to be

00:22:09.680 able to be equipped to impact and advance the kingdom of God? Are we going to set up our own

00:22:17.100 standard of conformity? Or are we going to use his standards? Because again, his ways are not our

00:22:24.280 ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. And yet even in the homeschool community, it's like the

00:22:29.520 only verse the book of Jeremiah has is verse 11. And so the homeschool community will have

00:22:35.680 constantly on the graduation announcements.

00:22:40.180 For I know the plans I have for you.

00:22:42.700 Plans not to harm you, but to give you a hope in the future.

00:22:46.500 You ever read Jeremiah 2910?

00:22:49.200 How about Jeremiah 2912?

00:22:50.760 You ever read that?

00:22:51.780 In fact, have you read the entire rest of the book of Jeremiah?

00:22:56.340 It starts off with the Jews went down in the valley of Topit.

00:22:59.620 That's a Hebrew word for hell.

00:23:01.060 And they cast their babies into the fire to a demon. 0.78

00:23:03.580 It starts there.

00:23:04.260 Starts there 0.90

00:23:06.300 For this, God sent Nebuchadnezzar to conquer the people 0.95

00:23:10.520 Basically, Nebuchadnezzar was the buckle of dad's belt 0.97

00:23:13.880 And he took it off

00:23:15.100 And he spanked them harshly for the evil that they did

00:23:19.260 And then he dispersed them for the next 70 years

00:23:22.520 Their entire legacy way of life, gone

00:23:25.080 The temple, gone

00:23:26.460 The ark, gone

00:23:27.700 For I know the plans I have for you

00:23:33.280 plans not to harm you but to give you a hope in the future

00:23:37.420 we can't take the word of God out of context in either direction

00:23:46.620 the great error of the last generation of the church in my opinion

00:23:51.060 is that we took the second greatest commandment

00:23:55.820 love your neighbor as you love yourself

00:23:57.340 and we made it number one

00:23:59.300 not number two

00:24:03.180 We made it number one.

00:24:06.880 And therefore, what ended up happening is we were perfectly fine offending God.

00:24:11.020 We just had to make sure we didn't offend people.

00:24:15.920 Well, God is love, although, by the way, the amount of times in the Bible it says God is love

00:24:21.040 as opposed to talking about his holiness is something like 20 to 1, but I digress.

00:24:25.800 Well, God is love, but love is not God.

00:24:28.520 God gets to define what love is, not us.

00:24:32.360 and so if we make it that the highest thing is,

00:24:39.020 and the definition of loving our neighbor as ourselves is,

00:24:42.160 whatever might offend and not accommodate our neighbor,

00:24:45.660 we can't say.

00:24:47.720 We have appointed ourselves God's editors.

00:24:51.660 There's a word for people who think they can edit the word of God.

00:24:54.740 Who knows what it is? 0.99

00:24:56.840 Heretic. 0.58

00:24:58.040 That's the word.

00:24:58.860 everyone in hell has something in common you know what it is they all had an opinion

00:25:06.060 and they went to hell with those opinions people are in heaven for truth people are in hell for

00:25:14.200 their opinions and so therefore we had to play to a crowd what would draw a crowd now listen

00:25:23.840 pentecost three thousand men we don't even count the women and children three thousand men get

00:25:28.140 say that would be by any definition today a megachurch. The amount of people in this room

00:25:32.000 today would be called a megachurch. Calvin preached to churches of thousands, maybe the greatest

00:25:37.160 English-speaking minister of all time, Charles Spurgeon, preached to churches that had thousands

00:25:42.620 of people. Megachurch isn't a population, it's a mindset. It's where elders are replaced by boards

00:25:50.740 of directors and creeds are replaced by mission statements. And we corporatize the church. We're

00:25:57.300 no longer sinners in need of

00:25:59.180 catechesis. We're customers.

00:26:05.400 We're no longer believers

00:26:06.920 in need of discipleship.

00:26:10.440 We're customers.

00:26:11.900 And in a business parlance, the

00:26:13.240 customer is always right. You don't

00:26:15.260 want to hear that message anymore? We'll just

00:26:17.120 stop preaching it.

00:26:19.200 Uplifting and hope-filled, that's all we do

00:26:21.100 here.

00:26:22.700 I just want to preach Jesus.

