Latest / Voddie Baucham Sermons / Voddie Baucham - How Manipulation and Anxiety Threaten Local Churches - Panel Tom Ascol, Joe Rigney

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Voddie Baucham - How Manipulation and Anxiety Threaten Local Churches - Panel Tom Ascol, Joe Rigney · Voddie Baucham Sermons

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: So the first question that I have for you men,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and answer it, whoever comes up with the answer first,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: or you guys want to discuss it, that's fine.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: The question is this.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Have you ever been tempted or pressured to go against
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your conscience or convictions as a pastor, and how did
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: you handle that?
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Go ahead.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: I'll talk about one that I lost. many, many years
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: ago at Grace, a church planted in Houston, and my
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: fellow elders wanted to make our sermons public. And I
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: was seriously convicted that we should not. I was the
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: only one that was seriously convicted that we should not.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: And So I was outvoted by my elders. So we
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: made our servants public. And they've been public ever since.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: And I really did.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: I really had a hard.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Time with it. It just bothered me. I'm just now
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: getting over it.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: So when you say public you mean recorded and published
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: on the web what were your convictions there what was
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: your problem with that.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: That I saw a trend of celebrity pastors and people
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: being dissatisfied with their local church and I didn't want
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: to be a part of contributing to that I wanted
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: people to have to go to church I and I
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: you know that That cat's long out of the bag,
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: you know, now. That's like I used to have a
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: conviction about using electronic stuff instead of your paper Bible.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: But I did.
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: I did.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: I saw that, and I was just worried about that.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: I still worry about that. But, yeah, it was mainly that.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: So, what, you just listened to the elders?
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: You just went along with what the elders said.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Because that was a greater conviction.
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: I think those kind of things are actually pretty tricky
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: because sometimes there's wisdom calls and the higher principle of
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: you've got a team of elders that you want to
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: sort of submit.
• 2:50
  Speaker 6: It's not just one guy who makes all the calls.
• 2:52
  Speaker 6: It's the plurality, which is a real value.
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: And so you have to be willing to lose the
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: case sometimes.
• 2:58
  Speaker 6: But you've got to be able to make the case.
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: You can't just sort of go along. And I think
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: in a pastoral context, one of the things that we
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: really valued at the church that I was a part
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: of and planted in Minnesota was our elders had a
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: real conviction to mine for conflict and to try to
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: bring any, if there was stuff that was kind of
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: under the table, conflict, it needed to get on the table.
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: If there was differences, if guys were seeing directions or
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: things that were a problem or that they were uncomfortable with,
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: it was a real high value. We need to have
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: an open and honest discussion about it. And the reason
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: that was so important is one of the things in
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: various leadership contexts that I've kind of come across is
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: when you start, like a leader has to develop that
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: real sensitivity to where the pressure is coming from. And
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: that then become, if you feel the pressure, it doesn't
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: matter what the presenting issue is.
• 3:54
  Speaker 6: That's the first issue. Does that make sense?
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: There were times where I would start to feel pressure,
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: oftentimes the kind of pressures of who are we going
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: to associate with, who's in, who's out, things like that,
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: which are often strategic calls.
• 4:12
  Speaker 6: It's like, is this a good, is this a wise,
• 4:14
  Speaker 6: that kind of thing.
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: But whenever it would be subtle, emotional kinds of pressure,
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: it was always kind of like timeout.
• 4:23
  Speaker 6: That's not the way that we're going to make this decision.
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: If it's a question of what's good, what's wise, I've
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: got an open Bible, you've got an open Bible, let's
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: have the conversation. But if it's just going to be
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: pressure and steering wheels, then it's time out. We have
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: to kill that because if we don't, then all of
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: our decisions are going to be tainted because rather than
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: making them based on what's good and wise and faithful,
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: you're going to be making them based on, well, who's
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: upset and who's not right? It's those, those sort of
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: things become the driver. Um, and so becoming aware and feel,
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: being able to feel it and develop like, Oh, that's
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: in the room. That's the thing that we have to
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: get out of the room before we proceed to meet farther.
• 5:10
  Speaker 7: Yeah, there, there's been been a couple. I remember when
• 5:13
  Speaker 7: I was a young pastor before coming to this church,
• 5:16
  Speaker 7: actually it was in Dallas and I was an assistant
• 5:18
  Speaker 7: pastor at a large church and, um, As a matter
• 5:23
  Speaker 7: of conviction, I was out of step with some of
• 5:26
  Speaker 7: the leadership and pastor left. And so the folks that
• 5:29
  Speaker 7: were left behind him came to me and they wanted
• 5:31
  Speaker 7: me to tell the congregation that I really needed to
• 5:35
  Speaker 7: resign to go back to my studies. And if I
• 5:37
  Speaker 7: do that, they give me severance and give me six
• 5:40
  Speaker 7: months free rent and an apartment.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: And I said, look, I'll resign. You don't want me
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: to resign. I resign. But I'm, you know, that's kind
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: of contrived and it's not true. I said, I won't
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: say anything. I'll just resign. And they didn't want to
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: do that.
• 5:52
  Speaker 7: They wanted it to be, you know, look like this
• 5:55
  Speaker 7: is my decision. And so what they did was, so
• 5:58
  Speaker 7: I turned that down, but they bundled things up in
• 6:01
  Speaker 7: the budget that next year to take away my salary
• 6:06
  Speaker 7: after several months. And so I just went ahead and
• 6:08
  Speaker 7: resigned from that. And the guys that were leading that
• 6:12
  Speaker 7: church at that time didn't appreciate that and thought I
• 6:15
  Speaker 7: was just being hard-headed. And maybe I was, but it was,
• 6:19
  Speaker 7: you know, there was some principle involved that I just,
• 6:21
  Speaker 7: I'm You know, I'd rather do without the salary and
• 6:24
  Speaker 7: do without the place to live and keep my conscience clean.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: Yes, that's one.
