Shawn Ryan Show - #327 Josh Howerton - "In 50 Years, China Will Have More Christians Than America"

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Josh Howerton is the Senior Pastor of Lakepointe Church, one of the largest churches in the United States. Known for his thoughtful biblical teaching and willingness to engage difficult cultural issues, he has become a leading voice on faith, leadership, marriage, and Christian apologetics. Through his preaching, writing, and podcast appearances, Josh equips Christians to think critically, live faithfully, and navigate today's cultural challenges with biblical conviction. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: Go to https://helixsleep.com/SRS for up to 20% off sitewide. Go right now to https://sundaysfordogs.com/SRS50 and get 50% off your first order. Or, you can use code SRS50 at checkout. Get 30% off your first subscription order at https://armra.com/srs or enter code SRS at checkout. For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at https://Mengotomars.com. Try ZipRecruiter for FREE today at https://ziprecruiter.com/SRS and meet great candidates who’ll go the extra step for your job. Josh Howerton Links: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/josh_howerton Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/HowertonJosh X - https://x.com/howertonjosh Website - https://lakepointe.church Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's an honor to have you. It's an honor. So, yeah, I've been, you know, my chief of staff came from Dallas, and she kind of put you on my radar. And I was watching some of the stuff. Like, I don't remember how you popped up, but she had made a suggestion about you coming on. And I was like, he's already on the list.

Well, dude, I think she's a former Lake Point member. She is. Yeah, dude. Yeah. So that was a very cool connection, man. Well, and you know, it's cool to meet the people you listen. I've been watching you for a minute. Yeah?

I appreciate you. Well, thank you for saying that. Yes, sir. But so, yeah, we've got a lot of stuff to talk about today. I'm in, man. I'm pumped. I'm in. Hey, before you, can I give you something?

Yeah. I got to give you a gift. Of course. So, I appreciate what you've done for our country. This is a big deal to me. It took me a long time to find this. Here's what this is. You may have seen this.

Have you heard of a Heart Shield Bible? You ever heard of this? No. This is like, this will make my sweat a little bit. So here's what this is. I want you to hold that. So that's a 1943 Heart Shield Bible. And what that is, in 1943, President FDR, he partnered with, I think, the Gideons.

And they handed out these little pocket New Testaments to active World War II soldiers. And bro, what they did is, here's why that thing, I don't know if the viewers can see. The front of that thing is plated brass. and the reason they did that is they designed it so that it could fit in the front pocket of an active World War II soldier so that it could stop a bullet. No way. And dude, so that guy, you'll see it on the inside, the one I found. That guy, there was a, I think an Air Force colonel that wore that into active duty. And Sean, honestly, man, one of the reasons I said, I don't do this, I don't travel and I don't travel.

I got kids and I'm focused. one of the reasons I said yes to this is just why I see God doing any and through you. And the reason that that thing means so much to me. Dude, what that is, that's a prayer that the president wrote for those soldiers to read that book. Wow. And the reason I want you to have that is, man, you know, I'm in it with you. There's that thing that above all, it would sit right over a soldier's heart. and there's that thing above all else guard your heart from it flows the well spring of life

and how do you guard your heart i've hidden your word in my heart that i might not sin against you so there you go man man thank you that's really cool thank you thank you wow i thought it's pretty cool thank you this is awesome yes sir thank you yes sir beautiful beautiful well i got a present for you but it's not that, uh, sentimental. Come on, man. Get your bag of gummy bears. I love gummy bears.

I love sugar, red dyes, yellow five, all the bad shit, but they taste amazing. So, and they'll probably be illegal here in a couple months. I mean, is there pot in those? I need to know right now. No pot. All right, good. Sorry. I can have it.

Sorry about that. Yeah, no, that's good, man. But just candy. Just candy. All right. But let me give you an introduction here. Pastor Josh Howard. You're a senior pastor of Lake Point Church and Dallas, one of the largest churches in the country.

You're known for addressing difficult issues at the intersection of faith, culture, politics, and apologetics. You're also the host of Live Free Podcast. You're a husband, your wife, Jana, and the father of three adopted kids. Welcome to the show. It's an honor. It's an honor, my friend. So before we get started, you want to pray? I would love to.

You want to lead us? Yeah, I would love to, man. All right. Jesus Christ, thank you for being the sovereign and loving Lord of all the universe. And thank you that from before the foundations of the world, you pick this moment for me to have the honor of talking to Sean and every man and woman that will listen to this thing. Father, I pray that you would just, you'd kiss it from heaven.

There would be an open heavens over the conversation. The Lord, you would lead us in paths of righteousness for your namesake in a way that would be a blessing to show. John, his family, and everybody that listens, I pray that in the crucified, risen name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

All right, here we go. Let's go, man. Here we go. So third generation pastor, correct? That is correct. And you were here. I was here. I was here, dude.