00:26:27.300 What did Jesus preach? The Word of God, the whole thing. And back then, it was just the Old

00:26:34.140 Testament. He was the New Testament coming to life before us. We had none of Paul's letters yet.

00:26:40.920 So that means he's preaching in precatory prayers, judgments, warfare, the kind of stuff that just

00:26:49.180 isn't polite to preach today. And the church growth consultants from Willow Creek and Saddleback

00:26:53.720 told us. Won't bring in those soccer moms, see that as Karen, that are the key to unlocking the 1.00

00:27:00.420 suburbs. That is, by the way, church growth consultants speak for you getting the level 0.96

00:27:05.620 of funding you want to build the pottery barn church you desire. And it all came from this one

00:27:14.760 lie that the greatest commandment now is to love the Lord, is to love your neighbor as you love

00:27:20.580 yourself. And somewhere down the line is number two. Love the Lord your God while your heart,

00:27:26.540 soul, strength, and mind. The summary of the first tablet. Love your neighbors, love yourself.

00:27:29.600 The summary of the second. My concern, because I'm a student of history, and pendulums tend to

00:27:38.040 swing violently in one direction or the other. Because as a species, the one thing we're, well,

00:27:43.220 two things. The two things we're really good at as a species, we are all master idol makers.

00:27:50.580 even my adorable little granddaughter, Autumn,

00:27:55.060 who I promise is cuter than all of your grandkids,

00:27:57.880 and I'll bite you, all right?

00:27:59.580 See me after, okay?

00:28:03.560 We went over to watch her a couple of weeks ago,

00:28:05.800 and everything was going great

00:28:09.220 until Grandma said a magic little word.

00:28:13.200 What word do you think that was?

00:28:15.320 No.

00:28:16.800 Oh, yes. 1.00

00:28:17.800 and she's like this redhead with blue eyes. 1.00

00:28:23.020 Redheads always have green eyes, 1.00

00:28:24.580 not that those aren't great, 1.00

00:28:26.140 but she's a redhead with blue eyes. 0.98

00:28:28.180 She is the picture of adorable, 0.99

00:28:30.860 but when Grandma said no,

00:28:34.080 she was like, what you talking about, Willis?

00:28:37.720 I don't get told no.

00:28:40.620 So yes, even the very picture of loveliness,

00:28:44.440 in fact, that's my nickname for her, 0.75

00:28:46.900 Loveliness, that's what I call her.

00:28:49.540 The very picture of loveliness, Autumn Elizabeth,

00:28:52.840 is already, at the ripe old age of one,

00:28:57.420 an absolute master idol maker.

00:29:01.620 As we get older, here's the other thing we become great at too.

00:29:05.600 Reactionaryism.

00:29:06.800 Now sometimes reactionaryism is good.

00:29:10.300 Somebody breaks into your home, threatens your family.

00:29:13.160 your instant reaction is to get up and harm them

00:29:15.860 before they harm the ones you love.

00:29:17.220 That's a good reaction, right?

00:29:19.480 So there's nothing wrong, inherently wrong with reactionism

00:29:22.400 but like everything else

00:29:23.940 it has to be tethered to something.

00:29:26.080 The reason why that reaction is good

00:29:28.180 is because that is a husband and a father

00:29:30.180 fulfilling his God-ordained role.

00:29:33.900 But without it being tethered to something

00:29:35.880 it's just a reaction.

00:29:37.700 It might even be the opposite reaction of what is bad

00:29:40.260 but in the kingdom of God that does not make it good.

00:29:43.160 God's standards are not subjective. He doesn't compare righteousness to what we understand as

00:29:48.240 bad and therefore say, well, the opposite of what you think is bad is therefore good. No.

00:29:54.140 Why do bad things happen to good people? Wrong. There aren't any good people.

00:29:59.900 Why does God use problematic people? There's only problematic people.

00:30:05.620 The standard and ethics of the kingdom of God are not the same as ours. He does not live a binary

00:30:09.940 existence. He is both imminent and transcendent. And the challenge for us

00:30:14.500 is to emulate that as best we can by the power of his Holy Spirit, the hope of glory Christ at

00:30:22.200 work in us. So the reaction I fear I am starting to see, and I am worried about this, and I say

00:30:30.500 this as someone that has made this mistake myself, the reaction to the old heresy of

00:30:36.680 we can offend God but never offend our neighbor

00:30:39.180 is to go the other way now

00:30:41.160 and just, let's just take the second commandment out altogether.