• 6:29
  Speaker 7: The most recent one I can think of is what
• 6:31
  Speaker 7: happened in 2019 with By What Standard. You know, that
• 6:34
  Speaker 7: was a pretty significant one when there were just good
• 6:37
  Speaker 7: friends who saw it differently than me. And we had
• 6:40
  Speaker 7: to come to disagreements in brotherly ways. But then others,
• 6:47
  Speaker 7: you were talking about maybe what you call them squishy
• 6:49
  Speaker 7: middle or something. There are a lot of folks from
• 6:52
  Speaker 7: Big Eva that just came down. Emails, phone calls, threats.
• 7:00
  Speaker 7: This is going to do X, Y, Z. If you
• 7:03
  Speaker 7: do this, then that. Pressuring friends and people in my
• 7:09
  Speaker 7: close circles. Even to the day we released it. Up
• 7:13
  Speaker 7: until the day before we released it. Getting that kind
• 7:17
  Speaker 7: of phone call. That kind of pressure. But Again, at
• 7:21
  Speaker 7: that point, it was just a matter of, okay, this
• 7:24
  Speaker 7: is what the Word of God says.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: This is what I see.
• 7:26
  Speaker 7: You can help me to see it differently, then, man,
• 7:29
  Speaker 7: I'll be grateful. But it wasn't anything like that. It
• 7:32
  Speaker 7: was everything in terms of how dare you. You don't understand.
• 7:37
  Speaker 7: You don't see the big picture. This is going to
• 7:40
  Speaker 7: be horrible. And trying to contrive things, saying this is sinful,
• 7:46
  Speaker 7: without showing me how this violates God's law. And there
• 7:51
  Speaker 7: were a couple of attempts and we had some good conversations,
• 7:54
  Speaker 7: but I just could not be convinced that we had
• 7:56
  Speaker 7: violated God's law. And so because of that, you know,
• 8:01
  Speaker 7: we just went ahead and released it.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember those days. And it's interesting, you know, Joe,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: in your book, Leadership and Emotional Sabotage, and tonight you
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: referenced it as well, kind of that chain of steering
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: that takes place. And maybe, Tom, I think, you know,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: would you say that that reading that and hearing that
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: again tonight, does that ring true to you in that
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: situation where you didn't really care about like what all
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: these big Eva guys were saying?
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: It was the guys that were close to you.
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 8:33
  Speaker 7: I mean, and you know, I love some of the
• 8:36
  Speaker 7: guys we, I just disagreed with his love, you know,
• 8:38
  Speaker 7: and we just saw it differently, but some of them
• 8:41
  Speaker 7: were really being hammered and they were paying a cost, uh,
• 8:47
  Speaker 7: It was hard.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: I hate it.
• 8:49
  Speaker 7: I still hate it today looking back on it. And so, yeah,
• 8:51
  Speaker 7: you can definitely see that. And one of the interesting
• 8:54
  Speaker 7: things is when it was made known to me where
• 8:57
  Speaker 7: some of that was coming from, I reached out and said,
• 9:00
  Speaker 7: let's talk.
• 9:00
  Speaker 6: Put it on the table.
• 9:02
  Speaker 7: They didn't want that. They just kept hammering the folks
• 9:06
  Speaker 7: down the chain. And that too indicated there's something else
• 9:11
  Speaker 7: going on here that's really concerned for righteousness.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: You know, Where do you, how do you distinguish between,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: you know, you're on a particular position, you're on a
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: platform and someone's seeking to move you from where you are.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: How do you distinguish between manipulation and just simple persuasion?
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Is there a litmus test there that you can use?
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Like this person perhaps has poor motives or they're seeking
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: to manipulate me somehow, or maybe they're just seeking to
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: persuade me. Should I be you know, hardened against their manipulation,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: or should I seek to listen to how they're trying
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: to persuade me?
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: How do you distinguish between those?
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think, so this is where, you know, when
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: you think about persuasion, there's sort of these three elements.
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: There's appeals to logic, reason, emotional appeals, and appeals to credibility. Like,
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: all of those those are sort of the three basic
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: things that are going to go into any persuasion all
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: of which are on the table the big when it
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: becomes manipulative when the question of what's true and good
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: is set aside as unimportant and it's an emotional appeal
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: or it's a credibility appeal which is the, hey, I
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: know better than you. It's about who's saying it. And
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: so those two, I think, the appeal to emotion and
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: the appeal to credibility are supportive of what's true. And
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: so if they're doing their role, then it's supportive. So
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: if someone is making a strong appeal, it's based on
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: the truth, and they feel appropriately about it, and so
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: that's coming through in what they're saying, that's good. And
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: if they're saying, I'm staking my reputation on it, that's
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: also good. But it's when those try to kind of
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: compensate for the absence of reasons that you're actually dealing
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: with kind of an emotional thing.
• 10:59
  Speaker 6: That's the problem.
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: This is what's going on with Paul and why he says, no,
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: we have to get back down to the fundamental theological
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: question here, Peter, which is if we don't get in
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: based on the works of the law, why are we
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: acting like the works of the law divide us in
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: the lunchroom?
• 11:16
  Speaker 6: Like that was.
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: The logic question, the theologic question that was getting, you know,
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: covered over based on like who's, James is saying and
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: so and so says and these people are hurting and
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: all of the appeals to the, you know, empathy or
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: fear or whatever. Passions cloud things. They're good, but they
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: can cloud judgment. They can cloud, they keep you from
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: seeing what's there. And so a big part of leadership
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: is trying to govern your own passions and and cut
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: through it to get down to what does the Bible say?
