Live Free with Josh Howerton - Should Christians VOTE for "Character" or "Policy"? | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

What if the worst thing that ever happened to you was actually God's pathway to something greater? In this episode of LIVE FREE, Pastors Josh Howerton, Carlos Erazo and Paul Cunningham wrap up their 46-week journey through the Book of Acts by unpacking the powerful conclusion of the Apostle Paul's life. From shipwrecks and snake bites to imprisonment and eventual martyrdom, Paul's story reveals a truth every Christian needs to hear: God can turn a crash into a calling. The conversation then shifts to one of the most controversial topics facing Christians today: voting. How should believers think about character, policy, political engagement, and cultural responsibility? Is voting an endorsement of a person or a stewardship of influence? The team walks through practical biblical principles for navigating elections, culture, and civic responsibility without losing sight of God's Kingdom. Whether you're wrestling with disappointment, trying to understand your role in today's culture, or looking for encouragement to finish your race faithfully, this episode offers biblical clarity, courage, and hope. In This Episode: Why Acts 28 is the fulfillment of Acts 1:8 The incredible story of Paul's final years and martyrdom How God turns setbacks into Kingdom opportunities What it means to "finish the race" God has given you Why the Gospel advanced even when Paul was imprisoned Biblical principles for Christian voting The difference between evaluating personality and evaluating policy How believers can engage culture without making politics their identity Stand firm. Think biblically. Live free.💬 This week’s giveaway: Comment FAVORITE GEAR🧢 Want a Live Free hat of your own? Visit LiveFree.shop📲 Looking to grow deeper in your faith? Check out the Lakepointe App to access our Discipleship Guide, daily Bible reading plan, and more. Text APP to 20411 to download

How should a Christian vote? When I hear people say, oh, Christians are the churches stay out of politics, what I hear them saying is, don't tell me how to love my neighbor well. If you're a Christian, you're like, who do I vote for? Ah, but that guy has some character flaws, and I'd be tangling myself. No, you're not. Here's all you're doing. You're choosing which set of proposed policies will best slow societal decay.

Well, hey, Lifery Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas. Texas, but the live free nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this. We want to invite you to take a simple next step and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform, and it's more than just watching a service. There are a live host in the chat.

Prayer teams ready to stand with you and people all around the world worshipping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend, and now enjoy the podcast. Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. You took my thing. But I'm going to say, that's okay. Are you right?

Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Go ahead, go ahead. Well, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Arraslo, and I'm here with Pastor John Hous Haurton, and I took his thing. Let us kick this big. And I'm here with Pastor Paul Conyham. How are you guys doing today?

I'm so good. I think as of the release of this episode, we will... Let's general. Drum roll, drum roll. We will have a million subscribers. I think by the time this episode drops. As of the recording of this episode is we're 6,000 subscribers short. So we need your help.

Come on, man. Assuming we're not there yet. So, yes, man, one million subscribers. A milly. So do we get a new one of those things? We do. By the way, I just want to point this out. I don't know which camera angles we have.

There's a bunch of little like Easter eggs in the background of the set here that nobody's ever noticed. Is there a camera angle that gets that picture up there? Does any of the camera angles get that picture? There's not, are there? I don't think so. No. So one of the kids that helped, literally a kid that volunteered from the church helped put this together. That's right.

And the kid had heard me talk about how much I hated. hated cats. So in the middle of an episode, I looked up and noticed there's a framed picture of a cat in a frame with a cat ears in it. That's right. We got the Pete Rose signed baseball back here and then the silver that will soon be gold. That's right. That's right. Man, we're excited for that. Hey, we got a couple things we're going to celebrate. In addition to the fact that by the grace of God, this channel will slash probably already did hit one million subscribers. We have, Pastor Josh, is it true that we have a new campus coming to? June. Boom. Not only is it true that we have a new campus coming soon. I was at a new campus

that just launched this weekend. So quick shout out, Roy City Campus, me and Jan. Like, I was technically on vacation this weekend, but shockingly, because I'm a Christian, even when I'm on my vacation, I like to go to church for my family. So we went over and worshipped at the new Roy City campus. Dude, two weeks in, that thing, over 2,000 people worshiping there. The dagum thing was in overflow in both the 930 and the 11. And, dude, we just sat there and just met. hundreds and hundreds of new people. And it hasn't even, the grand opening hasn't even happened yet. So Roy City, but then here's the big one.

Go ahead. Will you show that picture of those eight dudes? So proudly, we're just dripping this. So there it is. We're just dripping this. So I want to honor not just these eight guys, but the 70 or 80, actually it was 74 or 76 people that were a part of this. So these guys right here are some godly men from a church called Cornerstone Church

in Lucas, Texas. They reached out to Lake Point about the possibility of merging and becoming a campus of Lake Point. And man, incredible location, awesome church, all the stuff in Lucas. We've got hundreds or thousands of people in that direction

that listen to Live Free have been watching LP Connect. Lake Point. So they just voted this week 72 to 2, so it was a 97% approval rating. Pretty good. It was awesome, man. So, you know, I never mind, I was going to make a joke about the midterms.

But we'll get there. By the way, if you're listening, we're going to do all things. And I know some of you're going to have like a reaction to this. Just trust us. We're going to talk midterms, Paxson, Tala Rico, and all the things here in a few minutes. How should a Christian vote? All the things. We're going to go principles for all the things, all the things.

But anyway, so midterm jokes aside, they voted to become a campus lake point. Now, let me just say why that's a big deal. churches whose names I will not use, and not necessarily in the state. I'm being intentionally vague. So when a church is in a tough spot, they got two choices. They have at least two choices. A lot of times what a church will do is they'll reach out to a church, you know, like like point.

And man, we all say this with humility by the grace of God, where there is genuinely, man, like just a move of God. And they'll talk about potentially becoming a campus. Or sometimes they won't do that. And honestly, sometimes, not always, sometimes it's motivated by pride or stubbornness, that kind of thing. And they don't. And I'm going to shoot you real straight.

There are increasing numbers of examples where those churches end up defaulting on loans. And they become, I'm going to shoot you real straight. They become strip centers or mosques. Yeah. Wow. And godly, humble people like that. They made a prayerful decision that was sacrificial to become a campus of Lake Point.

It's going to take us a minute to renovate the thing and get the teams in place and do all the things. So it's going to be a minute. But I just want to put this in perspective because they did that. First of all, it solves our problem of we don't have enough seats for all the people who are trying to come. And it helps us reach. Like in that Lucas area, eight miles from McKinney, Lucas Allen, that area, like, dude, we got thousands of people. that listen or drive. So it helps us reach those areas.

But too, man, because of that, those kids, those guys' grandkids are going to be worshiping a church that's still reaching their grandkids' generation for Christ instead of it becoming a mosque someday. Thank you for your humility. So Lake Point, Lucas campus coming to a place near you in the next, you know, I don't know,

a year, year and a half something like that. That's why I don't like megachurches. You guys are so big. You're all about the numbers, right? All about the numbers. Here we go. The pompadour from El Salvador. I'm trying to give you a layup so you can respond to it.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, do that again, do that again. Oh, man. This is why I don't like these big churches. You guys are all about the numbers? Yes, we are. Yes, we are.

Carlos, we literally have a book of the Bible called numbers. Oh, wow. Read the book of dagum acts that we're going to talk about today. It's like every two chapters, it's like 3,000 people were saved and then they grew to 5,000. They baptized this many of people. And listen, it is all about the numbers. It's about the number of people saved. It's about the number of kids adopted.

It's about the number of marriages restored. It's about the number of addicts freed. It's about how many your grandkids generation we're going to be reaching for Christ. So you shut your mouth. We're all about the numbers. Praise the Lord. What are we talking about today? Acts 28.

But before we do, by the way, if you're on YouTube, you will notice that we're all wearing Lake Point merch. Mine's the wrong size. The reason, actually, that's pretty good. The reason we are is because this weekend, June 6 and 7, at all of our campuses, we have a special weekend, Lake Point Church, Gear Drop. Gear Drop, not March, drop. That's right. Gear Drop, as opposed to merch drop.

And so we do this because this is an easy way for people to honestly just wear like a Lake Point shirt and share your faith. It's how you start to one more conversation. Literally, when I'm on a plane, is how I start to one more conversation about 30% of the time. That's right. So available in person only, all of our campuses, come hang out. if you are part of the Liffra Nation as well, and you've never been.

We've loved for you to come and visit DFW, as Pastor Josh is modeling, if you're on YouTube, you need to come, or Spotify. Flexing his muscles. If you're a first time, but by the way,

this last weekend, I've got a couple people. This last weekend I met a couple people, and they're like, hey, it's great to meet you. You know, we're all excited. And then after a while, they're like, hey,

thank you for saying hi to us, but you said something about free hats or something or like a free gift. And so that is correct. That's right. When you come visit us, we have a free gift for you. So come do that. Also, if you want a hat giveaway, comment on YouTube and Spotify, the word hat,

and comment which shirt of the three of us you like the most. So, you know, you got the green. Green. Cammo. God's glory. And we'll pick a winner. And we'll send you some free hats. Also, to find our daily Bible reading plan plus the weekly sermon,

plus an early release of this amazing episode where Pastor Josh is modeling some of the merch, you can download the Lake Point Church app. Text the word apt to 204-1-1. Pastor Josh, I have a question for you. I will allow it. And it's not about the merch? Gear. Or gear, that's right.

What did it make it to this? Guys, we finished, I think, 46 weeks through the Book of Acts. Come all. Boom, all the confetti. That's a big deal. It's a big deal, man. Our church is not the same today than when we first started the Book of Acts. Dude, you know, you're, and I'm planning the, I'm getting ready to, on my study break,

playing the 2027 preaching calendar. I'm honestly, man, I'm kind of the point where we pretty much, we're almost only doing, just preach the books of the Bible. Here's the funny thing, man, is everybody, you know, I just, my kind of thing is if people got the families all dressed up and got in the van and got the kids all looking good and took showers and did the bass and got all the way at church, they probably didn't come to hear somebody's witty little opinion on something that came to get into the book. Yeah. Yeah. And so, man, it's just, it's just good for us. So anyway, we finished Acts 28. End game.

End game. Because as Chad G. Paul C. and I are going to fight about here in a second. I don't know what he's going to say. I just already know I'm going to disagree with him. That's great. I'm ready. Actually, I actually do know.

I probably disagree with him. Acts 28 is the final chapter obviously in the book of Acts. Let me recap this because, interestingly, even though church history clearly attest to the fact that the Apostle Paul was eventually beheaded in Rome. Acts 28 does not record the end of the Apostle Paul's life. That is what Paul Cunningham and I will disagree on in a friendly manner in just a few minutes. So let me just recap this real quick and then hit a couple things.