00:30:46.100 Jesus said it's the second greatest commandment, folks.

00:30:48.380 I still think it's kind of important to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

00:30:53.600 Some of you may have heard my interview recently

00:30:55.580 with a young man

00:30:57.800 who is very sympathetic to much of what's being said at this conference.

00:31:02.120 But I had seen some things on his ex-account I was very troubled by.

00:31:07.400 So I asked him to come on, and he did.

00:31:09.820 And I gave him a chance to tell me what he thought.

00:31:13.540 If you listen to my reaction, over and over again, I kept saying to him,

00:31:16.860 we have to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

00:31:21.480 I'm sorry that a generation of church growth consultants hijacked that to mean

00:31:25.780 stand for nothing, believe in nothing, do nothing,

00:31:29.600 except create tithing units and fake converts

00:31:32.480 and mega malls in the suburbs that sit open and do nothing but gather weeds to be mowed at two

00:31:39.940 o'clock on a Tuesday while all literal hell is reeking and waving and breaking loose in the

00:31:45.000 culture. I'm sorry that that phrase got hijacked. However, that doesn't mean God canceled it.

00:31:53.520 It is still here. The goal of the believer is to not hear the jerkster called and they're all out 0.98

00:32:01.240 you. That is not the goal. Now, it may happen no matter what we do, because look what they did to 0.98

00:32:09.840 the green tree, and he healed his enemies. On the cross, he said, Father, forgive them. They know not

00:32:20.080 what they do. While we were his enemies, Christ died for us. He healed his enemies. He saved his

00:32:26.600 enemies, did more for his enemies than we could ever possibly dream or hope to do. They hung him

00:32:33.740 nevertheless. But if that happens to you, dear brother and sister, let it be because your

00:32:43.280 righteousness, holiness, convicts them of their lack of their own.

00:32:48.480 not because you fulfilled the stereotype of ourselves for them.

00:32:55.640 You created your own self-fulfilling prophecy.

00:32:59.040 Listen, there is no nice way.

00:33:00.380 I communicate for a living.

00:33:01.540 I'm paid fairly well.

00:33:02.740 I get hired by companies and candidates to help them communicate.

00:33:06.400 Let me just tell you, I looked.

00:33:07.660 I've done the best I could.

00:33:08.720 Maybe someone else has come up with it.

00:33:09.980 I have no way to come up with a non-offensive way to say, 1.00

00:33:13.500 you're a sinner. 1.00

00:33:14.240 You want hell. 1.00

00:33:15.100 You desire hell. 1.00

00:33:16.120 You deserve hell. 1.00

00:33:17.020 And hell is where you will go unless you believe in this one singular truth in all the cosmos 0.99

00:33:22.320 manifested by the word made flesh.

00:33:26.600 And if you do not, and you deny that atonement and do not accept that grace and mercy,

00:33:32.280 the hell you desire is where you will go no matter what else you do with the rest of your life.

00:33:38.440 There is no non-offensive way for that message to be preached.

00:33:42.320 So don't try.

00:33:43.540 but don't try to automatically be as offensive as you can either

00:33:48.580 the last generation of pastors

00:33:51.240 I want to speak specifically to pastors in this room

00:33:54.040 the last generation of pastors

00:33:56.740 was too cognizant of the crowd

00:34:00.060 and so they catered their messages to the crowd

00:34:04.260 and if you want real discipleship

00:34:06.240 if you really want to hear the word of God

00:34:08.180 come back on Sunday night

00:34:10.000 and your spare time again

00:34:14.880 when your kids would rather have family movie night

00:34:17.620 come back again and then we'll actually do our jobs 1.00

00:34:21.020 but Sunday services are for the unbelievers and the seekers 1.00

00:34:25.260 no they're not 0.97

00:34:26.400 church is a hospital for sinners

00:34:29.180 it's for the equipping of the saints

00:34:31.280 there's a separate office for evangelists

00:34:34.420 the pastor is to be the teacher

00:34:37.040 he is the disciple

00:34:38.880 You are not to come, there's no twilight doubleheaders in the church.