So my papal, Jerry Howard and my life hero, he was kind of blue collar, Ozark Mountains kind of kid. and grew up, became a pastor. He was a little rural church pastor all over Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan, I mean, all over the place. Drove a truck for a little while and became a pastor. And, man, I miss him. One of the best men I've ever met. And then my dad, Rick Howarden, pastor as well. And he started a church, rub two sticks together, started a little church here in the Spring Hill, kind of around this area, the bridge church.

Oh, yeah, that's like 15 minutes out there. That's right, man. So my dad started that church, and then I had one of the greatest honors in my life to step into my dad's shoes and and passed that church for about 10 years. And was there for about 10 years. Lord did a really unique thing and then called us Dallas. Right on. How did you, I'm just curious, how did Christ come into your life? I mean, how did you, what built your faith? Did you just always have it? Or did something happen? or, I mean, I'm a hard knocks guy. He had to slap me around a little bit.

He still does it. I'm going through one right now. But you know what I mean? But I like, I don't like it in the moment, but it'll 100x my faith. You know what I mean? Every time it winds up half, and to the point where it's not even faith anymore for me, it's fact.

And so I'm wondering, you know, did you just, did you always have it because you grew up in it? or are there any specific events that really just hit you? Like, okay, all this stuff that we're talking about, it's real. This is for real, for real. Man, honestly, I'd say both. You know, I'll just honor my parents. I got, I got, make my eyes sweat a little bit.

I got good parents. And they love me. And, man, you know, I grew up in the 90s. I'm an 80s baby, but the 90s made me kind of thing. And, you know, growing up in the 90s, it was kind of like cool. to be a pastor's kid and kind of rebel and you know i didn't understand that at all because like every second of my life i love being rick owren's kid pastor rick's kid loved every second of it so whatever they had the experience they had i had the opposite so i grew up like my parents raised me just like

the word says in the fear and admonition of the lord you know i got a million memories a mom sitting there and quizzed me on bible verses growing you know all the stuff uh but I will say there definitely came moments where it was like, so here's how I say it sometimes like, what you just said is like, man, every now and then you'll go through it a little bit. And, you know, you have those moments where, you know, you kind of get knocked flat on your back. But what you'll notice is whenever you get not, knock flat on your back, you're finally looking in the right direction kind of thing. And, you know, when I look back in my life, there was. were moments where it was like, oh, like, I'm a, I'm a for real, for real center. And he's a for real,

for real, for real savior. And I'm, I need something, I don't got this. I need something a lot bigger than me. And so, you know, I think probably around college, you know, I had a couple head-on collisions with my own depravity. And I remember, I'll just, I haven't talked about this a long time. I remember writing in my journal in college, like where, you know, dude, you probably got the same stuff. I'm just like, just like you, you send the same dumb sin for the million time. And, you know. Thank God I didn't journal back that, but I didn't go to college, but that age, yeah, yeah. I remember, I remember journaling in college and I was reading the gospels. And, you know, I think a lot of people think Christianity is, like, a bunch of good people

telling bad people how to be good. And, you know, it's like, you figure out real quick, that is not what this thing is. The whole thing is like, I'm not good. It's actually, you know, it's a bunch of forgiven nobody's trying to tell everybody about somebody who can save anybody kind of thing. And I remember being in college and sinning the same dang sin for like a million time. And I remember reading about Jesus hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors. And it was the first time, dude, I haven't talked about this. Maybe ever.

It was like the first time of my life for like, it hit me like, oh, like, I fit right. prostitutes and thieves, I fit right in. And I remember journaling and going like, man, it really dawned on me today that, you know, Jesus didn't come for good, he came for prostitutes and murderers and thieves and race traitors and da-da-da-da. And I remember journaling, and today I realize I fit perfectly into that category. And I honestly think that's usually the minute when somebody meets the real Jesus. Because you got to know you're a sinner to realize he's a real savior, you know. So I had a bunch of moments like that. Right on.

When did you know that you were going to kind of follow in the family footsteps, that you were going to become a pastor? Dude, you know. How long have you been a pastor? You know, I started traveling around and preaching, like in college. Actually, my youth pastor, Jeff Carlisle, he stood me up to preach when I was like 16. in the youth group. And I just, honestly, you know, you've probably seen the same thing.

The difference between men that grow up and they become good men and builders and makers instead of takers and breakers kind of thing, it's usually they got other good men in their life. Like, that's literally the different, you know. And I had a bunch of good men in my life

and Jeff Krawlerl, I was one of my youth pastor. And it was like I was 16 and he stood me up there. And he was like, hey man, I want you a, I want you to preach a youth group. I don't know what I'm going to do. And, you know, I just explained a verse about read. And he grabbed me afterwards.

Like, hey, man, I want you know. Like, when you talked, everybody, everybody listened. There was like a little heat on that thing when you did that. And I just, people around me kept saying, hey, man, we see it in high school. The guys who maybe weren't on the same path that I was, you know,

they're a little joke. They called me. rev, you know, kind of thing. It's kind of half making fun of me a little bit, maybe. But it's just something everybody kind of saw in me, you know. And then there was, I couldn't imagine do anything else. How was your first, how was it ministering your first congregation, first time that you know, honestly, dude, not good, you know?