• 11:48
  Speaker 6: What's true?
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: What's good?
• 11:51
  Speaker 6: Go ahead.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: No, just as you were saying that, I'm sitting there,
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: I'm looking at you, Tom, because I'm thinking about the
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Dallas Statement and the people that, the Dallas Statement on
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: social justice and the gospel and the people that contacted us.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: It was this. Like, you know, it was this. People
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: who were saying that that shouldn't come out. Not because
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: what we were saying wasn't true, but because how people
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: would feel, how people would respond, how people would, you know.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: And then some even saying because we didn't have anybody
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: with a big enough name. Literally.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Literally there are people, you know.
• 12:41
  Speaker 7: One big Eva guy on a phone call said, look,
• 12:44
  Speaker 7: none of the guys involved in this have any weight
• 12:47
  Speaker 7: at all except John MacArthur.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: He's an old white guy. Nobody listens to him anymore.
• 12:52
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah. That was supposed to, oh, I didn't think of that.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: Let's pull it, you know. Yeah.
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Who was that, Tom?
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: It'll come out in my book.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: How's that?
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:08
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, Joe, going back to what you said
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: about trying to determine between persuasion and manipulation, it seems
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: to me, and maybe this has been true in your experiences,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: that somebody can come to you and have a really
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: great emotional appeal and have a great appeal to authority,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: and it's backed up by these reasons and these appeals
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: to truth, but perhaps they're not based in God's law.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: but they kind of look like it is. It seems
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: like to me that that would be the most effective
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: form of manipulation. Has that happened to you guys in
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: your ministry?
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: Well, it would depend. People are always going to have reasons.
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: They're going to appeal to certain kinds of things, but
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: usually it's consequentialist stuff. It's like, if you say this,
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: then this bad thing is likely to happen. And when
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: it comes to that sort of thing, it's like, I
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: don't control outcomes. Like, nobody puts me in charge of outcomes.
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: That's not what God, God's not asking me to control outcomes.
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: He's not, I mean, there's wisdom in anticipating them. If
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: you're going to, you know, when I first did the
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: sin of empathy thing, it was kind of a, like,
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: it was, I didn't expect it to do what it did.
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: And so, and I probably should have, maybe I could have,
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: but it was like, hey, let's talk about this.
• 14:33
  Speaker 6: It's a provocative way to say it.
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: And then, but it was the reaction that then sort
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: of like validated the point. Like it was like all
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: these people decided to scream and prove my point, which
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: I was really grateful for. Because of what it did,
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: and it wasn't that that was the hard thing, is people,
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: you know, blowing up online.
• 14:54
  Speaker 6: It was, again, that filter through.
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: And one of the things that you have to learn
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: in this sort of thing is you have to, put
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: to death any feeling sorry for yourself over the way
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: that you're getting your arm twisted or all the pressures
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: getting put because it's really like there's a temptation there
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: to feel like everybody's misrepresenting me. They're not, you know,
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: we put this statement out or we were making this
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: documentary and we're just trying to be faithful. And yet
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: everybody's saying it's because we're motivated by this or because
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: we're doing that. And it would be really easy in
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: those moments to go like, oh, woe is me.
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: This is so hard. And it's like, this is what
• 15:32
  Speaker 6: you signed up for. This is what Jesus literally said.
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: They're going to say false stuff about you, and you
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: better go around the corner and have a little dance
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: because you finally made it.
• 15:47
  Speaker 6: Make sure they're lies. This is actually really important. There's
• 15:51
  Speaker 6: two rules. Don't be steered by the slander. Don't mind
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: when they say false things about you. Throw a party.
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: Make sure the slanders are false. Okay, like don't become
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: the evil thing that your enemies are claiming that you are.
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: So that's also important. And so there's a danger there.
• 16:09
  Speaker 6: Some people can say, well, if they're going to call,
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: you know, they're going to hang me for a thief,
• 16:12
  Speaker 6: I might as well steal something.
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: And that's not godly. But be faithful and then rejoice
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: when they utter false things about you.
• 16:20
  Speaker 6: That's Jesus's words. And it's a temptation to kind of go.
• 16:24
  Speaker 6: And I had, here's an example.
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: I did have one interaction with someone who was a friend.
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: And it was in the middle of all the empathy stuff.
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: And they came up and they talked about how hard
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: it was on them to be friends with me.
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: You ever get that, Tony?
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: Time or two.
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: I mean, it was one of those things that's like,
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: you know, I've just had to defend you so much,
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: And it's like, and you can just.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Tom tells me that all the time.
• 16:53
  Speaker 6: You know, it's like, I've had to defend you. And
• 16:58
  Speaker 6: you can say, it's just been so hard. And I'm like, oh,
• 16:59
  Speaker 6: are they.
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: Are they calling you a racist and abuse enabler?
• 17:04
  Speaker 6: No, they're just saying you're friends with one. Okay. Yeah,
• 17:07
  Speaker 6: this must be hard.
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: And I would start to joke with people about it.
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: I'd be like, oh, that's great. You know, like when
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: people would talk about how hard it was, I was like, oh,
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: that's awesome.
• 17:17
  Speaker 6: Jesus is doing it. Like, that's good for you, which
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: would just kind of bring people up short. But the
• 17:22
  Speaker 6: thing there is the pity party, whether to yourself or
• 17:25
  Speaker 6: other people.
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: Is going to wreck stuff. Like it's just it's a destructive,
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: distorting element. It's first, what does God want? And then
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: you can freely be compassionate and you can all of
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: the virtues that flow from that.