So first of all, for our listeners, Acts 28 ends. I'll get to this here in a second. This is what I love. Acts 28 is the fulfillment of Acts 1-8. If you go back to the beginning of Acts, literally in the first chapter, it tells you. Here's what this deal is about, man. It says, you receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

The rest of the book of Acts is just the fulfillment of that one daggone verse. And you get to the end of the book of Acts, and there's Paul, and he made it to Rome. And Rome becomes the staging ground for the spread of the gospel to literally the ends of the earth. So what you got right here, they just shipwrecked on Malta. We hit last week. They're a little three months on Malta results in the conversion of the entire island. So here's what happens. Paul gets on Malta. He survives imprisonment, threat of death penalty. He survives a shipwreck. He does the whole Jack and Rose thing and

holds onto the floating debris to get to Malta. And then it says that barbarians, that's literally the Greek word that's used as barber. I think it's Barbaroi, but it's barbarians. So they run up their little, you know, Jack Sparrow face painted, and they're, you know, they think, honestly, what they think is they're probably either going to kill us or make a slaves. And it says, but they literally what it says is they treated us with, quote, unusual kindness.

It's pretty cool. And then they make them a fire, you know? So you just, if you think about it, you know, you're at the Apostle Paul and you're like, all right, well, I've survived all this stuff. And then I survived being imprisoned and a death penalty threat. And then I survived a shipwreck. And then I survived the debris. And then I made it to the island.

And the barbarians didn't kill. me, and now I'm sitting by a fire, and you're going, finally, everything's great. I can see clearly now that the rain is gone. And then it says that he reaches down and a viper leaps out of the fire, and it attaches itself to Paul's hand. And I'll be honest, dude, if I'm Paul, I'm going, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? You know? And they thought, all the barbarians thought, Dude, this is obviously God's judgment on this guy. I find this humorous, and they're waiting on him to die. And the next verse says, I find this funny.

After waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to them, they changed their minds and decided he was a God. It's like, okay, here we are. Now, here's next, I'm recapping this real quick, and then we're going to go a layer deeper on the theology of this thing. There's a guy in there, the chief of the islands guy, his name is Publius. If you're looking for baby names, that one's available. and Paul miraculously heals the guy's father.

Interestingly, there's evidence, if I understand correctly, in catacombs close by to this area. They think this Publius guy gets saved, and there is some evidence apparently that he eventually became the bishop of the churches in Malta. So it's just, it's an interesting little thing. Now, after this, he stays there three months, he makes it to Rome. you got something to say? No, no, no. What's your face saying? I'm learning.

I'm going to go ahead. I do have something to say, but I'm going to let you go. All right, all right, all right. So it makes it to Rome. Here's a fun little fact. He makes it Rome because in previous chapters in 25 and 26, 27, Paul did the deal when he was before Festus and Agrippa, and he goes, hey man, I appeal to Caesar.

Now, for a 21st century Americans, just put this in perspective. Here's what's going on here. In the Roman judicial system, really anybody that stood before a quote-unquote king, they were lesser kings, they could appeal. to Caesar. That was like the Supreme Court. But here's the catch. I just learned this this week. Do you know the catch? Okay, here's the catch. The catch was if you appealed to Caesar, you could do that. But whatever Caesar said was going to happen with no chance of appeals whatsoever. So it's really like, you're playing Texas hold him and you're like, I'm going all in with two queens. That's really what's

happening when he goes, I appeal to Caesar. Now, heads up just to make this, you know, because we forget the context. And we're like, that sounds kind of, you know, So to put this in perspective, guess who's Caesar at this moment? That guy probably knows. They get, Nero. Yeah. So Nero.

Nero's the guy who kills all the Christians in Rome, burns the whole city, just blame the Christians. Yep, yeah. So it's like when Paul's a people, and Paul knows Nero is a loony tunes. So it's like, everybody in Rome could smell the crazy on Nero like a fart in a car. Everybody knew.

Like this guy's nuts. And Paul goes, I'm going to do it. Why? Because you go back to X2028, because for Paul there was only one thing that matter. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me. If only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me.

By the way, what was the task the Lord Jesus had given Paul? He had explicitly said, you must go to Rome. Wow. You must go to Rome. And testify to the gospel of God's grace. So they get to Rome.

Let me give two little fun facts that you're going to miss if you just read the chapter. So my goal is always to give something to Bible readers. They're like, bro, I never heard that before my life. Let me give you a couple things real quick, and then we're going to do a couple cool things on theological side.

So number one, interesting, when I first read Acts 28, if you read, let me get the, it's verse 14. It says, and so we came to Rome. Now, this is what was interesting. When they get there, it says the brothers and sisters there had heard we were coming. So here's the question. Paul's the bleeding edge missionary. If you're thinking, you're going to wait just a second.

How were there already, quote, brothers and sisters Christians in Rome? Oh, wow. Does anybody want to, anybody got a theory? Anybody got a theory? I'll give you, you got one? Pentecost. Okay. Daggummit, that gham it.

Chatsy Falls East. How does he do that? Sorry. I'm not going to step in your thing. He's like, I'm so embarrassed. No, there's two theories here. There's two theories here. One of them is that.

Yeah, yeah. So if you go all the way back to Acts Chapter 2, when all the, all the rural blue-collar fisherman start speaking fluent French and weird stuff. It says in Acts 2... They said, rapid, rapid, right. Hey, how do you say, let's kick this pig in Spanish again?

We're going to wipe this serdo. That's what they said. There you go. When they started their sermon, that's what they said. All right, so if you read in Acts 2, so who's listening to the sermon in Acts 2, I'm going to read it, all right? Utterly amazed they asked, aren't all these men speaking galleans? And that, that'd be like, aren't these a bunch of blue-stableness? collar hicks from rural east texas that's kind of the vibe then how is it that each of us hears them

in our own uh native language now listen parthians meads and elamites residents in mesopotamia judia and capadocia panfalia egypt and parts of libya near sirene and then it says and visitors from rome what probably happened is these dudes get saved at pentecost and x2 go back to rome they and they started the first house church by the way there's also a theory the book of romans has more people mentioned at the end where Paul does his little hello and goodbye stuff, more people mentioned in Romans. I think it's 32 names, if I remember right, 28 or 32. A lot of people think that's the brothers and sisters that greet him in Acts 28,

all those people by name. So that's one. The other theory, here's one, I got a new one for you. The other theory is if you read Acts 182, this is the kind of stuff you just read and quick and you miss it. Acts 182, the first time you ever meet Priscilla and Aquila in the book of Acts, I'm going to read it to you. It says,

There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontchus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife, Priscilla. Watch, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. So Priscilla and Aquila, Claudius kicked all the Jews out because he was like, y'all are fighting too much with all the Christians. Everybody needs to leave. So then what some people think happened is Priscilla and Aquila, they meet Paul, get saved, then they go back to Rome,

and that's these brothers and sisters. I think that's interesting. Let me give one other fun little fact on this one. So this passage says, the last verse, the last two verses in Acts 28, I'm going to read them to you. For two whole years, Paul stayed there and welcomed all who came to see him. He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. Now, Paul stays here under house arrest in Rome around Caesar's house. Bookmark that in your head, around Caesar's house.

awesome for two years. And everywhere Paul goes, he's like, listen, man, I'm not chained to this wall. You're chained to me. That's kind of Paul's vibe. Listen, man, I ain't a prisoner. You're chained to me. You're going to have to listen to anything I say. And he shares Jesus with everybody he meets. While he's there under house arrest, he writes four books of the Bible, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Now I'm going to get to this in a second. Church history tells us Paul gets out. Then he gets thrown back in prison under Nero, most severe persecution of Christians, then he gets beheaded.

I'm going to get to that here in a second. But Paul writes, bookmark these in your head. He's in Caesar's house, under this house arrest, writes, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon. All right, now, I love this. If you're reading Philippians, and you're just casually reading along, this kind of thing you miss,

Paul just tosses this in. I'm really excited for this. He just tosses this in. All God's people here, where's here? Send you greetings, especially those who belong. to Caesar's household. So here's the deal.

Paul is telling him in Philippians, I'm in this prison cell around Caesar's house. And what he's saying is a bunch of these soldier guys, they got saved. And they are quote unquote keeping me in prison. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. But they're encouraging me to encourage the Christians I'm writing to right now, because now they're on team Jesus.

So there's these little things, what you got? there's this great little line in Philippians. He says, what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. And so there's the circumstances that are happening to Paul that he is imprisoned. He's under arrest. The idea is actually, yeah, that's what happened to me, but what is bigger than that is what is happening through me. And so that's even, I think, just an immediate lesson for everybody is that so many of us focus and basically the source of our joy is what is happening to us or around us. But for Paul, it was got what God was doing in him and through him. That's right, Matt.

And so that's the perspective you've got to have. You've got to be able to change your circumstances and turn your prison into a pulpit. That'll preach. Okay. All right. That's good. Well, I'm going to come back to that here in a second. Well, let me, let me finish this real quick, and then me and Paul can fight about what happened to.

Me and Chachy Paul C can fight about what happened to Paul. Why Acts does not record the final six years, estimated six years of the Apostle Paul's life. I think it's because Luke wrote it before those six years happened. I'm just going to go ahead and. I want to get that out first. Okay, all right. So, all right, so here's, let me just finish what happens. In Paul's life, what I'm getting ready to say is the stuff that's undisputed.

But I just want to, and by the way, I just want to say this. Where am I? Yeah, I just want to say this. If you go to Lake Point, you're 100% going to hear me do this little sermon illustration in about six months because it's literally my favorite sermon illustration I think I've ever done. I got it from another Bible teacher. It's amazing.

So here's what happens. All right. So let me just, let's zoom out. we're done with 46, I think, weeks in the book of Acts. Let's zoom out and just let our souls rest in everything that just happened. So here's the big idea. Acts 28 is the fulfillment of Acts 1-8. So let me deep dive that verse for a second.

So when it says in Acts 1-8, all the guys are standing before risen Jesus, and Jesus goes, you're going to receive power. Dunamis is the Greek word. That's the English derivative of where we get the word dynamite. You're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my, and the English word that gets translated, is witnesses. Paul knows this. Paul, I always hate putting you on the spot.

What's the Greek word for witnesses? Do you remember? Martyrus. Yeah, marturias. So in Greek, the word martyr and the word witness is the same word. Bookmark that in your head. So you're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses or martyrs in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.

Now, you skip forward. We go through 28 chapters of the book of Acts. And guess what we see? You see literally the entire book of Acts is structured so that it goes out in the concentric circles. Starts in Jerusalem. Then the gospel goes to Judea. Then Samaria. Now we're in Rome, the staging grounds for the ends of the earth.

All right. So you're seeing this starting to get fulfilled. So Paul, he's in prison for these two years under house arrest. He gets out. He gets out for an estimated three to five years. That's what church history tells us. In those three to five years, he writes, Second Timothy. First Timothy and Titus.

and then he's arrested, and then that's when he writes. So it's title? All the pastoral epistles. Yeah, pastoral epistles, he writes basically when he's doing a missionary journey. Many people think he finally gets to Spain. Yes. Because Clement in a letter 95 says that Paul made it to the uttermost parts of the West. Interesting.

And in the book of Romans. My people. Yeah. In Spain, bro. Come on. My people. Yes. That's amazing.

Paul made it to reach my people. And by the grace of God, today, I'm here today. There you go, man. Because in his letter, next time somebody mentions Ireland, I would be like, my people. I mean, are they? I don't know. I don't know. Let's keep going. So Paul and the letters of the Romans talked about his desire to go to Spain. A lot of people think this is Spain.