00:34:43.160 You don't come back later for the second game and then get the really good pitching.

00:34:47.940 No, do your job.

00:34:53.900 However, I think the challenge for the new generation that we're trying to raise up,

00:35:00.380 and some of them are in this room, is that this thing right here,

00:35:05.280 and man I feel this tension too

00:35:08.440 I feel this tension too

00:35:11.400 the amount of notes I've gotten over the course of my career

00:35:14.220 you've discipled me more than my church has

00:35:17.740 you've done more for me than my pastor has

00:35:21.220 and I'm like dude I am so jacked up

00:35:23.760 I don't even know what to do with that

00:35:25.120 I never intended to teach as much theology on my show

00:35:31.180 as I ended up having to do

00:35:32.880 Now it's the most asked for content that we do.

00:35:37.720 I didn't join, I didn't become a pastor

00:35:39.700 because I don't have the heart

00:35:40.880 to go to your hospital room at 3 a.m.

00:35:43.200 I don't.

00:35:46.040 The standing up here and preaching is the easy part.

00:35:48.360 It's the rest of the stuff that's really hard.

00:35:53.000 And I've had to accept in the last couple of years

00:35:55.120 that I am in this role whether I want it or not.

00:35:58.660 But this beckons, this calls,

00:36:01.540 like a siren song, and the ability to reach way more people than I'd ever be able to get into

00:36:08.620 one of my services. So now I'm going to do maybe the opposite, where the previous era of pastors

00:36:15.080 watered down the messages for the crowd they could get that otherwise would not have come.

00:36:20.660 Because, of course, it was not the Holy Spirit bringing people to them, but their unique,

00:36:25.260 clever methods. God could only bake the cake himself. He needed humans to give him the

00:36:31.420 frosting. Your slam and praise team is what actually did it. God was like, oh, snap. I wasn't

00:36:38.740 sure how I was going to reach zip code 78115. And then Seeker Friendly Church ABXYZ came up

00:36:47.860 with this really cool solo. And look at the people there. Thank you, God. Thank you, humans.

00:36:52.520 That is literally the attitude many of our churches took the last quarter century or so

00:36:58.000 But here's the thing, the temptation of this thing now is though

00:37:02.820 That I can now reach way more people

00:37:07.920 With my ministry than I could ever hope to get into a room like this

00:37:11.940 Or on a Sunday

00:37:12.620 And here's the thing, just like the previous generation changed the message

00:37:17.880 To keep people and get them in the doors

00:37:20.540 This thing encourages a different kind of communication

00:37:23.640 to reach them in this arena.

00:37:25.860 And often it's not the kinds of things you'd ever say from a pulpit.

00:37:30.680 Because saying them are the kinds of things

00:37:32.620 that probably would make you not the pastor

00:37:35.020 that someone would call at 3 a.m.

00:37:37.440 when they're sick, when their kid didn't come home last night

00:37:40.620 and you don't know where they are.

00:37:43.420 When their mom is dying and you don't know that she knows Christ.

00:37:50.860 The temptation here now is to ratchet it up.

00:37:55.440 And whoever is the biggest provocateur wins.

00:38:00.080 Rage baiting gets the clicks.

00:38:02.280 If we went to incentivizing nicer than God heresy in the last generation,

00:38:07.360 this device right here and the allure of it

00:38:09.960 will incentivize your anger and frustration and venting

00:38:14.440 more than anything, any societal construct in human history.

00:38:18.020 It's called the algorithm.

00:38:20.020 this sounds hard

00:38:24.500 it is, that's why it's called a narrow road

00:38:26.960 and I don't know the balance all the time

00:38:31.280 between not falling into one fallacy or another

00:38:34.040 that's why I need the Holy Spirit

00:38:36.060 that's why I need accountability

00:38:37.520 that's why I have a board

00:38:41.680 the very men that gave them money for me to start my show

00:38:45.480 and take it national

00:38:46.360 I keep them around

00:38:48.980 I'm blessed to have them

00:38:50.140 even though we're way profitable now

00:38:52.220 because they hold me accountable

00:38:54.080 they say why, why, why

00:38:56.320 because without accountability

00:38:59.820 I will become exactly like what I got

00:39:02.220 into this business to stop

00:39:03.500 and so will we all

00:39:05.060 and that brings me back to John the Baptist

00:39:11.800 the same John the Baptist

00:39:16.600 who looked at Herod and said 0.97

00:39:19.160 you are a whoremonger 1.00

00:39:20.540 and your wife is a whore 1.00

00:39:22.680 and you're vile 1.00

00:39:24.840 and what you're doing is unrighteous

00:39:27.400 and God will judge it

00:39:30.300 that is the same John the Baptist who said 0.52

00:39:35.040 I must decrease 0.83

00:39:37.860 so that he will increase

00:39:39.580 if you want to know how you can tell if you are prophetically provoking people