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: But they have to start with what's good.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: And what's true.
• 17:45
  Speaker 7: This highlights the value of good counselors, good church, good elders.
• 17:50
  Speaker 7: I mean, I serve with wonderful elders and I've been
• 17:53
  Speaker 7: voted down more times than I can count. amongst the
• 17:56
  Speaker 7: elders you know and it's it's good I mean it's
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: been great what it does it sets you free because
• 18:00
  Speaker 7: you can throw stuff out there and didn't know that
• 18:02
  Speaker 7: they're going to be open honest conversations but it's always
• 18:05
  Speaker 7: good not to just trust yourself I mean you know
• 18:07
  Speaker 7: if I'm the only guy that has this conviction and
• 18:10
  Speaker 7: all these godly men that I trust with my lives
• 18:12
  Speaker 7: disagree okay I need to back up and look at
• 18:15
  Speaker 7: that but the most practical thing I know in this
• 18:19
  Speaker 7: whole area the most practical thing for me is justification
• 18:23
  Speaker 7: by God's grace through faith in Christ plus nothing.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: It's practical. And here's the way it works.
• 18:30
  Speaker 7: It's the recognition that when I said Christ is my Lord,
• 18:35
  Speaker 7: when I trusted Jesus Christ, declared myself to be a Christian,
• 18:38
  Speaker 7: do you know what I'm saying to the world?
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: I'm saying that Tom Askell is such a vile rascal.
• 18:46
  Speaker 7: It took the death of God's son to save me.
• 18:50
  Speaker 7: So if somebody says, you know what, Tom Askell's a
• 18:51
  Speaker 7: mean guy. I'm like, you don't know the half of it.
• 18:54
  Speaker 7: You know, I mean, look, that's what it took to
• 18:57
  Speaker 7: save me. I've been condemned publicly in Christ. My condemnation
• 19:03
  Speaker 7: has been declared throughout all of the ages by the
• 19:06
  Speaker 7: son of God's bloody execution on the cross. But along
• 19:11
  Speaker 7: with that, I have been justified by that cross. And
• 19:15
  Speaker 7: so if you don't justify me, you don't like me,
• 19:18
  Speaker 7: you don't approve me. I don't have to live for
• 19:21
  Speaker 7: that because Jesus, when he said it is finished, said
• 19:24
  Speaker 7: Tom Askell is completely forgiven. Tom Askell now can have
• 19:29
  Speaker 7: assurance that his sins are forgiven and that he will
• 19:32
  Speaker 7: be righteous in God's sight for my sake. And so,
• 19:36
  Speaker 7: you know, I mean, I want you to like me.
• 19:38
  Speaker 7: I don't like being unliked, but you know, if you
• 19:39
  Speaker 7: don't like me, no big deal. God likes me because
• 19:42
  Speaker 7: of Jesus.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: He's accepted me. So justification working its.
• 19:46
  Speaker 7: Way into my emotions like that, it just sets you
• 19:50
  Speaker 7: free it enables you to have open sincere conversations to
• 19:54
  Speaker 7: receive criticism without feeling immediately defensive and to not worry
• 19:59
  Speaker 7: about what somebody might say.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: About you.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: I think in addition to that the the true church
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: is also an important piece of that as well. Because
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: all that stuff happening out there is usually the stuff
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: that's happening out there. But if you're part of the
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: true church, and if you're part of a local church,
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: that's a true church, then you have people who know you, right?
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: Not just the caricature of you. And if those people
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: out there are doing and saying whatever, I mean, they
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: can go at it. Because I got people who know me,
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: who walk with me, who recognize that truth about me
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: as well. They don't just have the sort of public
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: caricature that's out there or whatever. And for me, I
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: found that incredibly important. And my wife, who knows me
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: better than all of them. Good, bad, and the ugly.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: Those have been really....
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: And for a congregation, I'd say, as a pastor, when
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: your pastor takes shots, you should pray for him, but
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: you shouldn't feel sorry for him.
• 21:21
  Speaker 6: You should be grateful.
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: Thank God that my pastor's doing this. But he's not...
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: This is not unusual.
• 21:27
  Speaker 6: This is all good. And so you can encourage him
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: in those kind of ways. You can know that there
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: are lies.
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: If ever given an opportunity, when somebody says, your pastor's
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: this or that, You can say.
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: Well, no, he's not.
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: But you don't need to feel like you have to defend.
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: Your reputation belongs to Christ. That's kind of, and what
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: Tom said about divine approval and justification is so big.
• 21:54
  Speaker 7: You know, and too, the Jesus beatitude, blessed are you
• 21:58
  Speaker 7: when men persecute you, revile you, and say all men
• 22:00
  Speaker 7: are of evil against you falsely for my namesake.
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: Rejoice and be exceeding glad. For such as they have
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: been treated with the prophets who went before you. Okay.
• 22:09
  Speaker 7: Why are people saying that about you if you're doing
• 22:11
  Speaker 7: what is righteous? It's because you're honoring Christ. You're living
• 22:14
  Speaker 7: according to his word. Well, if they do that because
• 22:17
  Speaker 7: you're living according to his word, shouldn't you live according
• 22:19
  Speaker 7: to his word when they do that?
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: Rejoice. Be exceedingly glad. And why do we find it
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: hard to do that?
• 22:25
  Speaker 7: I think it's because of the emotional makeup and not
• 22:28
  Speaker 7: having our emotions disciplined by the word of God. So,
• 22:32
  Speaker 7: I mean, what Don and I started doing years ago is, man,
• 22:35
  Speaker 7: I mean, we'd go get ice cream or we'd cook
• 22:37
  Speaker 7: a steak or we'd do something special whenever it was
• 22:40
  Speaker 7: an especially interesting day of people saying things, you know.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: And it's just like, okay.