So yeah, in that time when he's basically re-kicking his restarting his missionary efforts, he writes, First Timothy and Titus, and then he's arrested. All right. So then he gets arrested again. He gets thrown back in prison. Now, we know this. I've covered this on a way, way, way back. I cover this. if you are ever in Rome, capital, do not, do not, do not miss stopping by.

This is where Paul goes. It's called Mamertine Prison. We actually know the exact prison cell almost certainly that the Apostle Paul was in when he writes Second Timothy. Second Timothy is the last book that the Apostle Paul writes. Keep that up. It's the last book that the Apostle Paul writes. We know this because Mambertine Prison, first of all, it's enshrined. Like you have both the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul,

were likely in prison there before their martyrdom. We know this because it was the only prison within walking distance of the Roman forum where Caesar did all of his stuff. That's also, non-Christian historians tell us that's where they kept people who were awaiting capital punishment. So it's close. It's the only one where they kept prisoners awaiting capital punishment. But then there's even some context clues. If you go to Second Timothy, Paul says he's awaiting death.

He essentially goes, Paul knows. He's like, hey, man. I'm getting ready. It's, it's it for me. Finish the race. I'm going to finish the race, okay. By the way, we're going to preach Second Timothy in just a few weeks. We're preaching the entire book of Second Timothy.

Title of the sermon series, fight the good fight. Come on, man, fight the good fight. All right. So he's here. And if you read Second Timothy, bro, this sent chills down my spine and we're there. He literally says, hey, I am bound in chains, but the word of God is not bound. This is what Paul writes. Okay.

Well, if you go to that cell, which is the cell, that the Apostle Paul was kept in. If you look real real dang close right there, there's a little hole in the wall. That is literally the hole that they passed the chains through 2,000 years ago to keep a prisoner awaiting a death sentence. The Apostle Paul had chains through that specific hole in that specific cell around his specific arm

sitting on that specific seat when he writes the words of 2nd Timothy. Another little interesting note is he says in 2nd Timothy, he's like, hey man, bring me the parchments and please bring me a cloak. Now, for a long time, people were like, man, why would Paul ask for a cloak? Okay. Well, because this is, there's a, it's called a terseorium, if I remember right. It was a subterranean cell, an underground cell. I've been, I've actually been in there.

An underground cell is a lot colder than the rest of the prison because it's underground. So it's an underground temperature. That's why Paul says this. So Paul's in here. Now, here's what church history tells us. There came a day, and Chad G. Paul C is going to talk about this in a second. There came a day where Paul was in that cell. And eventually some Roman guards came to get him.

I might as well start sweating telling this story. Some Roman guards came to get him. There is at least one account that mentions Paul sees a Roman guard that is an absolutely enormous and massive man. And when Paul sees that man, Paul knows I have finished my race. And he knows this is going to be my last day. Now, if you ever go to the Mabertin prison, if you go out the front of the prison and you turn right,

it's literally like two blocks from the Roman forum. where all the Roman Senate, the Temple of Tiberius, Caesar, all that stuff was going on there. All right. Now, a couple years ago, me and Jana went there. Go ahead and toss that picture up. So that's the Roman Forum. That's like two blocks from Mamroutine Prison.

Okay. Now, all that's a few pounds ago. That's Mamertine Prison. Now, here's another picture I took. Grab this guy. This is a different picture. Now, if you look at this, I just want you to get this in perspective, okay?

Now, where is this again? This is the Roman Forum from an upper perspective. All right. Now, what you're seeing right here, you've got, if you look on one side of it, you've got, oh, if you look on one side of it, you've got Temple of Tiberius. Can I see that again? You got Temple of Tiberius on one side over here. You've got the Roman Senate right over here. If you look way, way, way off to the left, you've got some other things there. I'll talk about here in a second. Now, what church history tells us is that the Apostle Paul was probably marched down. You see that road on the right side of that? Right after the events of Acts 28, the Apostle Paul, six years later, was marched down. That, specific road outside of the city. And there was the spot he would have been beheaded. So I want you to put yourself, get in a time machine and put yourself standing next to the Apostle Paul as he's marching down that road. And you got to think from the minute that we meet Paul in the middle of the book of Acts and he falls off his horse and he gets converted. And we've been walking with Paul now for decades. And now

he's finishing his race. And you just got to think, like what would Paul have been thinking? You've got to be thinking, man, he walked to 10,000 miles telling everybody, keep that up, 10,000 miles telling everybody he could about Jesus. And I'm sure there was at least a little of Paul that was like, hey man, what's going to happen to these, I don't know, 12, 17 little house churches I planted? Some of them are rail jacked up and we got guys sleeping with their stepmom and getting drunk on the Lord's supper and so we got a heresy going on here. And I'm sure he was like going at least a little part of him, would have been gone like, man, you know, did it work? Did it work? Like, what's going to happen to all these little churches when I'm gone? Now, when Paul was on that road, on one side,

he would have seen the Temple of Tiberius, on the other side, way up to his left, out of the frame of reference, what he would have seen then, 2,000 years ago, is something called Nero's Circus. Nero's Circus. Nero's Circus was the place where Nero was literally taking Christians, impaling them on spikes, calibrating the circumference of the spikes to the body weight of the Christians, dousing them in oil while alive, and then impaling them on the spikes so that their body weight would slowly as they burned, inch their bodies down until the spikes pierced their hearts alive, and using them as like teaky torches for his parties. And Paul would have been seeing this, and he had to have been gone like, man, did it work?

Now, the question I heard another Bible teacher asked one time that I like to think is if you could go back in a time machine and stand next to the Apostle Paul right after the events of Acts 28 as he was going to the place where he'd be be beheaded, like, what would you want to say? And honestly, man, if I could go back and say anything, I think I'd want to say something like, hey, Paul, take courage. do not be afraid the Lord is with you and I would want to say something like man it worked it worked and I would want to be able to say hey Paul someday just like me and my wife did in 2008 or whatever someday people from all over the world they're going to come to that place and when they get there in the Roman forum they're not going to be asking their tour guides. Where is Nero buried? And they're not going to be asking, where's the temple of Tiberius? They're not going to be asking, where is Caesar's body? They're going to get there and do what

me and Janna did. Two thousand years later, Paul, they're going to be asking, where was the Apostle Paul imprisoned? Wow. And that I want to be like, hey, Paul, before you walk down that road, get your head chopped off, will you turn your head to the left and look up there on that hill and see Nero's circus. And I want to be like, hey, Paul, someday, where they're impaling Christians on stakes, someday in that exact spot is going to stand the largest church building in the entire world, St. Peter's Basilica. Because your brother in Christ, Peter, is someday going to give his life for the same gospel you're about to give your life for, and they're going to remember what he did. And then I want to say something like this.

I want to say, hey, Paul, someday people from nations all over the world in languages you don't even know exist yet. They're going to come to this spot. And they're not going to be naming their kids. They're going to be naming their kids Peter and Paul. And they're going to be naming their dogs, Caesar. That's the joke. It's not my joke. That's a great joke.

But I want to say, hey, Paul, man, it worked. That's right. And do you know I worked? Because in Acts 1-8, Jesus made a promise. And his promise was, you are going to receive power. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem. You will be my martyrs in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And when Jesus makes a promise, he fulfills it.

Amen. And that's how the story of the Apostle Paul ends. Wow. I'd love to connect, though, what you said from Second Timothy to a verse you actually referenced earlier in the book of Acts. In Acts chapter 20, so easy to miss this. Paul says, I do not account my life of any value, nor is precious to myself. If only I may finish the or my race. That's right.

Second Timothy, for I'm already being poured out as a drink offering. And the time of my departure has come, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. Boom. he knew it he knew it he knew it yeah man to highlight what you just said honestly uh to to emphasize that but also going back to even acts 28 uh when we're talking about what little details that luke includes about the serpent you know it's kind of one of those things that you're like man why why would the bible include this little detail here and you know we can we can speculate

um but there's one thing that you know as i was reading it before this uh i think this is there's something here paul might disagree with me on this but this is, I think you're going to appreciate this. So what happened to Paul in Acts 28 in some sense is a glimpse of the reversal of Genesis 3 and it points to the victory of the gospel over Satan sin and death. So again, Acts 28, there is Paul and there's a serpent and he's gathering wood and, you know, you said it, there's a snake that bites him and the locusts are like, man, they assume that this man deserves some sort of death penalty.

And so they quote their Greek goddess of justice called Dyke, who was supposed to give death to Paul because of something that they believed he had done. And some say you could say that that echoes Genesis 2, because the Bible says in Genesis 2 that God says, if you disobey, you will die. There's a consequence to your sin. And so according to the Bible, the curse of sin and disobedience brings death. So it's Paul and a serpent. Then if you go back to Genesis, there's Adam and even, there's a serpent. And through the serpent's deceit comes death, curse and curse in Jesus. judgment, but in Acts 28, Paul, who, like you said, is a man of authority with the authority of

Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. He is bit by the serpent, but the serpent has no authority over Paul. Luke himself tells us, in Luke 1019, Jesus says, I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you. Paul here in Acts 28, he gets bitten by a snake. What does he do? He just shakes it off, suffers no harm, and now people think he's a God, and Luke is basically telling us, hey, the gospel is advancing into cursed territory and the curse is losing its power. But wait, there's more. Where does Luke tell us that Paul shakes the serpent into?

Does he say the fire? I don't remember. He shakes the serpent into the fire. Come on, man. Revelation chapter 20 verse 10. And the devil, who is previously described in that very same chapter as the ancient, serpent who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur. Here's the point.

What you said, the serpent has been defeated. In Christ, the curse is reversed. The gospel advances Jesus rings. Come on, man. It's good. Dude, that's fantastic. Look at that. Okay, Paul Cunningham.

Yeah. Tell us what church history. Give us like early church history references. Tell us what church history tells us about what happened to the Apostle Paul after the events of x28 and then why do you think that luke does not record uh what happens after the events of x28 and tell us why you're wrong before we get there i'll say even though we may disagree on that i would say we can both agree on at least luke's purpose and his ending there you go so even if we disagree that i want to i bet we do agree on that or you can do the x29 thing uh yeah and then also just the

literally the last word in the book of in the book of acts and why it matters and everything like that So yeah, you kind of already hit a little bit of this, but Paul is, actually, I think I've got a timeline for us to help us. There we go. So a little bit of a timeline. You see his missionary journey. The views of this episode will just double up because of the timeline. If you're a visual person, this will help you. To give a little bit more context, Paul is converted around 33 or 34 AD. So his imprisonment in Rome and death is about three decades after this. So one thing is easy to miss when you're reading the book of Acts. It reads so fast. But we're now 30 years after Paul's converted. So Paul's journey to Roman as house arrest that he spends in Rome is between 59 and 62 AD. Church historians like Eusebius and others basically tell us what you said earlier. He's released from Roman imprisonment and then spends the next couple of years really just kickstarting some new missionary stuff. We get allusions to this in the pastoral epistles.