00:39:49.040 and this is a culture raise your hand if you don't think this culture needs prophetically

00:39:53.780 provoked because you're in the wrong room all right this culture needs prophetically provoked

00:39:59.700 every day 15 times on sunday and again back to what i said at the top i'm as competitive as they

00:40:06.680 come. And I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I like culture wars better when my side wins.

00:40:10.920 Can I get an amen on that? That being said, what is the test with whether we're building our own

00:40:19.860 brand, whether we have fallen into the trap of answering what this device wants and incentivizes?

00:40:26.900 Because let me tell you what this device does not want, the word of God to go out.

00:40:31.400 because nothing in trash world does.

00:40:36.900 The question is, are we able to redeem something

00:40:40.020 so the word of God will go out

00:40:41.680 whether it wants it to or not

00:40:43.680 because God is sovereign over trash world

00:40:46.300 and Christ is king over all.

00:40:51.800 Now, how do we tell?

00:40:53.460 What's the fruit?

00:40:56.560 You know, there's no book of John the Baptist.

00:40:58.080 In fact, John the Baptist shows up as a key player in someone else's story.

00:41:09.440 He's a forerunner.

00:41:11.240 He's a subplot.

00:41:13.100 He's not the main event.

00:41:16.720 Even early on, when the Sanhedrin comes to him and says,

00:41:20.560 Are you Elijah?

00:41:22.520 Are you the Christ?

00:41:23.740 I am a voice

00:41:26.520 crying out in the wilderness

00:41:28.660 make a straight path for the Lord

00:41:31.700 and one will come

00:41:33.700 whose sandals I'm not even

00:41:35.560 worthy of tying

00:41:36.860 I'm

00:41:39.260 nobody

00:41:40.220 nobody

00:41:41.820 you can tell

00:41:46.700 if you're being

00:41:48.160 prophetically

00:41:51.140 provoking because

00:41:52.920 you're pointing people to Christ.

00:41:55.700 When Christ confronts Saul on the road to Damascus,

00:41:59.520 he does not say, why are you persecuting my followers?

00:42:01.980 That's not what he says.

00:42:02.760 What does he say?

00:42:04.140 Why are you persecuting me?

00:42:08.640 You can tell if you're prophetically provoking a culture

00:42:11.200 in desperate need of it

00:42:12.160 if it forces them to look at Christ.

00:42:18.360 If you are the subplot,

00:42:20.560 if you are just a voice

00:42:21.920 crying out in the wilderness.

00:42:24.700 If you are a forerunner,

00:42:27.020 if you're the undercard,

00:42:29.660 if you recognize I represent one whose sandals

00:42:33.280 I'm not even worthy to tie.

00:42:39.640 Or, if all they talk about is you,

00:42:45.500 for a while, it'll work.

00:42:47.660 but in the end

00:42:52.100 if you make it about you

00:42:56.720 you'll fall 0.99

00:42:57.560 and that is true

00:43:00.500 for every man in this room especially

00:43:02.520 I mentioned earlier in the panel

00:43:07.840 I want to make sure I'm

00:43:11.960 keeping on time

00:43:13.640 my wife and I went through a very difficult time

00:43:20.180 five years ago

00:43:21.000 and like most men I didn't recognize it 0.91

00:43:24.340 until it was

00:43:26.840 almost too late

00:43:28.820 and the one thing I can

00:43:34.740 you know

00:43:35.520 there's only one thing I think I did right

00:43:37.880 during that period of time

00:43:39.960 and it was so ironic to me

00:43:42.680 Todd and Aaron don't even know. I'm telling nobody. They found out when I admitted this to the