• 22:46
  Speaker 7: You know, sometimes I'd come home because I hadn't been
• 22:49
  Speaker 7: online too much and there'd be this wonderful meal that
• 22:52
  Speaker 7: we weren't expecting to have.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: So what's happened? She said, well, I read Twitter today,
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: you know. So I thought, okay, you know, wonderful, awesome.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: I do think one other dimension that may be worth, like,
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: on this sort of thing, is one of the optical
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: illusions in these dynamics is that the person, one of
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: the tools, steering wheels, is that the person who brings
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: the problem to light is the cause of the problem.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: Okay?
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: And so, like, in the Antioch situation, I can very
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: easily imagine someone saying, Paul, why did you have to
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: go and cause all this division in the church by
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: calling Peter out in front of everybody. And so he
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: would be, everybody would be mad at Paul because he
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: made this big ruckus, right? Or you think about Elijah,
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: you know, when he faces down Ahab and Ahab calls him,
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: you know, it's you, you troubler of Israel. You're the troubler,
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: you're the problem. And it does take, it is a
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: muscle that you have to like work out to kind
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: of say like, no, I didn't cause this. I've I
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: was the occasion of it being revealed because I said something,
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: but like it was there whether I was there or not.
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: Well, all I did was put my finger on it
• 24:13
  Speaker 6: and say, we need to talk about it. And so
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: that was a big thing as well.
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: And a number of the tangles I've been in was
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: reminding myself and then frequently, you know, this is where
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: a pastor has to help his wife and remind her like, no,
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: I didn't call it like, and you have to stick
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: by it.
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: It matters what's true. It's like, No, I didn't cause this.
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: I'm going to refuse to be scapegoated as the problem here.
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: I did not do this. And all I did was
• 24:39
  Speaker 6: name it.
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: And then now everybody's upset, but that's out.
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: Of my control. Faithfulness was the call.
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: So I think that's another thing, just getting clear on
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: you didn't necessarily cause it.
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: If you did cause it, you should not do that.
• 24:51
  Speaker 6: You should apologize. But if you just revealed it, that's good.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: How can a layman who doesn't preach or teach help
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: to protect his church from manipulation creeping in and leading
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: to an ungodly culture in the church? So not specifically
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: addressing pastors, elders, deacons, but just laymen and women.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: In the church.
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah, here's a big, this is actually really important.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: Amen what your pastors say when they say true things, okay?
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: Because you're like, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. You know,
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: if it's always complaining... the temptation will be to kind
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: of go like, oh, everybody thinks that. And so if
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: your pastor is courageous and clear and bold and says.
• 25:37
  Speaker 6: Things, let him know. Hey, I really appreciated that sermon.
• 25:40
  Speaker 6: It convicted me. Or, man, that was a real encouragement
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: to me.
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: Like, make sure that that's in the mix as well
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: so that it's not merely all the flack, whether online
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: or in the congregation. That's a really– so saying amen– so, like,
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: this is a thing, too, about the– like, in the
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: Book of Acts– it's frequently the apostles that are always
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: doing these big confrontations, which can be a little bit
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: misleading because if Christians all think, oh, I've got to
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: be having all the confrontations. No, most Christians in the
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: book of Acts are just studying the Bible and breaking
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: bread in each other's homes and being hospitable.
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: They're just being normal Christians.
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: The apostles are the ones who are getting hauled before
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: the kings and hauled before the Sanhedrin and going through
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: all of that. But it really did matter that the
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: church was amening when the apostles were in the showdowns.
• 26:32
  Speaker 6: So that's your call.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: You don't have to be the one wielding the serrated edge.
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: You don't have to be the one necessarily calling everything out.
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: That may not be your calling as a layman. But
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: it's somebody's calling, and you need to be the one
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: saying amen when it happens.
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: I would say, too, that for pastors... Yeah. That.
• 26:55
  Speaker 7: We have got to teach law and gospel. Teach God's law.
• 27:00
  Speaker 7: God loves his law as much as he loves his gospel.
• 27:02
  Speaker 7: And we have forgotten that in our day. And if
• 27:05
  Speaker 7: you can help people to understand, no, we are bound
• 27:08
  Speaker 7: by the law. What God requires, we're required to do.
• 27:10
  Speaker 7: What God forbids, we're not allowed to do. What God
• 27:13
  Speaker 7: neither forbids nor requires. Okay, now we're in a realm
• 27:16
  Speaker 7: where we can have debates. And there are principles of
• 27:18
  Speaker 7: God's word that govern how we handle those areas of freedom.
• 27:22
  Speaker 7: But if somebody comes to try to say something that's
• 27:25
  Speaker 7: contrary to God's law or to require something that.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: God doesn't require, you know, I just say, teach your
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: people to say, says who?
• 27:33
  Speaker 7: You know, I mean, where are you getting this that
• 27:36
  Speaker 7: I should or I must? Every should or must ought
• 27:38
  Speaker 7: to at least be tethered to something in the Bible.
• 27:41
  Speaker 7: And if not, then, you know, let's raise a flag
• 27:44
  Speaker 7: and have a conversation about it. And I've seen that
• 27:46
  Speaker 7: happen with people who. have begun to think in categories
• 27:50
  Speaker 7: of law and gospel, what God requires, what God forbids,
• 27:53
  Speaker 7: what God's provided, and it just provides some great filters
• 27:57
  Speaker 7: to keep folks from getting too far inside of your
• 28:01
  Speaker 7: emotional mindset to steer you. You say, okay, well, that's
• 28:06
  Speaker 7: your opinion, or you may want that, but no, God
• 28:08
  Speaker 7: tells me to do this, or God doesn't tell me
• 28:10
  Speaker 7: to do this, so I don't feel compelled by any
• 28:14
  Speaker 7: kind of moral restraint to do so.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Is it ever right to compromise?