And then you get Clement who says that he went to the uttermost parts of the West, mainly thinking about the area now known as Spain. My people. You people. Let's go, bro. That's awesome. And so, and again, you referenced this earlier, but he eventually comes back to Rome. And what has happened is the emperor Nero, just really a psychotic guy. It's, there's this huge fire that breaks out in Rome in the year 64, around 64. Rumor actually spreads that it was Nero himself that said it because he wanted to remake Rome in his vision.

So Nero, so that he doesn't get overthrown and killed, has to find someone to blame. Who does he blame? He blames Christians. Tacitus, a Roman historian, talked about that Nero blamed a hero blamed a. class hated for their abominations called Christians by the populace. And when he says abominations, is he talking about the, dang it, the cannibalism thing? So for people who don't know this, in early Rome, Christians were accused of cannibalism and atheism and incest.

Yes. Cannibalism because of Christian language around, this is fun. We didn't plan to talk about this. We didn't plan to talk about this. Cannibalism because of the language Christians would use around the Lord's supper. Eat his flesh, drink his blood. Well, a bunch of pagan Romans, they heard that. And they're like, I think people are like, are they eating people in there? So they're accused of cannibalism. They're accused of atheism. And the deal there was essentially like, hey, man, these idols are no gods at all. That's right. And that's why they were accused of atheism. Exactly. There's a bunch of gods. Everybody believed in so many gods. And here comes Christians. And be like, no, no, no, literally we don't do that. We just believe in one God. Because at that time, it was basically like, hey, you can

have your own God. That's totally amazing. You just have to except ours as well. Nothing, you know, apparently has changed 2000. I was going to say, by the way, that's like first century of Rome is 21st century America. Hey man, you got your God. I got my God. You affirm my God. I'll affirm your God. You got your identity. I'll affirm your identity. You affirm my identity. As long as you do that, we're all good. Yeah. But the second Christians were like, no, man, actually like, Caesar's not Lord Jesus is. And everybody's got about to them. People were like, atheists, kill you. You know, that kind of thing. And then they were accused of incest because Christians were the

ones that were like, hey man, actually we got Heavenly Father, we're all adopted in the same family. So we actually read it in this passage. Notice it said, brothers and sisters greeted us. So all the church members, they were like, this is sister. It's like you did, it's your old Baptist church growing up. This is Sister Mary. This is Brother Jim, you know. And then they're like, well, they're getting married. And they're getting married. And they got married, you know. This single dude met the greeter at the house church in Rome and got married. And so when it says abominations, they're probably talking about atheism, cannibalism, and incest. Yeah, sorry, I interrupt you.

Oh, no. That's a fun little fact. That's actually really cool facts that most people don't know nowadays. And so this actually kicks off the first state-sponsored persecution of Christians in Rome, in Roman history. And you gave some of the details, but there's others out there where they were fed to lions, you know, settled alive with oil. I mean, just massacred.

although there's other stories that as they were set on fire with oil, they would sing psalms as they were dying. That's right. And so mass persecution in this, Paul is arrested as well as Peter. So Paul is eventually beheaded. Peter is, because he is a Roman citizen and he can't be crucified. Peter, on the other hand, is tradition tells us crucified upside down. So this happens. Some people would say 64, 65, a few other people would put it a little bit later to 66, 67 AD.

Do you know which early? church fathers or historians record those things. Eusebius. Eusebius is one of the main ones who records that. He is, yeah. Do you know, when he's like, he writes like the 90s? Oh, the 300s. So Clement gives some other things.

You may be thinking of Clement as well. He's the one who I mentioned earlier, who talks about Paul going into the other parts of the West. So basically, church tradition and history very early fills in the details for us. So the question I want you to answer, Paul, that like all are the Bible nerds,

if you're a Bible nerd, you get to the end of the book of Acts, and it ends, and it's like, well, wait a second, It just says, he lived there two whole years. By the way, I just want to point this out, and this may lend credence to your theory against mine. It says he lived there two whole years. The implication is Luke at least knew the duration that his stay ended. Exactly.

So I don't think it's plausible to say, oh, well, he just finished right in the book while Paul was under house arrest because he knew the full length of the house arrest. But the question is, man, in any, like if you read the, is it Walter Isaacson, who wrote, wrote the Elon Musk biography. Like, if you read that and you're like, well, it doesn't tell how he died. Everybody's like, well, duh, he hadn't died yet. Why do you think this? Hey, dummy, that's why? Like, for me, I'm just a dumb rural Kentucky kid.

If you go, hey, man, why hadn't Paul's death in Ax? I'm like, well, hey, dummy, I think it's because he hadn't died yet. I'm not calling you a dummy. But that's what I think. Tell me what you think and why do you think it? So what's your position, though, Paul? So there's two broad theories. One theory is he didn't include it because it hadn't happened yet.

That's the correct one. Now he's going to do it. That Luke wrote this around 62 when Paul was still in prison or just maybe at the end or just after he was released. There's another view that it was written later, either towards the end of the 60s or especially after 70 AD. Really, it comes down to, remember what you actually post the death of Paul? Yeah, after the death of Paul. And so. By Luke?

Yeah, by Luke. And so I'll get to him a second maybe if that happened, why he did that. Because this is where I think we can land in the same spot, even if we disagree. You nailed one, which is Luke seems to know the exact duration that he was in there. So it seems like even if the death didn't happen, it would seem like if he had been released, Luke would at least put that in. And so the very fact that he knew that had been there for two years is a sign. A lot of this comes down to when you think Luke was written.

Actually, the gospel of Luke was written. because Acts is a follow-up, and so many people would say, and I would be included, that I think it would be after 70 because of some of the hints that we get in the gospel of Luke referring to the temple's destruction and other stuff like that. But those are prophecies. They are, but there seems to be some places where it's winking like, hey, this has happened, kind of a thing. And so there's some debate on that of like, hey, either it's early or it's late, I'm more of a late person.

I see you shaking your head over there. I see you shaking your head. But here's where I would say is that wherever, wherever, you land on this, either way, it is a weird place to end. Literally the last word and the Greek in the original language is the word unhindered. And then it just ends. Yeah. Literally the last word is the word unhindered. I would say wherever you land on this, I'd say the message is still the same. The reason it ends here and not with, oh, and then he was released, or though he was put to death, is because the book of Acts isn't about Paul. That's right. It's about the unstoppable

advanced to the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit. Rome could chain Paul. Rome could not chain the gospel. Come on, man. Breathe. Okay? So, like, that's what this is all about. And in fact, if you look at Acts 1 and Acts 28, there's several bookends.

You mentioned one. The idea that he said, you will be my witnesses in Judea, Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth. And so actually, it's kind of this fun little play of like Rome considered itself the center of the world. But from the perspective of the gospel, actually, you guys are the end of the earth. and then he gets the Rome and then it ends. So he ends it there because the gospel fulfills, or the thing in Acts 1-8 is fulfilled because the gospel reaches Rome.

The other book in is if you go back and you read Acts I believe 1-3, it talks about Jesus teaching about the kingdom of God. Go to the end of Acts 28. And it says that Paul is proclaiming the kingdom of God. So the story of Acts is in many ways a story of kingdom expansion. Churches are planted and they're like, beachheads for the kingdom of God. Interesting.

And then all of a sudden he gets to Acts 28, and the kingdom has now come onto Caesar's home turf, and it is defeating his kingdom slowly but surely, and nothing can stop it. So whether you're an early person or a late person, either way, I think it's the same message. So you think that the, hey man, they didn't record the death of Paul,

because hey man, it's not about Paul. It's not about it. It's not about Paul. I love that. I love that. I mean, if he'd been to Israel, he would have this other man. Maybe he'll change it for you once he goes to Israel.

Hey, when you get $7,000 for tweets, then you got... You haven't received your check yet? No, man. You have to say that right, Josh. Absolutely, man. Okay, you got that check already. I'm geofencing Paul's house to target him with... It took me a second to get it, the $7,000.

It's a... No, wait, is this true? Is this true that the title of the book of Acts, it didn't appear until, I think, the second or third century. And originally, wasn't the title literally just acts? Okay, now here, I do want to point this out. Promise you. If I understand it, and that's all it said, right?

It just, that's it. So literally there's a group word acts. And then people later, if I understand correctly, like, I'm looking at it in my Bible right now. Y'all can't zoom in, can you? You don't have the ability to zoom in. Yeah, I don't have the ability. So, like, in my Bible, it literally says the acts of the apostles. And honestly, man, from what I've read, that, that's probably not the best type.

because it's actually not about the acts of the apostles. Watch, if you go to Acts chapter one, it literally, Luke goes, hey man, in my former book Theophilus, referring to the gospel of Luke, I wrote to you about all that, watch, that Jesus began to do and to teach. And then he goes into the book of Acts,

and the implication is now I'm writing to you about everything that Jesus continued to do and to teach through the spirit. So honestly, man, it's not about the acts of the apostol. It's about the acts of the Holy Spirit. And I would argue that Luke leaves it open in it because that's the idea is the mission isn't finished. We're going to get out of Luke for a second, but there's this cool little verse in John where Jesus says,

you will do greater things than these for those who believe me. Now, that's kind of crazy if you think about it. Because, you know, Jesus, you know, walked on water. You know, he rose from the grave. He raised other people from the grave. I don't know that we're going to top that in terms of the magnitude of a miracle or the effect of the miracle. I believe what he meant by that is that in the context he talked about, if he leaves, he will send the Holy Spirit to us. And so the greater, it's not that we would do greater, bigger things

than him, but yet we would do the things that Jesus was doing in places he never did them. There you go. So Jesus never went to Rome, but Paul did, and the gospel kept going. And so I think one of the invitations that is given at the end of Acts with the open-ended ending of it, whether again, you think it was earlier late, is the idea of now, hey, pick up the mission and continue to advance the kingdom wherever you're at. You know, he could have just told us, too, how he died and still say that too. Yeah. I don't know.

I just feel like. Carlos is out on your theory. I'm just saying, he could have just told us like, hey, this is what happened. But the mission is continued. He's still unhindered. Yeah, he could have done both. I got to be careful because we may open up another can of worms here. This isn't the only place in the New Testament were an open-ended.

ending like this happens. So you have the book of Mark. Yeah, Mark is very open. And so there is, again, this is where I can be careful because there are a can of worms here that might be good, none of the other time to give way more detail on. But you have something called the longer ending of Mark that now most people would reject as it was a later addition to the book of Mark. So the original book of Mark... By the way, that's footnoted in your Bible. You can trust your Bible. Yeah, that's right. It says it in the Bible. Like, no one is hiding this whatsoever. But the way the book of Mark it seems like it originally ended is that the women leave and they're afraid so they tell no one.

It's a really weird way to end the gospel, especially when everyone knew that eventually they did tell people. And so many people would say that again, Mark is giving an invitation to say, hey, they were afraid and told no one, but you now need to pick up the story and tell however you know, kind of a thing. So it wouldn't be unknown for people to end at a place where they knew there was more of the story, but they left it off to make a stylistic point. There you go. man, that, I got to say, that's a compelling way to articulate an incorrect thing. I'm teasing. I'm teasing, bro. Yeah, you get, bro.