00:43:47.820 audience. Kids didn't know. They found out when I admitted this to the audience. I'm at the point

00:43:54.900 that I am doing maybe the most important work I think I'll ever do the rest of my career. I've

00:43:58.360 run into a handful of you that have said, you may have saved my life or someone I care about's life

00:44:03.460 for the work that you did during COVID. I got up one morning early on. I had questions. Something

00:44:09.260 seems suspicious to me. I just woke up one morning with a conviction, a deep, unabiding conviction

00:44:15.080 that the reason why a 14-year-old girl at Des Moines Lincoln High School had sex with her high

00:44:21.240 school senior boyfriend in the fall of 1972 and conceived me and everything I have gone through,

00:44:27.980 the abuse I went through, everything else I went through, was so that I would be in this moment

00:44:32.700 right here. And I was to take all the credibility and everything that I've worked so hard for and

00:44:38.400 built on and risk it all and go all in for this moment. My reason for being the platform God gave

00:44:44.660 me was this moment, go all in. I just knew. And I'm doing the most important work maybe I will ever do.

00:44:53.960 But I've neglected really what's supposed to be the most important work I will ever do.

00:44:58.640 And things are falling apart at home while I'm getting more accolades than ever at work.

00:45:03.680 and the only thing

00:45:06.460 as I look back on that time now

00:45:08.000 and the miracle that God did in our marriage

00:45:10.740 the only thing I think I got

00:45:14.580 right during that period of time

00:45:16.280 is even though I'm deeply in sin

00:45:20.320 and I'm contemplating

00:45:22.380 going even deeper

00:45:23.400 I never gave up on my faith

00:45:26.360 I didn't stop

00:45:28.360 going to church

00:45:29.060 there were nights where

00:45:32.280 Amy would not share a bed with me, and I'm sleeping alone.

00:45:36.020 I never tried to hide.

00:45:37.220 I didn't act like God was not aware of what was going on.

00:45:40.420 I mean, God, I mean, I had out loud, long conversations deep into the night,

00:45:45.020 one-on-one, literal wrestling with God kind of stuff at night.

00:45:53.060 And I think that's maybe what it means when God says David is a man after his own heart.

00:45:57.120 Even though he's an accomplished to murder, he's a serial adulterer, he's a terrible father,

00:46:01.320 one of his sons rapes his daughter, he has nothing to say, causes a revolution in his own kingdom. 0.90

00:46:08.860 But if you notice throughout the course of David's life, he falls a lot.

00:46:14.020 But he always recognizes that God is God and I am not.

00:46:19.560 And that humility is why God never runs out of grace for him.

00:46:25.460 And the line of the Messiah runs through him to this day.

00:46:28.260 humility isn't a tone

00:46:32.440 humility isn't I didn't offend you

00:46:36.720 it's not a piety

00:46:38.440 that's another form of ego

00:46:40.300 oh woe is me

00:46:42.160 I'm just so terrible

00:46:43.780 that's the human

00:46:47.040 that's the emotional equivalent of 0.98

00:46:48.740 please tell me that the jeans don't make my butt look big

00:46:51.080 and how pretty I am 0.60

00:46:52.040 that's called fishing for a compliment

00:46:54.400 that's not humility

00:46:56.880 Humility is God is God and I am not.

00:47:00.420 Humility is my life is not my own.

00:47:02.540 I was bought at a high price.

00:47:04.480 A man, a God became man and gave his own life for me.

00:47:10.260 I've been redeemed at a high, bought back, saved at a high cost.

00:47:17.700 I am to be a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

00:47:21.240 and only then when I am performing that task

00:47:24.720 do I truly know God's perfect and pleasing will for my life

00:47:28.180 I am telling you right now

00:47:29.700 I don't care how many Bible verses you know

00:47:31.720 I don't care how based you are 0.97

00:47:33.480 and I don't care how much of a following you have

00:47:35.920 if you do not live that life

00:47:37.760 you will not fulfill your mission in the kingdom of God

00:47:40.260 God will not bless it and you will fall

00:47:42.580 because you're really not that important

00:47:47.240 none of us are

00:47:48.380 I'm not, you're not

00:47:49.520 None of us are fit to tie the sandals that he wears.

00:47:55.060 And the stones can cry out.

00:47:57.960 And the drapes here can speak at this conference next year.