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: If so... All.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Right. Never right to compromise.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: What if you got a situation where you are the
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: one elder being voted down?
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Is that a compromise? It's just a beat.
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: And it's temporary.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: They'll all see....
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: I actually think it's like, I would distinguish between two
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: kinds of things. This is one of the big confusions
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: I think that happened actually during COVID. Is there are
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: certain issues that I would put in the sort of
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: conscience bucket and your conscience ought to be bound to
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: the word of God. And so if it's something that
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: would violate God's word, if it would be a, he said,
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: do it and you're not doing it. Or he said,
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: don't do it and you're doing it. That's the sort
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: of thing where you ought to be as immovable as
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: Martin Luther on.
• 29:14
  Speaker 6: A bed, like on a cranky day. You know what
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: I mean? Like it ought to be, we're not doing
• 29:17
  Speaker 6: it On the other hand, there's things in the.
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: Prudence bucket that are wisdom calls, where this is technically permissible,
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: and you might think it's foolish, but it's not technically,
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: it's not a sin. Like, you're not actually violating the word,
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: but you might think, I think this is going to
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: be a problem down the road, and you're talking about
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: it with your elders or whatever, and you're the only
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: one who thinks, I think this is going to be
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: a problem down the road.
• 29:40
  Speaker 6: And so they say, we want to do it. And
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: it's not a sin. I think you lose those votes.
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: And then you don't. And then don't say, I told
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: you so.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: But you can say it.
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: I mean, you can say that, actually.
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: This is what I was talking about, guys. But the
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: prudence bucket versus conscience bucket difference. which is I think,
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: I mentioned COVID, because a lot like the actual stuff
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: with COVID ought to have been about prudent stuff.
• 30:05
  Speaker 6: It's like risk management, right? Like wearing a mask, not
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: wearing a mask, getting the vax, not getting the vax.
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: All of these are risk assessment questions that different people
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: could lawfully answer differently. Someone who felt like they were
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: high risk, do whatever you need to do to do it.
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: If you're not, then don't. That's risk assessment.
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: It quickly became this kind of conscience thing where everybody's
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: trying to wield their conscience to smash other people.
• 30:30
  Speaker 6: You're not loving your neighbor if you don't, or whatever.
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: Does that make sense?
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: And it was because of this category confusion of there's
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: certain things, and so how do you know which is which?
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: And that's what Tom said.
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: Is there a Bible verse attached to it? Is there
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: a clear command from the Lord? That's a conscience thing.
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: If there's not, you're probably in the realm of wisdom,
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: and different Christians are going to make different risk assessments
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: And we ought to be able to do that and
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: still be friends at the end of the night.
• 30:58
  Speaker 7: I wrote this little book, Accommodation and Compromise, on this
• 31:02
  Speaker 7: very point. And recognizing the difference is vital. It's been
• 31:05
  Speaker 7: one of the most helpful things to me in my
• 31:07
  Speaker 7: pastoral ministry. When you read 1 Corinthians 9, Paul says,
• 31:11
  Speaker 7: I became all things to all men that I might
• 31:13
  Speaker 7: save some. Well, then you look at what all he did,
• 31:16
  Speaker 7: especially when he leaves the Jerusalem conference. With a letter
• 31:20
  Speaker 7: in his pocket. Saying circumcision isn't necessary. And he circumcises Timothy.
• 31:23
  Speaker 7: To take him on the next journey.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: You know. What's going on there? He refuses to circumcise Titus. Well.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: The issue is not the issue. You know.
• 31:32
  Speaker 7: The issue is what was going on behind that. There
• 31:34
  Speaker 7: were people telling him. If you don't circumcise Titus. He
• 31:36
  Speaker 7: can't be a Christian.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: And he says. Oh yeah. Watch this. He refuses to
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: do it. But with Timothy. Nobody's telling him that. He's
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: going to be around Jews. And he wants. Doesn't want to. Provide.
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: Unnecessary barriers to the gospel. So he circumcises him. And.
• 31:49
  Speaker 7: That one issue of circumcision, you see where he does it,
• 31:52
  Speaker 7: he refuses to do it. And in one case, he
• 31:55
  Speaker 7: does it because he's accommodating ignorance so that he can
• 31:58
  Speaker 7: get the gospel to people. In the other case, he
• 32:01
  Speaker 7: refuses to do it because had he done so, it
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: would have been compromise and justification by faith would have
• 32:06
  Speaker 7: been thrown into confusion. So distinguishing in the categories I've
• 32:11
  Speaker 7: chosen to talk about it between accommodation and compromise has
• 32:15
  Speaker 7: been one of the most significantly practical steps things in
• 32:19
  Speaker 7: my pastoral ministry to kind of know where to bend
• 32:22
  Speaker 7: and where to back up and where to bow your
• 32:25
  Speaker 7: neck and say, I'm not budging an inch.
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: So accommodation for you, how do you use that then?
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: Accommodation is the wisdom calls and strategic calls. Compromise would
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: be the thing.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: That you never do.
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: That's right. Yeah, it's accommodations.
• 32:37
  Speaker 7: All things to all men that I might save some.
• 32:39
  Speaker 7: To the Jews, I've become as a Jew. Lawless as
• 32:42
  Speaker 7: those without any law. He's willing to do whatever he
• 32:45
  Speaker 7: can do, but he's not without law. I have the
• 32:49
  Speaker 7: law of Christ. And so there's a boundary. You go
• 32:52
  Speaker 7: as far as you can. I'll go up against that fence.