What a smart way to communicate something that's just not true? Okay, can I say one last thing about this? And then we can talk all the midterm, Tala Rico, Paxton, principles for Christian voting, theology of voting, all the stuff. Because, by the way, I'm already, like literally the night that the election settled. and it was like the midterm candidates became clear. It was like DM, DM, DM, DM, DM. What are you going to do about this? And so I want to talk about this real quick.

But so let me just, because here's what the thrust of the sermon was. And this is a big deal, man. If really, like if you were to go, hey man, pick a chapter that's like quintessential Paul. It's act 28. It's act 28. Because you got this guy and it's like literally everything that goes, that could go wrong, does go wrong. And so here's how I want to do it. Okay, let me, let me ask you like this. This is, dude, this is so fantastic. And I heard somebody else articulate this. It's just helpful.

So if you read X-28, there's the shipwreck. So he's got the ship crashes and all that stuff. But then he goes on to the, you know, he goes on to the island. He preaches Christ for three months. Whole island apparently gets saved. Still to this day, Malta is 85% Christian, and it's the spiritual lineage. Did you know that? So we hit this last week. So, bro, this is amazing. 2,000 years later, Malta is still 85% Christian. They trace their spiritual lineage back to his shipwreck right here on February 10th every year in Malta. To this day, they celebrate the shipwreck of St. Paul Day. So think about this.

The thing that he would have been going like, dude, what a disaster, they celebrate as a holiday now. Now, listen, that'll preach. Now here's my big idea. If you're there right now, and this was kind of like the thrust of the sermon. If you're looking at this, so on the one hand, you got a shipwreck, there's a crash there. On the other hand, Paul walks up on there, heals tons of people on the island, heals Publius' dad, has the viper miracle, all this stuff. And it was clearly like, hey, man, that was a divine appointment and calling.

So here's the question, I want you to answer out loud. Was it a crash? Yeah. Yeah. Was it a calling? Yes. Wow. Yes.

Was it a crash? Was it a call? Yes. And what happens is, man, when you look at your life, you're going to have a call. million things that you look at in the rear view mirror your life. And in the moment, somebody was like, hey man, was this a crash? And you're like, yeah, man, I crashed out. That was a crash.

And then from the perspective of Providence in the rearview mirror of your life, someday you're going to look back. And somebody would be going, hey, man, was it a calling? And you're going to be able to go, yeah, it was. Wow. Crash your calling. Yeah. Wow.

And really, man, what you got, a theology there of, he will work all things for the good of those who love him that are called according to his purpose. In fact, I just want to shout out this couple, and they don't know I'm going to do this. So I'm going to toss that up here. I can't remember their names, so forgive me. I prayed with this couple in the lobby like two months ago.

So this is fantastic dude. Here's, I just want to give an example. So this dude's story, he runs up to me. I pray with him on something going on in his life. He grabs me a few weeks later with his precious little wife here, pray over their marriage, and they tell me this story. So here's how this dude gets saved. he has a car accident and he runs up if I'm remembering this right he literally just

runs off the road into somebody's driveway and crashes into the back of their truck that's parking the driveway so this guy does what somebody with integrity would do and he walks up to the door and he just tells some random dude hey man I just crashed into your truck back here and he tells him well the guy just so happened quote unquote to be a Lake Point member. So instead of the guy cussing him out, the guy invites him to church. He's like, hey, do you want you come to church with me, man?

That's great. Doesn't cuss him out, advise him to church. And this guy is so affected by the fact that, dude, this guy should have been like ream in my butt. And instead, he's like, hey, man, can I pray with you? I'm so sorry. Why don't you come to church with me? And he's like, you know what?

You have to say yes. Yeah, he's like, yeah, you got to say no, bro. No, sure. You'll drive. You'll drive. Yeah, that's right. So he comes to super skeptical. He comes to church. So this dude comes to church. He gets saved. God frees him from some things. I'm not going to mention here. Then his wife starts seeing, kind of gets on him, gets in him, starts changing him. His wife sees it. She comes to church with him, frees her from some things. They both go through region. They get freedom from some junk in their life. God saves their marriage. They were thinking towards divorce, I think, if I remember right. God saves. God saves. their marriage. He grasped me in the lobby that day to explain to me they just got baptized together as a Christian couple. Wow. Now listen, you look at this guy and I just want you, you can ax 28 so many things in your life. Wow. You look at his life and on that day, you got him out, was that a crash? Yeah. Was it a calling? Yeah? Wow. Why? For we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

And I'll just kind of say it like this. And I don't want to, we need to move on. But when Jan and I look at basically every, like, if you call it a crash in our life, we can kind of look and there's like there was like these three phases, you know, where it's like infertility for us, you know. We, you know, we get married and we're like, oh, we're going to have all our, we had this awesome plan. We're going to have all our kids by the time we're 30.

We're all our kids. We're going to have all. be done having kids about time we're 30. And we get married, you know, we, you know, we immediately start trying to have kids. And Jana has a miscarriage like, I mean, just almost immediately, almost immediately. And, uh, and then we're like, well, that wasn't that hard. And, you know, we'll just keep trying. And then, you know, one year turns into three years, turns into three years, turns into five years, turns into seven years. And everybody knows this. So we get diagnosed with unexplained infertility. When, when that happened, the question we were

asking was, man, God, why did this happen? you know then there came a moment where this thing crystallized in us like oh man it's time to adopt and we realized we wouldn't have done that first unless the infertility happened and so here's what happened is why did this happen turned into you know what it had to happen that had to happen and then dude we're you know we're three kids deep we've done the three adoptions i'll tell you this right now with my eyes sweating, I would not trade one of my adopted kids for a whole passel of biological kids. I just wouldn't do it. And now it's really honestly just in the last like two years that both me and Jana, we look back and we're not saying, why'd this happen? We're not saying it had to happen.

In the last two years, we started going, you know what? We're glad it happened. We're glad it happened. We're glad it happened. And what you notice, we'll do a little theology, and then I promise I'll be done. When you get into the New Testament, it uses this little phrase, I think, at the book of Romans, where Paul says, what will happen at the end is it says, death will be swallowed up in victory. And like Bible nerds, you'll miss this. When you swallow something, it actually becomes part of you. your body metabolizes it, and it becomes part of you. And what that verse is saying is that in the end, something so speechlessly wonderful,

so unimaginably redemptive will be done by Jesus, that every awful thing that ever happened in your life, and I know you cannot fathom it now, every awful thing that ever happened in your life, someday from the vantage point of eternity and glory, you will look back at things like infertility, at things like a miscarriage. Someday I'll walk into heaven and I'll have a fourth kid in heaven

and I'll get a meet him or her. And someday I'll look back at all that and I'll be going, I'm glad it happened because death has been swallowed up in victory and actually in some way I could never have anticipated or explained the victory is now even better because of the death that happened then

and the death became part of the victory and enhanced it. That will happen for every bad thing in your life. So that's what you get. And Acts 28 works all things. Amen. Man, that's good news. You guys got anything else on Acts 28? We're good. I don't think you can top that.

End game, bro. Yeah. End game. Hey, three cheers for the Apostle Paul. Yeah. Chris Scott for that. Well, how do you guys? As you know, Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Christ, live free, and change the world for God's glory.

But here's the thing. Movement by definition, move. And so if you're not moving, then the question is, are you really being a part of the movement? In fact, somebody once said that too many churches are like football games. 22 people on the field in desperate need of rest, being watched by thousands of people in the stands in desperate need of exercise. Hey, listen, we refuse to be a church like that.

And so if you call Lake Point Church your home church, and if you have not yet joined a serve team, I want to invite you to take your next step right now. Text the word serve to 20411, and we'll help you find your spot where you can serve in person or online on whichever serve team you are being called to serve. Hey, thank you for being obedient to God's calling in your life, and let's keep doing this together. we're going to transition towards a little slightly different conversation here. Let's talk midterms and Telarigo and Bexas. If somebody has never watched the Lifree episode, there's a Texas politician and a seminary student.

His name is James Telerico. And he was like literally... It's a heretic from the synagogue of Satan. Yeah. And that's not even exaggeration. I'm not being mean. I'm being accurate. That's right.

If somebody's knew, we'll go there. He was like, again, once again, doing rounds on X, just going super viral, once again, for some of the things that he's shared before. So we're going to talk about some of those. Pastor Josh, you mentioned that people started messaging you. Oh, dude, immediately. So actually, let me cut to the end of while I want to talk about this real quick, and then I'm going to go backwards. So, Carlos, I'm going to ask you something that I text to you beforehand.

It's like, Carlos, dude, tell us about your people. You know, because something actually really weird happened in the midterms that I don't understand. And you, I told you not to tell me what you think beforehand, so I'm going to come back. So here's what... I know, by the way, I know what all Hispanics feel like and pink, so, you know, I'm ready for it. I can speak for every white person that ever existed. Did you not know that? Yeah, me too, for it. Not white people, but, you know. Hispanic, me like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here's what, hey, will you go ahead and toss up,

go ahead and toss up that, the tweet, the given Paxton's cheating? So I want to tell you where it come from. So basically the midterms come down to now in Texas. And by the way, one, one, we're talking about this is, one, we're in Texas. Yeah. Two, you watch. I'm just going to tell you guys, watch. the entire nation is going to be all eyes on Texas from now to the midterms. So this is what people are feeling, okay? So it's Talrico Paxon. So you got the issues of Talarico. Paxon is accused of,

I'll probably maybe talk about this a little more later, of I guess infidelity and has openly owned the fact that he did. He committed adultery. And it resulted in a divorce. And then there's some stuff about, I'll just read it. Yeah. Given Paxon's cheating on his wife, indictments, and letting off a pedophile.

but there's more context to some of this stuff. I'm just reading what they're saying. How do people who call themselves Christian vote for him over a seminarian? The seminarian is referring to Talarico. Honest question. A vote for Paxton is making faith a lie. And honestly, man, I think some of what said there

is a genuine thing that some Christians can be like, ah, what do I do with this? It kind of seems like this guy is, or at least that's what I'm being told. And this guy seems over here in Talley. He seems really nice. He seems nice and kind and gentle. What do I do with this?

So here in a second, I want to talk about this real quick and give a theology of Christian voting that will be sure to be popular every person that listens to the podcast. But before we do that, Carlos, I want you to answer this. So in the runoff, in the conservative runoff, what was interesting is,

and by the way, I may get some of this wrong, but it was, I guess, Paxton was the guy that was, was like anti-amnesty, the guy that was the most firm on border security. And then the guy that he was doing the runoff against, if I understand correctly, and I could have gotten some of it wrong, had run ads, like actually in Spanish, pro amnesty. Yeah. And so, in 2020. Oh, in 2020? I believe it was a 2020 ad that he wasn't full pro-amnesty. I think he supported finding some sort of pathway for dreamers. There you go. That's right. And that's different than just

just full and. That's very different. Just amnesty for everybody. But if I'm not mistaken, I think that was used to kind of portray him as like, oh, he's a little softer on border security. But yeah, go ahead. And as we know, all political ads are always honest and have no spin or clarity. And so I'm sure it was a fair characterization of him. Yeah, sure. That's right.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. But for that reason, it surprised a lot of people that you can go and pull up that one that I wasn't going to pull up, that Hispanic voters broke more for Paxton. than the other guy who was at least perceived as being a little more open on border stuff. And I don't know. Can you, honestly, I text you, I was like, bro, what is this? I was like, tell me on the pod. I don't even want to know what you're going to say. Yeah, so honestly, we could probably throw a lot of theories.