00:48:08.080 The opposite of the mistakes of the last era is not taking one reaction to the other extreme.

00:48:16.000 The opposite is going back to the Word of God

00:48:20.400 and the understanding that God is God and we are not.

00:48:27.960 So my final accountability or my final suggestion for you

00:48:31.980 is to seek that accountability.

00:48:35.320 Even at the end of his life, John the Baptist,

00:48:38.700 he has baptized the Lord.

00:48:40.880 He recognizes the Lord in utero.

00:48:43.880 and even at the end

00:48:46.320 after all he has seen

00:48:48.000 after all he has done

00:48:50.280 he sends one of his last

00:48:52.580 remaining disciples back to Christ 0.61

00:48:54.100 he is awaiting execution in Herod's 0.86

00:48:56.620 prison

00:48:56.920 and he sends one of his final disciples back to Christ

00:49:00.800 and he says

00:49:02.320 to his cousin

00:49:05.980 are you

00:49:06.580 John just needs one last assurance man

00:49:10.240 are you the one

00:49:12.220 Jesus doesn't rebuke him

00:49:18.300 doesn't say to him

00:49:20.040 how could you possibly not know

00:49:21.640 how could John still have any doubt at all

00:49:24.380 after all he has seen and done

00:49:25.680 instead Jesus looks at John's

00:49:28.520 disciple and says go back

00:49:29.700 go back and tell John this

00:49:31.780 the blind see 1.00

00:49:34.260 the deaf hear 1.00

00:49:35.700 the lame walk and the good news 0.99

00:49:38.200 is preached to the poor

00:49:39.200 in other words Jesus has reset

00:49:42.080 the words of his very first earthly sermon when he quotes from Isaiah 61

00:49:46.000 as he comes out of the wilderness and the 40 days of battle

00:49:50.040 with the enemy.

00:49:57.120 Without accountability, we will

00:50:00.120 not fulfill our mission in the kingdom of God. Gatekeeping

00:50:04.120 and accountability are not the same thing. Just because

00:50:08.160 something was done one way in another era does not mean it has to be done this way

00:50:12.060 in this era. Just because something is done in one part of the country a certain way doesn't

00:50:16.380 mean it has to be done in another part of the country a certain way. Gatekeeping is not

00:50:21.460 accountability. But you know, sometimes your gatekeepers become your good accountability

00:50:27.900 partners. Like that older man who was trying to gatekeep me early in my career.

00:50:35.240 But I didn't turn my back on him. I didn't rebuke him. I listened.

00:50:39.320 I held it up to what I was confident

00:50:43.040 God was calling me to do

00:50:44.160 I fulfilled that 0.99

00:50:45.120 but where I thought he was right

00:50:46.800 I implemented it

00:50:47.700 and then years later

00:50:48.760 he's now personally vouching for me

00:50:50.880 gatekeepers need accountability too

00:50:55.560 so they don't become gatekeepers

00:50:57.620 you have to do this the way I did it

00:51:00.040 no I don't

00:51:02.080 I have to do this the way God wants me to do it

00:51:03.920 and so do you

00:51:07.240 without accountability, you will not be able to say what Paul says to his spiritual son Timothy

00:51:15.120 at the end of his ministry. And if there's nothing more, I want nothing more in life.

00:51:21.400 As God is my witness, I want nothing more in life than my children to stand up at my funeral

00:51:27.120 and say these words about me one day. The old man was not perfect. We could tell you things you

00:51:35.020 don't even know. But over the long course of his life, here's

00:51:40.240 what we can say with confidence. He fought the good fight, he

00:51:43.640 kept the faith, and he finished the race. You will not finish

00:51:48.820 the race without accountability. You won't. And you

00:51:53.960 will just become a new generation's version of the 0.99

00:51:56.560 previous generation you're trying to correct. Give God the 0.99

00:52:02.780 glory he deserves. He needs apostles and not assassins. In fact, I think I'm going to close

00:52:12.720 there. I was in an emergency room in upstate New York almost exactly two years ago.

00:52:22.060 The making of our movie Nefarious darn near killed me once.

00:52:25.100 and then the meds that they gave me

00:52:28.680 ended up killing me a second time. 0.99

00:52:32.200 Amy had to call an ambulance.