• 32:54
  Speaker 7: I'm not jumping over it. It doesn't matter what the
• 32:57
  Speaker 7: pressure is because that's what God says is the stopping point.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: This is huge in cross-cultural ministry. It's huge on the
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: mission field because you run up against it all the time, right?
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: What are the things that are cultural and Don't call
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: for compromise, right? Let's not offend. But there can be
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: things that are cultural that do call for compromise. And
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: in that case, we have to offend.
• 33:31
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I remember in South Africa one time meeting with
• 33:35
  Speaker 7: some folks and with a pastor. And he said, now
• 33:37
  Speaker 7: these guys said they will cheat you blind. So they'll
• 33:40
  Speaker 7: steal from you. And, you know, you deal with them.
• 33:43
  Speaker 7: They're just going to steal from you. And I'm thinking, well, okay,
• 33:46
  Speaker 7: that's just the way they do things here. He says, no,
• 33:48
  Speaker 7: it's God's law.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: You can't let him do that.
• 33:50
  Speaker 7: I'm like, well, okay, I guess I'm not being colonialistic
• 33:53
  Speaker 7: by saying you can't steal from him.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: So it is an important thing.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Well, let's maybe take this away from the realm of
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the institutional church, church proper, and think about it in
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: terms of families, particularly husbands, fathers, and mothers as well.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: How should this, what we've been talking about, resistance to manipulation, leadership,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: these things, Emotional sabotage. How should that then govern the
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: way that we think about leadership within our own homes?
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: You can take all of this and apply it to...
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking about all this in terms of being a husband,
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: you know, and a father. These same categories.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Apply.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: These same categories are there, and these same battles are
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: fought day to day in the home. And we live
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: by these same principles in our leadership in the home
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: as we do in the church.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Are there particular difficulties or temptations that manifest them more
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: in the home that we can be on the lookout for?
• 35:00
  Speaker 7: Well, I can just say that things change when you
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: become a grandparent, okay? I mean, so, you know, what
• 35:04
  Speaker 7: you learned and what you did as a parent is
• 35:06
  Speaker 7: a little different than what you did as a grandparent.
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: Amen. Yeah, so other than that, no. For the parents,
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: it all is the same.
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: Parents get law, grandparents compromise, give the, it's all fine.
• 35:19
  Speaker 6: Um, I think, I think one of the, one of
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: the things, um, well, two, two things come to mind.
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: One is, um, if you grow in your sensitivity to
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: kind of emotional manipulation, pressure, sabotage, okay, you can start,
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: you feel that when you feel the pressures, you're going
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: to feel them in your home.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: It's going to happen.
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: The question is, what do you do with that? So, um,
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: And so one of the things that I started to
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: do years ago was if I ever felt like my
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: wife or my kids were being manipulative, and they may
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: not have even been trying to, but it just felt
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: that way to me, I immediately began to ask myself
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: the question, they're trying to get me to do something
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: in a kind of underhanded way.
• 35:59
  Speaker 6: That's what manipulation is, right? And I would ask myself,
• 36:02
  Speaker 6: why don't they feel like they can just ask?
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: Like that was part of the question is like, why
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: is it this kind of end around subtle thing Um,
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: and instead it should be, have I done, have I
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: created an environment in my home as the head?
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: That means you don't just ask for stuff. You don't
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: just make your request. No, because I would, you know.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: And, and so that's, I would ask myself that question
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: and then again, try to draw it out and say,
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: I think that this is what you're wanting.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Am I right? Okay.
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: Let's talk about that now.
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: And so again, you're, you're always trying to bring the
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: subterranean stuff and put it on the table.
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: And, um, And so that would be one.
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: You should be asking as a head, have I created
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: an environment that fosters manipulation?
• 36:49
  Speaker 6: Maybe because you do, right?
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: Have people learned the way you get your way around
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: here is throw a pity party, right?
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: Mope a little bit.
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: If you mope a little bit, you get your way.
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: If you've done that as a husband, guess what? You
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: just showed everybody how it works, and they will imitate it.
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: The other thing I think that is a, you know,
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: the gender dynamics of this are always interesting. It's one
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: of the reasons why kind of the servant leadership model
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: of husbanding is so.
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: Subject to misuse.
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: Because it basically can degenerate into sort of, if mama
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: ain't happy, ain't nobody happy school of husbanding, which is
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: a terrible way to husband.
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: It's just abdication. But it's done in the name, right?
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: Abdication never says, hey, I'm I'm just going to be
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: passive and abdicate now.
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: It's always going to hide behind fine-sounding phrases.
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: And so a husband has to learn, I'm responsible for this.
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: I'm never going to be able to say, if my
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: wife wants something and I say, okay, and then it
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: goes wrong like I thought it was going to in
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: my head, but I went along with it, I don't
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: get when God shows up and says, what did this
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: mess do?
• 38:03
  Speaker 6: I don't get to go, the woman you gave me,
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: like that's not going to be okay in that moment.
• 38:08
  Speaker 6: It's your house. You're the head, period. And so you
• 38:12
  Speaker 6: can't cede that responsibility. You just can't.
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: And so recognizing that, I think taking responsibility first for yourself.
• 38:23
  Speaker 6: I've really appreciated, I've thought a lot about Job as
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: a model here.
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: One of the things I really appreciate about the story
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: of Job is he's this great man, and before everything
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: goes wrong, when he's describing his blamelessness, one of the
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: things he does is when his kids go and have
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: these big parties, he would rise early and he would
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: offer sacrifices on their behalf.