I have some thoughts. So here's what I think. So one, you have to consider that people that voted in the primaries for the Republican primaries. If you're Hispanic and Republican and you voted recently, you probably represent the more conservative side of the Hispanic community. That's good point. That means you're very conservative and you're very Republican. So these would probably be honestly like you're probably a legal immigrant. You're a business owner.

You're probably an entrepreneur. You said a legal immigrant, not illegal. That's right. You are a legal immigrant. You're religious, your family oriented. And because you're all those things, you probably really, really care about border security. So that's one. But if somebody's asking why would, in this case, based on what you showed,

why would more Hispanic voters vote for Paxton more, perhaps even than white voters? If you are Hispanic, and here's what I think, if you're Hispanic and you're living in border communities like South Texas and like the Rio Grande Valley and other cities like that near the border, you get to see a little bit of a close up of the ramifications of not enforcing border security, especially coming from 2021 to 2024, you get a first, front row seat to, honestly, like more crime, overcrowded schools and hospital safety concerns. Carlos, you're so racist. Why are you so racist? Pentanol, drug deaths.

Human trafficking. Honestly, like the picture that you see is bad. And this isn't theoretical anymore for like, this is like, this is your city. And so, and this is really interesting because, you know, we were texting about this. This is why in the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump actually won all four counties in the Rio Grande Valley, which was a historic shift. Yeah.

Because this is a region that has been solidly, perpetually democratic for decades since like the 1920s. Trump won 14 out of 18 counties within the 20 miles of the Texas-Mexical border, basically the majority of them. Which are heavily Hispanic counties, right? Which is like overwhelmingly Hispanic. He flipped, this is one, so Star County is basically like 97% Hispanic. This is the first Republican win there since 1896, trumped it. And so again, they just kind of, when it comes to safety, this is your city security. To me, I think that's kind of like the main reason why.

People don't, that is one thing that I've learned. I didn't realize this until live in Texas is that legal, there's like a misconception a lot of people have that legal immigrants are like, oh, you know, we're pro, more open border. That ain't, that ain't true. Like people who are legal immigrants, they really, in general, in general, really respect, like, hey, rule of law. Hey, man, do it the right way. You need law. Yeah, that's right.

They had to go through the whole process. Yeah, that's right. So they get mad if they had the people short circuit and they're like, what in the world. Yeah. Okay. So let me break this down because there's like a theological question. And I'll be really honest. I'm going to throw my cars on the table.

I think most Christians have an, I would say, an immature, undeveloped thought process about a theology of what voting is that causes a lot of confusion and unnecessary emotional angst. So this is what I want to talk about real quick. So let me, first of all, let me give a quick theology on some things that are going to make sense. And then I'm going to kick it to you if you want to say anything. and then I want to give some principles that apply to this stuff. Or wait, when do we want to do some of the clips on, y'all let you figure out when I'm going. Yeah, yeah, if you want, you can tell us, let's start there with what you were saying. Yeah, we'll do a quick theology this real quick.

Yeah, that's right. So you're going to hear us, first of all, I'm just going to give Live Free listeners a heads up. You're going to hear us a decent amount. It's not going to overrun things. A decent amount talk about this and the necessity of Christians being engaged in the voting process from now to the midterms. Let me explain why that is. Whatever is the thing where people are like, Christians just stay out of politics, whatever is the opposite of that is what I am.

And here's why I say that. I have a theological reason for that. Whenever you get into the Bible, what you have is, and by the way, if you're gone, man, some of this you've repeated, listen, we repeat ourselves for emphasis. We do not repeat ourselves out of laziness. So I'm going to give you a theological framework, and then I'm going to give you an application of it that we haven't talked about before. But every Christian, especially an aspiring theologian and Bible nerd, there's a

framework at the top that I want to start with and then make an application. Okay. So the theology is in the Bible, God institutes three, he creates three institutions that when functioning correctly in their God-given roles and lanes, they work together for the flourishing of human societies and people. Okay, those three institutions are the family, the church, and the state. Okay, family church state. Now, here's the big idea. Okay, family church state. The big idea is, uh, uh, it's a family church state. The big idea is this. So in Genesis chapter 2, when God creates the family, he appoints a leader of the family. Adam is supposed to lead his family.

In Genesis chapter 2 and chapter 3, what you have is Adam, when the serpent approaches Eve and Adam stands passively by, here's the big idea. Whatever God creates, Satan's going to try to commandeer. So because Adam refuses to lead his family and stands passively by as Satan goes, well thank you if you won't lead your family i'd be happy to okay now let's go a layer deeper what about the church if you fast forward to revelation chapter two three two three and four actually i think it's three and four during the seven letters jesus is writing the seven letters of the church is in revelation one of the churches had a group of passive elders who refused to rebuke a false teacher in the church

it's a woman or a spirit that is referred to as jezebel okay because there were passive elders that refuse to step into their God-given authority and lead the church. The Bible says, this I have against you, you tolerate that woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and teaches and seduces my people to practice sexual immorality. Watch this. Because God-given elders refused to lead the church. Satan stepped forward and went,

thank you, I'd be happy to. That happens in the family. It happens in the church, but watch this. It also happens in the state. So you live, let's go a layer deeper and give a theological framework. If you are, and we have listeners from all over the world now, but if you, primarily in the United States.

In the United States, by the way, you do not live in a democracy. You need to understand this. You do not live in a democracy. You live in what's called a constitutional republic. There is a fundamental difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic. That's a different podcast. You live in a constitutional republic.

In a constitutional republic, pop quiz, I won't even make you answer. I'll just ask it as a rhetorical question. Pop quiz, who is at the top of the org chart in a constitutional republic? The voters. Well, what you could say is the constitution. Actually, it's the constitution. But the actual people who are at the top of the org chart, it's the voters. It's constitutional republic. So here's the big idea. In our system, the God-given institution of this nation, who has God put at the top of the org chart to exercise leadership in this God-given institution of governance in the United States? It's you.

it's you. So here's the big idea. Just like in the family, if the person that God put in authority of the family refuses to lead, Satan will be happy to lead your family. If elders refuse to lead a church, Satan will be happy to lead your church. If godly people refuse to exercise the gracious gift of the authority, a fractional leadership of their nation, Satan goes, thank you. I'd be happy to. So honestly, man, almost nothing got me in more hot water in 2004 than this next statement. In one sense, I actually think if you zoomed all the way out, if you zoom all the way out, and I'm not asking you guys to agree, and listeners do not put this on Carlos and don't put it on chat cheap, I'll see. In one sense, if someone just goes, I'm never engaging in the political process in America.

In one sense, I honestly think that is a form of a sin of omission. because in the same way, if a husband goes, you know what, I'm never going to lead my family, that's a sin. If an elder goes, you know what, I'm never going to lead my church, that's a sin. Well, guess what? In a constitutional republic, you as a Christian and as a citizen, you have been given a privilege almost no one else in human history has been delegated, fractional leadership of your nation. And the Bible says that God appointed times and seasons and the boundaries of our dwelling places. He puts you here. And you've been given fractional leadership of your nation. And here's a big idea. If godly people won't exercise that authority,

godless people will. So the reason that we talk about this stuff is it goes back to the book of Proverbs. When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice when the wicket rule the people groan. Now, it gets confusing for Christians when what you seem to have is you have someone that it seems really, really nice, James Tauroko, somebody that's really, really nice. And but like actually is an actual this is not be being mean or exaggerating he's an actual heretic like a biblically defined false teacher and heretic we could go through a million you got the clips i mean we could yeah we're going to show some clips before uh because i think this is very timely and very serious uh can you the baby uh sang or here can you there's a couple that you

want to here's the first one i'm just going to read it jesus never said you can't do this shouts James Tilarico while drop kicking Labradoodle. So that's like not real. That's the bad about the article. This is not our example. This is not our example. This will make sense of what we're, and then here's another one.

Democrats, hopeful, average Texas voter wants to ban steak and think God it's gay. Okay. For people who are, you don't know what that's talking about, these are like riffs on things he's actually said. That's right. That's right.

And so, yeah, so let's just, let's just, how about this? Let's just go through some of these videos. and then we can rapid fire. Yeah, just rapid fire to get people examples to this real quick.

So this is the first clip right here. Let's go ahead and play it. Something that you love that's not family or friends. I love, and just say this because it's on my mind, the trans children who showed up yesterday at the state capital

to advocate for their humanity. They shouldn't have to, but it was an inspiration to watch. Yeah, so this is, you're getting ready to see a theme. What this guy does that I've never seen a politician do before that makes me have a little bit more of an edge. Politicians since the beginning of time have been twisting scripture, using scripture to try to convince people to do what they want. This is the first guy I've ever seen who's really his whole platform is using the Bible to convince Christians to support godless things. That's actually a good example because when, and watch his language.

You're going to see this theme throughout all these clips. Watch his language. It's the old high school debate team thing. Whoever controls the terms wins the debate. Did you notice what he said? What I really love is trans children who, quote, what he said is, showed up to, I think he said something like it, to support their humanity. What he means by support their humanity is a legislation that will advocate for, like,

gender mutilation of minors under the umbrella of gender affirming care. So we're talking about, like, the sexual mutilation of children. that like in the Old Testament, God would have like rained down fire from heaven and did, by the way, on cities for supporting. And we're doing the thing that false teachers always do, Book of Isaiah,

call evil good and good evil. Yeah. It's like, you know what? I love more than anything else. What I love more than anything else is trans kids, by the way, whose parents did not step in and exercise their God-given authority

to help lead them instead of just letting them be led by their feelings and then them advocating for, quote, gender affirming care and queer theory via legislation. Because we love trans kids too, so much that we would not want them to step out of what God's desire for them is. Bingo. It's not a, yeah, keep going. Now, we're going to see some more.

Here's another one. In context of abortion, because before God... Okay, pause, pause. All right. So here's our security I see. This is something I've never seen somebody to do before. What he did, he did this on Rogan. What he's getting ready to do in this clip is he's not just going to say,

hey man, I'm a politician that supports abortion. By the way, when we're talking about abortion, listen, man, I always want to say this. If you have had an abortion, listen, man, you can be washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ. Ain't no guy at this table. I always say it the same way. Ain't no guy at this table hadn't killed somebody before. It was my sin that held him there. My sin nailed Jesus to the cross.

The ground is level at the foot of the cross. that is not the death that defines you, the death that defines you as the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. You can be washed white as snow. So I always want to say that. That's good. What this dude does,

is he, that I've never seen somebody do before, is he, his whole thing, literally his whole thing is deceiving Christians to do wicked, godless, demonic things. This is example A. So what he's going to do is go, hey man, I'm a quote unquote Christian that supports abortion,

not in spite of the Bible, actually, because of the Bible. Exactly. It's like it's serpentine. It's like literally what the serpent does. So watch what he does on Rogan. Before God comes over Mary and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary's consent. No, he doesn't.