00:52:33.620 I'm running a temperature over 104.

00:52:35.900 I'm delirious.

00:52:37.340 I'm coming in and out of consciousness.

00:52:41.140 They're telling me that maybe they didn't actually

00:52:43.360 get rid of the MRSA.

00:52:44.740 It is in my bloodstream.

00:52:46.180 They might have to call the Centers for Disease Control.

00:52:48.720 I might have to be quarantined

00:52:50.000 for an undeterminate amount of time.

00:52:51.800 and then they're overrun

00:52:56.680 at this hospital in Rochester, New York

00:52:58.580 they found me a makeshift bed 0.57

00:53:00.620 but she can't stay with me because it's too crowded

00:53:02.500 and I think I even tweeted out that night

00:53:04.660 I could just sense it, I tweeted out that night

00:53:06.680 right after she left

00:53:08.060 it's going to be me, the enemy and God

00:53:10.500 we're doing battle in this room tonight

00:53:12.260 and little did I know

00:53:14.220 and I wake up in the middle of the night and I can't sleep anymore

00:53:20.720 and I'm in agony.

00:53:22.900 Everything hurts.

00:53:25.640 And I hear this voice in my head said,

00:53:27.560 rise up and walk.

00:53:30.960 And I grab the nurse and I say,

00:53:32.660 hey, can I just walk around for a bit?

00:53:34.540 They said, hey, we're about to wake you up anyway.

00:53:36.300 We're concerned if you're laying down too long,

00:53:38.040 muscle atrophy.

00:53:39.100 So yes, but just for a little bit,

00:53:41.640 just for a little bit.

00:53:46.340 The next thing I know, hours have gone by.

00:53:48.460 I have walked this sea corridor in this hospital room for three hours.

00:53:52.260 I've walked five miles.

00:53:56.860 And it was like nothing else was happening in this world for me.

00:54:00.820 My family didn't exist.

00:54:02.280 This earth didn't exist.

00:54:03.860 There was just me and God in this moment.

00:54:08.740 And in my spirit, I heard something I will never forget, and it broke me.

00:54:15.300 I sobbed in that corridor.

00:54:18.460 Because it's the kind of thing a loving father says to a son who needs correction.

00:54:26.640 And I heard, Stephen, I need apostles, not assassins.

00:54:36.060 And I say that to all of you.

00:54:39.260 The Lord needs apostles, not assassins.

00:54:42.840 This world has plenty of provocateurs.

00:54:44.900 Lord knows more than enough pundits.

00:54:48.460 You know, it doesn't have enough of priests, papas.

00:54:53.380 It needs that.

00:54:58.360 And I think if we take that to heart,

00:55:02.220 we don't worry about the tone police.

00:55:05.040 We worry about, is this honoring and glorifying him?

00:55:08.600 If this is the last thing I say or do,

00:55:11.240 and then that's it, I get called home.

00:55:13.760 Could I look my creator in the eye

00:55:15.480 or am I have to shuffle my feet because I'm embarrassed?

00:55:18.460 how I ended this thing.

00:55:21.340 If we are mindful of that,

00:55:24.900 then I do believe

00:55:26.380 we will wake up in eternity,

00:55:31.100 what Luther called the second baptism,

00:55:33.840 when we rise up in eternity and we hear,

00:55:36.620 well done, good and faithful servant.

00:55:40.640 And that's what I want for all of you in this room

00:55:43.500 and everyone within the sound of my voice.

00:55:45.940 thank you for joining the battle

00:55:48.700 thank you for getting in the fight

00:55:50.680 but never forget

00:55:52.980 ultimately it's for his

00:55:54.940 glory not our own

00:55:56.360 ultimately we must decrease so he will

00:55:58.800 increase

00:55:59.360 we are not fit to tie his

00:56:02.720 sandals none of us has an amount of talent

00:56:04.860 he could not replace

00:56:06.040 a platform he could not do without

00:56:08.700 a voice he could not find

00:56:11.020 an alternative to

00:56:12.260 you're not

00:56:14.520 that important. None of us are. And that should free you up all the more to finish the race for

00:56:23.540 him. Thank you.

The NXR Podcast - May 03, 2025

THE CONFERENCE - Turns Out, You Win By Winning - Steve Deace - Session 3

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