• 38:46
  Speaker 6: Because they might have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: And obviously we don't offer sacrifices for sins anymore. But
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: what Job's doing there is he's taking responsibility.
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: He's going before God on behalf of his kids and saying, God,
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: I need you to know my kids are my kids.
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: And I'm responsible for them as the head of this clan,
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: of this household. They're my responsibility. And I just do
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: that all the time now. If I'm in a tangle
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: in the home at all, if I'm trying to figure
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: something out, the very first thing I always do is
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: just say, Lord, I just need you to know that
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: this is my problem.
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: Help me.
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: I don't know what to do about it necessarily, but
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: the first thing I have to remind myself and that
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: I want God to know that I know is that
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: I'm the head and no one else is coming. Nobody
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: is coming to fix this. There's a problem in my home.
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: And it's like, well, that's why you're there. That's what
• 39:43
  Speaker 6: you're for. You're the head. Work on it.
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: So those would be a couple of things on how
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: taking responsibility in the home becomes really, really significant.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Well, last question as we wrap up this evening. Maybe
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: just to put some legs on this and have a
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: case study. I know both of you have mentioned in
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: both of your talks that there is a vibe shift
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: and we're all MAGA now and everything's great and we
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: don't have to be steadfast and movable anymore because everything's changed.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: We know that's not true, right? So woke is not.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Gone to die it's it's still here what if um
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: what do you do when somebody as many pastors have
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: said when somebody demands that you uh refer to them
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: as their preferred pronouns many pastors have said we ought
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: to do that and show uh pronoun hospitality what do
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: you guys think should we do that kind of thing.
• 40:35
  Speaker 8: No to send a lie yeah live not by lies Okay,
• 40:43
  Speaker 8: what if somebody works for a company and their employer
• 40:45
  Speaker 8: demands that they do that?
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: Exit strategy.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, seriously.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: You've got to have an exit strategy.
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: I do think this is where the vibe shift actually
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: is kind of helpful, though, because I think because there's
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: this backlash against some of that stuff, I think now
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: would be, if you were waiting to be bold on
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: that question, now's the time. Move that ball forward a
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: little bit. Make people feel stupid for doing that.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: And so I think I think that there is some
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: some opportunities. The thing I'm looking for when it comes
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: to the vibe shift, like everybody's excited because now I
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: guess we they're not going.
• 41:22
  Speaker 6: To castrate kids anymore. And it's like, oh, that's a
• 41:24
  Speaker 6: really low bar. I think we could probably do better.
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: But that's everybody's it's a reaction against the trans stuff.
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: It's like what would actually constitute a shift and that
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: would be something different.
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: That would be moving.
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: Towards reformation or revival would be like if Obergefell gets
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: overturned or if that becomes, I mean, I would say
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: it would be progress if that was actually like on
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: the agenda for politicians and they talk that way.
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: It's like, oh yeah.
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: It's like we overturned Roe, Obergefell's next, we're coming for
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: that one. And the left got scared, like that they
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: got worried that like that could happen. That'd be a
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: good sign. The other things would be secularism. Secularism's underneath
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: all of this. um, we're not going to be able
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: to have a foundation of secularism and it, and it worked,
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: just won't.
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: Um, feminism's another one.
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: When the, when the, um, if, when the Republicans are
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: still bragging about how many women they've elected to office,
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: I'm like, there's not been a big shift, right? When
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: they stop doing that, then I'll start to believe like, oh, maybe,
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: maybe there is something more substantive than simply, um, we
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: didn't want to go all the way to crazy.
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: Um, Instead, we pulled back just a little bit. But
• 42:40
  Speaker 6: at this point, we're just trying to be a little
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: bit pregnant.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: It's a shifting of the over to window, right? It's
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: just constantly moving normal to the left to where we're
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: satisfied with less and less and less. And that's why
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: when the renewal comes, it has to be.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: Biblical.
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: It has to be biblical truth. Not just.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: Less clown world.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: I'm grateful for less clown world, but that's not the goal.
• 43:24
  Speaker 7: I think, Joe, you said this, but we have an opportunity.
• 43:28
  Speaker 7: This is the thing that I hope those of us
• 43:31
  Speaker 7: who are Bible-believing, God-fearing Christians will recognize. God's given us
• 43:36
  Speaker 7: a reprieve, In this nation. And we have an opportunity.
• 43:41
  Speaker 7: And if we sit around and just throw parties. Celebrating
• 43:44
  Speaker 7: the things that we're not having to be. Shoved down
• 43:47
  Speaker 7: our throats anymore. We're going to miss the opportunity. We
• 43:50
  Speaker 7: are still living in a godless nation. And we need
• 43:54
  Speaker 7: what only God can do. Which highlights. I think the timeliness.
• 43:58
  Speaker 7: And importance of our focus. Over these next couple of days.
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: About revival. Lord Jones said it.
• 44:04
  Speaker 7: God can do more today. than we can see done
• 44:07
  Speaker 7: in 10 years. And if we believe that, if we
• 44:10
  Speaker 7: remember he's done that, if we pray and work and
• 44:14
  Speaker 7: do what we're called to do, we could see some
• 44:17
  Speaker 7: things happen in our lifetime that could seize upon this
• 44:21
  Speaker 7: moment and this opportunity that we couldn't have envisioned even
• 44:25
  Speaker 7: a year ago. And that's my hope and prayer for
• 44:28
  Speaker 7: these next few days is that we'll see it and
• 44:30
  Speaker 7: be convicted of it and give our energies to pursuing
• 44:34
  Speaker 7: exactly that.
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: Amen.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: Amen.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Well, that is a good place for us to end.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Thank our speakers this evening.