No, he doesn't. Which is remarkable. I mean, go back and read this in Luke. I mean, the angel comes down and asks Mary. if this is something she wants to do. And she says, if it is God's will, let it be done. Let it be.

Let it happen. So to me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create. Creation is one of the most sacred acts that we engage in as human beings. But that has to be done with consent.

It has to be done with freedom. And to me, that is absolutely consistent with the ministry in life and death of Jesus. Do not pass go. Do not collect $100. In fact, I'm just going to read. Like, this is literally what the angel says in Luke chapter one.

The angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. Then he said, Mary, do I have your permission to? Oh, wait, that's not what it says. It says, you will conceive and give birth to a son and you are to call him Jesus. That's the next verse. Okay. So, okay, there you go. Now, you're going to see this theme.

Again, you're going to see a theme. It's like a very serpentine. theme. Let me take the Bible and twist it and get godly people to try to support godless things. Okay, let's do another one. The first two lines of the Bible. Dude, I forgot about this one. The first two lines in Genesis use two different Hebrew words to describe God. One is the masculine Hebrew noun for divinity. The second is the feminine Hebrew noun. for spirit. God is both masculine

and feminine and everything in between. Here we go. Here we go. God is non-binary. All right. Number one, he only refers to himself

all throughout the scriptures with one pronoun. Yeah. It's always he refers to it. He reveals himself. Father. Father. And then when he is embodied,

he comes in the form of a man, Jesus Christ. But what he did there is obviously all of us agree that God is a spirit. We all agree with that. But what he's doing is he literally used that to support queer theory legislation, like gender affirming care, transgender, all of the things. Any other thoughts here? Yeah, I mean, you know, are there segments in scripture where God compares himself to

like a loving mother in a metaphorical sense? Yes. But everything you just said, Josh, is true. But he takes it to. But you're right. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And so, and it's true.

At the end of the day, if somebody's like, crowds that are like, well, how do you know? Why do you call it God a he? Why is he, not a she? Well, again, Jesus is the answer. Yes, Jesus is the answer. And I was said this prototypical, liberal way of going about this, which is I'm going to take one verse and take it way out of context and then I'm going to ignore all the other verses that should help me interpret that.

And that's just the prototypical move is that oftentimes they'll take one verse, way out of context, forget all the others. but that'll be the one thing they focus on to see if you're a Christian, this is okay. That's it. Yeah, that's the move. How many more we got? Maybe one or two more. Yeah, do it.

Let's do it quick here because I want to get to the theology of voting here to help people. I want us all to be aware of is that modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes. In fact, there are six, which honestly, Representative Hepner surprised me too. Surprise me too because I am not well-versed in this issue. Okay, pause. So first of all, I just want to say, like, we're going, there are six genders, like, yeah. First of all, I got no words.

But then again, what you'll notice for guys like this is they use the Bible when it helps support their thing, and they abandon the Bible as soon as it doesn't. Because, like, actually, like, when you read the actual Bible, it says he created them male and female. Well, dang, manners, too. This is this really convenient thing right there. There's two.

Yeah. Okay. So you got the six genders. What we're trying to point out, just if you're unfamiliar, is people will see somebody that looks like a 1960s Methodist youth pastor and then he kind of carries himself

like Mr. Rogers and talks about being a pastor and a seminarian. But then when you're listening, I need to quit looking like a frat bro. When you're listening, then it's like, you know, you start to realize, whoa, dude, this is like, this ain't good.

We got one more. We got one more. Which one is it? This is the Jesus, not once in the Bible, does Jesus ask us to worship him? Did do this one. Walk around with a mouth

of scripture and a heart full of hate. Pause, pause, pause. So one thing I will know is so, so what people like, what progressive guys like, progressive Christians do is they'll use biblical words, but they'll input their own different definitions. So when a progressive Christian uses the word hate, what they really mean is anyone who won't affirm literally anything I say or claim to be my identity. So what we need to understand as Christians, here's our understanding from the Bible.

The Bible says love rejoices in the truth. Love rejoices in the truth. Here's the big idea. To differ is not to hate. What progressive Christians do, they're using the same glossary, same words, different dictionary, different definitions.

So you're going to notice that constantly. You know, mouthful of scripture, heartful of hate. And what he means by hate is you won't affirm every identity and every idea that people claim to have. Well, that's actually love rejoicing the truth. Let's keep going.

Don't tell me what you believe. Show me how you treat other people, and I'll tell you what you believe. Yes, pause. By helping people not do things that damage their bodies, souls, and eternities. Yes. Yeah, let's do that. That sounds like great a deal. Now, tell us how to do it, James. Jesus didn't tell us to love our churches. He didn't tell us to love our doctrines and our creeds. He didn't even tell us to love our scriptures. He told us to love our neighbors. And there was no exception to that command. Love thy neighbor, regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, or immigration status.

Here, pause, pause. Now again, I want you to keep seeing the same theme. Same glossary, different dictionary. Same word, different definition. So earlier he did hate. Now he did love. We're using the same word, but different definition. For him, love means affirm and allow any idea and identity that's,

that person has, and if you don't, you're unloving. But again, the biblical definition of love is love rejoices in the truth. Okay, let's keep going. One of my favorite theologians, Barbara Brown-Taylor, once wrote, the only clear line I draw these days is this. When my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor. Jesus never commanded me to love my religion. You know what's interesting.

Not once. Impossible. I can't not say this. I have to say this. I can't not say this. So we're quoting Barbara, we're quoting Barbara Brown-Taylor in order to reject the Bible. Yeah.

Because what he said, man, if my religion comes between me and my neighbor, I reject my religion. Well, that's interesting. Because Jesus said things like, I did not come to bring peace but a sword. Yeah. I will separate a mother from a daughter, a mother-in-law from her daughter.

from her daughter, a father from her son. And then he said things like, and dude, I know this is tough. But listen, man, if we are listening to this, hey man, like Christianity, the sum total of Christianity is not be nice to people. That's not the sum total of Christ. We're disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus said things like, again, dude, you got to develop as a Christian. You got to get better at not just reading the Bible, but using the Bible as a lens through which you evaluate everything that people like that dude say. Jesus said things very different than Barbara Brown Taylor did, who I think is that actual heretic too. Jesus said things like, hey man, you actually can't be my disciple if you're not willing to hate your father, mother, brother,

sister, even your own child. And just for our Bible nerds here, when he said, hey, he didn't mean actually hate. He meant you got to love me so much. that love for anything else in comparison to your love for me looks like hate. Yes. So that if you're ever forced to choose, I'll just say this, if you're ever forced to choose between affirming your neighbor and following me, you pre-made that decision. That's right.

I'm going to leave that person and follow Jesus. It's the exact opposite what that dude just said. So what he's doing is he's like, let me twist the scriptures in order to get everybody to go along with like my demonic little thing. So let's keep going on. Before you play it, because we can't probably move it. He just said before, he's not once in the entire Bible, and then he'll continue. Go ahead.

Does Jesus ask us to worship him? All he asks is that we follow him. Love like he loved. Love the outcast. Welcome the stranger. Feed the hungry, heal the sick, free the oppressed. As the hymn says, they will know we are Christians by our love. all right. We have to get back to that. Yeah, I got no words. It's like, hey, man, that's true. Like, maybe if you cut off the entire last book of the Bible. Like, the whole last book of the Bible is the lamb is seated on the throne with more people than anybody can count, bowing down and worshipping him, throwing crowns before him. And then anybody who won't do that, he's throwing him into the lake of fire. Yeah. And I want to actually double click on this tactic because he uses it not only here, but with things like abortion or same-sex marriage.

future acts, he'll often say, well, the Bible or Jesus never said anything about these things, so therefore, they must be okay. And this trips a lot of people up, but let's just think about the logic for a second. In fact, a few months ago when this first started coming out, I just actually tease this out and we'll say, hey, well, if this is true, what are some other things that might be okay for us to do? I think I've actually got it. I'll just do one example, just issues where the Bible is silent. Let's just put up that first picture up there. So by this same logic, well, there's zero Bible versus condemning insider training. So it must be okay. there's zero Bible verses condemning cheating at blackjack's that must be fine too there's

zero Bible versus condemning using child labor so that must be okay as well there's zero Bible verses condemning defrauding orphans and orphanages so I guess it's just game on and I could keep going and going having bank accounts arson sweatshops littering at a cemetery yeah nuclear nuclear warheads Jesus didn't say anything about nuclear warheads Paul so it's okay yeah and you know to to just if I can just read the Bible here Hebrews 1 6 quoting God the father about the son in Again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship him. Philippians 2, 9 to 11, therefore God has highly exalted him.

That's Jesus and bestowed on him the same name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God's Father. That is universal worship language from Isaiah 45. Now apply to Jesus. Matthew 410, Jesus quoting the Deeronomy,

you shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve. Jesus says is while refusing to worship Satan. Yet he accepts worship of himself elsewhere, showing he claims the same divine rights. And again, we could keep reading the Bible over and over. The point of that is that just to help people in case they're thrown off by that, is that we are bound to do things in scripture that are explicitly said or that are implicitly true. Meaning there are some things we're explicitly commanded to do or not to do, but there's other implicit principles that I have to ask, what should I do or not do in light of, for example, of those verses like that.

So I just wanted to double click on that real fast. that's the video man do you want me to do why don't I real quick run through because here's what people I'll just cut to the chase go back to that tweet that we started with

about the here's yeah here's the let me just run through this real quick we'll talk about this more in future pots but here's the tension that people are feeling

is okay I got a I got a like an actual false teacher heretic over here but he's really nice he kind of seems like Mr. Rogers but he's advocating

for like overtly wicked policies like hey man it's like max boost abortion it's queer theory in in schools you'll see later like there's you know all the redefinition of merit like all the things all all the things that you would expect uh you know yeah all the things and then i'm going to roughshod this in probably an unfair generalization you just got to try to do it you got a guy who's who's who is who is advocating for more righteous policies who is accused of things that, man, it seems like, oh man, at least if he did what he's accused of,

it seems like the character is not what I wish. So let me just go back to this and give a quick theology of voting. Given Paxton's cheating on his wife, indictments of letting off a pedophile, by the way, that one's not true. There's some stuff on that I just read today. How do people call himself Christian and vote for him over a seminary and honest question, a vote for Pax's making faith alive? So let me just do this real quick. I'm going to give a quick theology of voting and just some principles for this, and then we can riff on this, and we're going to be done.

So let me give, I'm in a rapid fire of these, okay? Number one, let me just always start here because my job is to make disciples not conservative voters, okay? So let me just start here. You've got to decide every Christian, there's a difference between a Christian

conservative and a conservative Christian. You've got to decide which one is your highest priority. Are you a conservative first and a Christian second, or are you a Christian first and conservative second? By the way, the reason, you may be going on, why are you saying that a Christian is going to be conservative? in our modern American taxonomy, if you translate Christian ethics and the differentiation of the roles between family, church, and state, into policy, there is simply no other way.

I mean, I'm just going to be very honest with you, and I don't apologize for it. There's no other way. It maps into our modern taxonomy as at least generally conservative. But what you've got to make sure of, and I always want to give this warning, is, hey, man, is you're conservative above your Christian so that if the conservative thing is ever at odds with the Christian thing, you abandon the conservative. the Christian thing and do the conservative thing, or is your Christian above your conservative so that it stands in authority over this? And if they're ever at odds, you're like,

well, hey man, I'm out on this. I'm sticking with a Christian thing. You got to make sure you're good with that. The great biblical example of something like this is in Joshua 5. It's called a Christophany. It's probably an Old Testament appearance of Jesus. There's these two armies at war.

You know this? This is an awesome passage. And it says an angel of the Lord shows up with a big sword. It's kind of awesome. and I think it's Joshua or somebody goes, are you for us or for them? He gives this awesome.

It's kind of a bad response. He says, neither. I'm the commander of the Lord's army. His point is, hey man, the question isn't, am I on that side or that side? The question is, are you on my side? That will be the question at the end of time. The question is not, is Jesus on that side or that side.

The question is, were you on his side? So you got to make sure that. Number two, I always want to get this down. Evangelism and disciple making are infinitely, they're simply, they're infinitely more important than politics. They just are. And I'll just cut this cut of the chase. That's our primary command is Christians.

And even politically, hey, bro, it doesn't matter how many righteous policies you advance. If you don't have a bunch of Christians to vote for them, nobody can vote for them. So even pragmatically, it's like evangelism and disciple making are primary. And then politics is an offshoot of those things. Now, let me get into some principles for Christian voting. because this is where Christians get hung up on stuff like this midterm thing. Number one, principle number one, a vote.

Here's things that a vote is not because Christians misunderstand what a vote is. Number one, a vote is not a Valentine. That's the whole deal of like, I think you're so cute and sweet, and I love your personality and you're so dreamy, I'm voting for you. So here's the big deal, man.

A lot of Christians will look at somebody that seems a little rough. And they'll be like, ah, I don't like his personality. He seems a little mean. I'm not going to vote I'm going to vote for the nice person. Well, guys, that stuff, character does matter. I'm going to get to that in a second.

Character does matter. It matters a lot. But let me just say this to you, personalities and people come and go, your children and your grandchildren are going to live with the policies that get enacted. That's the naive point that a lot of Christians miss. I'm going to say that one more time.

Personality and people, they come and go. Our children and our grandchildren are going to live with the policies that we allow to get enacted. So, man, as a dad and as, God willing, a future grandfather, I'll just say this to the three guys at the table. Our generation is deciding the cultural inheritance we will hand our children and our

grandchildren based on the policies we allow to get passed in the society in which we are living. So what a lot of Christians will struggle with, and let me move on to the next one, is there's four types of people not two. Sometimes Christians naively go, well, there's nice people and there's mean people. Well, hey guys, we're not four years old anymore. Okay. What you got, really, there's four. There's nice people who do good things.

There's rough people who do good things. Let me just say this. Read your Bible. John the Baptist was not a super nice guy. That was a prophet in rough clothing. There are rough people who do good things. Then there's nice people who do evil things. And there's rough people who do evil things.

the most dangerous one of the four are nice people who do evil things. That's what Jesus called wolves in sheep's clothing. Yes. Okay. So we got to be wiser than nice versus mean. Well, hey man, the question is, yeah, but are they trying to advance? What are they trying to advance? That's what's going to stick around for a long time.

Number four. This is fourth principle. Okay. The second, what a vote is not. Number four. A ballot box is not a mailbox. for you to send a message. So we hear sometimes people like,

dude, I don't like my options. Christians should just sit out voting to send a message. Well, honestly, dude, I'm just used you real straight. It does no good sending a message that nobody's reading. Like, the only thing people read is how many people voted for that guy and how many people voted for that guy. So the, listen, the point of a vote isn't to send a message. It's to make a choice and to make a difference.

Here's why this is a big deal. And then I just want to move on. We'll talk about this more in future podcasts. So an estimated in just the state of Texas, an estimated 8.5 million Christians are estimated not to vote in midterm elections. Okay. Now, people right now are projecting that one way or the other, these midterms will be determined by about five percentage points. Let me put this in perspective. That means 8.5 million Christians in Texas won't vote in an election that will be determined.

will be decided by about 400,000 votes. Wow. So if the Christians start going, you know what, man, we're just going to sit it out to send a message. Well, great, guys. When godly people don't exercise their choices, then godless people do. And you just ceded ground to that.

Now, last one, and this is what really trips people up. The language I've liked to use is a selection is not a sacrament. Throw that last tweet up there because this guy, so at the bottom, dang, that's too small, I can't read that. Probably too many in a little bit. I can read it from here. This guy, this was like a little back and forth. And he's talking about, man, I can't vote for this one guy

because he's mean and he's accused to doing bad things. And even though his policies are better, I can't do it. And this is what he said, and I think a lot of Christians feel this, and I understand this. He said, nowhere in the Bible does it say I'm allowed to do evil. And he's talking about voting for somebody who is accused of some character issues. nowhere in the Bible does it say I'm allowed to do evil if the net outcome will be good. Do you have a biblical reference for your position?

Now, what this comes down to is Christians have been struggling with this for the last many years, honestly. Look at a candidate and like, man, that person's policies and more alignment with my beliefs. But their character, that's not what I want. Like, as a Christian man, that's not who I want to be. Totally agree. First of all, if you're not feeling that, something's wrong sometimes. I just want to say that. If you're never feeling that, something's wrong sometimes.

But that comes down to a misunderstanding of what a vote is. Here's all voting is. So in a sacrament, it's like a religious word where there can be like no impurity at all. So a sacrament is like the Lord's Supper, baptism. So in a Catholic church, there's a reason why it's a big deal if you drop that little cracker on the floor. Because that's a sacrament. And there can't be any impurity in a sacrament. And some Christians, they treat a vote like a sacrament.

they're like, well, when I vote for somebody, I'm affirming and applauding everything that person has ever done. And so I can't participate in evil. Well, hey, bro, that's not what you're doing when you vote. We need to stop thinking like children and think like mature people. All a vote is is your power to pick the best available path forward. That's all the vote is. Your power to pick the best available path forward.

If you need theological language, you go to the sermon on the Mount. Jesus says the role of Christians in society is to be the quote, salt of the earth. Not salt of the church, salt of the earth. What salt does is it was a preservative that would slow the decay of meat. So Jesus is saying, hey man, your job in society is to slow societal decay. I just want to let your conscience off the hook. If you're a Christian, you're like, who do I vote for? Or, ah, but that guy has some character flaws, and I'd be tangling myself.

No, you're not. Here's all you're doing. You're choosing which set of proposed policies will best slow societal decay. That's all that is. So there you go. Principles for Christian voting 101. There's much more that could be said. Other thoughts here?

Anything y'all want to tack on? Yeah, just a point, and then I'll tell a personal story of where I met with all this, this specific election. One point is for people who are still resistant to the idea of Christians being involved in the politics or even for us talking about them, you have to remember what politics and government is. It's the organization and administration of power for the common good of others. That's great. In other words, it's a way of loving people. And so when I hear people say, oh, Christians or the churches stay out of politics, what I hear them saying is, don't tell me how to love my neighbor well.

Yeah, that's right. That's good. When we're doing this, we're trying. But to your point earlier, Tala Rico has a different definition of love than we do. And so our view as best as we understand it is that we're trying to love people biblically. And sometimes that actually means telling them no and disagreeing with them while we still treat them with respect and with kindness. Both can be true. But I'll just be honest where I'm out personally with this.

I'll put myself out there. So I voted for Cornyn on Tuesday. That was the runoff. That was the runoff between Cornyn and Paxton. I dreaded the idea that it was going to be Paxton. in Tallarico. And again, this is my personal opinion. I'm not speaking for everybody. And it's because I saw someone who yesterday put this really well, like that's exactly how I'm feeling. When I look at Pax and I saw someone who I believe, I believe me, is personally unfit for the office of U.S.

Senator because of some of the things you mentioned earlier. But then when I look at Tala Rico, I see someone who is positionally unfit for that position. Positionally, meaning because of the positions that he holds that I think will do a lot of harm. And so here I am, and this is a close race. It's not going to be a boat. It's going to be a close race. And I'm like, these are my two choices, really. And so to your point, when I began thinking about this in the aftermath in the next 24 hours, I simply had to say, who is going to do the least amount of damage? The person who I see is personally unfit? Or who are the person who I see whose policies, if they are enacted, will do great harm, not just to Texas, but to the entire nation.

And in that place, while I don't necessarily love Paxson, and I personally think he's personally unfit. If I have to make a choice, he is going to be my choice. Right now I'm really talking to people who maybe are like me or in that position and just know that I'm a person who like, to your point, if I make no choice, if I sit it out, I am making a choice. I am letting there be a greater chance that the person who will do greater damage will get in office. And for me, that's unacceptable. So that's where I'm at. Mr. Doshini, find no word ton. Yeah, man. You know, you're probably ahead of me. there's some things that I want to try to figure out about the candidates here.

Because, like, for instance, man, as somebody who, I don't know, this will surprise you all every now and then, somebody says something untrue about me on the Internet. I know it's very surprising. I know it's very surprising. But I've just learned how the Internet works. And it's like, as I'm watching some of the things, even in that tweet about Paxton, like I got on the phone today with like a guy actually involved in Texas state politics. I was like, hey, dude, give me.

So this is what they said. Is that true or what happened? And the difference between what was said publicly and what actually happened was not a gap. It was a chasm. Wow. So it's like there's some, I don't want to, I don't like talking before I know what the heck I'm talking about. Yeah. So there's some things I want to figure out, you know, on some of the things.

But the big idea is what we're talking about as far as like, hey, man, personalities come and go. People come and go. Policies last forever. let's be wise as Christians, salt of the earth. I'm not telling you who to vote for. I mean, you can probably figure out some implications here unless you know, you can't figure that out, whatever. But, you know, I'm just, we're trying to give principles,

principles for how we should think about these things. That's a practical, very helpful thing that you're sharing right now. And so that's great. That's great, man. Carlos Sarazo, will you praise that? I did the old Uno reverse card on it. I noticed. I was about to hear it to you.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the Book of Acts. Thank you for Paul's testimony. Thank you for the invitation that when we read what we read and study from your word, it's not just for information, it's for transformation. And it's also an invitation for us to continue to live out our faith with boldness and courage and not in our own strength or capacity, but ultimately relying on the power of the Holy Spirit,

the supernatural power to focus on the race that you've said, before us as followers of Jesus, that we may be an extension of who you are, as we may proclaim what is true and love people as well as we do so. Father, give us wisdom as a, as a live free nation to be the salt and to be light in the middle of darkness, to be the salt, yes, of the church, but also of the world, to exercise discernment as we continue to participate in politics and not just politics, but business in every single area in our lives, family included as well. Father, that we may be responsible with the task that you've put before us. May we do so with wisdom, with power, with discernment for your glory.

In Jesus' name, for our joy and for others good. In your name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Live free, brother. Live free brother.