So I was, I went up to, I went up to, it was Mount Washington, Kentucky. I was going to seminary, which for everybody is listening, that's like post-grad, that's like, Bible you get a theological degree. So I'm up there. I'm Mount Washington, Kentucky, a little rural, First Baptist Church up there with sweetest people ever. Like, best experience ever, you know. I know some people have bad experience with churches.

Whatever that is, I had all the opposite, you know. And I was there for like three years, and I grew it from like 150 students to like 120, you know. And it honestly, it went okay. But, you know, it's one of those things like the Lord was with me and I was figuring it out and just like you. Stop with it. Yeah. Right on.

Yeah, man. Right on. All right. Let's get into some hard stuff. This is a new question. I just started asking. I'm going to ask everybody this question that comes on that's kind of in a position like yours. Why is Christianity the one religion that is totally acceptable to disparage?

Yeah. All right. Can I give it a little bit, give a starting point here? Absolutely. I'm going to show you something. And I know you've seen it because it's right up there. So do you remember this little thing? This is going to blow your mind. You remember that little thing? Oh yeah. All right. So what that is. We'll put it up on screen. Yeah. So what that is, is that is a chart of every cross-reference in the Bible. So what I want to talk about, I want to give a starting point.

The answer to your question is, in large part, because that's exactly what the Bible said was going to happen. So here's why, like, I'm always going to go Bible. I'm dumb about a lot of things. I try to love the Word of God. So here's what that is, that is every cross-reference in the Bible where the Bible references other parts of the Bible. There are 16,791 cross-references,

where parts of the Bible reference other parts of the Bible. And when you look at that, dude, it kind of blows your mind a little bit. Well, I just want to point this out. Did you say 16,000? 16,791 from what I understand. I thought it was 62,000. It may be six.

Actually, you're right. Actually, Sean, you're right. I think it's 67,000. I was off by an order of magnitude. I think I do. I think it's 62,000 and some change. Okay, okay. It's in the 60,000s.

When you look at that thing, I mean, it'll blow your mind a little bit. Uh-huh. And if you were to see that and one person wrote a book that did that, that many cross-references and dovetails into other parts of the word, you would look at that person and you would think, that is the greatest author who has ever lived like goat. No one will, opus and masterpiece, okay? But that book was not written by one man. It was written by over 40 men across 1,500 years, across three continents, Asia, Europe, and Africa, in three different languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. It has one unified story. It has zero contradictions.

Now, listen, when I see that, like, that'll make my eyes sweat a little bit. Because there is only one way to explain that. And it's that that book over there, it was written down by men, but it was authored by the Word of God, by God himself. So when you ask that question, the response to the question, why is it the one thing that everybody can disparage? Well, man, like when we open the word, what we know is from Genesis 1, 2, and 3, we know immediately what Satan does after the fall of mankind is he begins to wage war on the offspring

that God is going to use to redeem the world. So that's the storyline of the entire Bible. It's Word versus World. If you skip forward all the way to the end, you go to the book of Revelation. A lot of people, they get into Revelation, and it's like, you know, they start reading, and it's like, Jesus looks like metal and his eyes are flames of fire, and it's, you know, three-headed dragons eating babies and, you know, I think people start to go, I didn't know they dropped acid in ancient Rome, you know, kind of like, what are they doing? What the book of Revelation is, is this really, it's not,

a lot of the book of Revelation isn't revelation about what's going to happen in the future. It's revelation about what's been going on behind the scenes in the spiritual realm throughout all of human history. That's what a lot of the book of Revelation is. If you get to Revelation chapter 12, you get this little vision of a dragon that represents Satan. And what it says that he does is he wages war upon the woman, which most Bible scholars go,

man, that's the church, the bride of Christ and her offspring. So man, if you're going, why is Christianity the one thing that you can disparage is because the Bible says the whole world lies under the power of the evil one? the Bible actually calls Satan the little G God of this world. Actually, if you want to get this kind of a little, it's really interesting. That actually, in the temptation of Jesus, Satan does this thing where he comes to Jesus. And he goes, hey, I'm going to show you all the kingdoms of the world. And he tells him, he's like, hey man, if you'll bow down and worship me, I'll give you all of these kingdoms. Now, what's really interesting is Jesus doesn't say, they're not yours to give.

there's like this tacit assumption throughout the entire Bible that Satan is really over all of the world systems and that's why everything in the world aligns against one thing in particular and it's Christianity Christ and Christians that's baseline sleep is one of the biggest upgrades you can make but shopping for a mattress is usually a nightmare you walk into a store lay on something for five minutes and somehow you're supposed to know if that's the one you want to sleep on every night for the next 10 years. And that's why I like Helix. Helix makes the process simple. You take their sleep quiz, tell them how you sleep, what you like, and what you need, and they match you with a mattress that actually fits you. They have over 20 mattress models, so you're not trying to force yourself

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That's helixleep.com slash SRS for 20% off site wide. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you. As you guys know, once upon a time, I was a Navy SEAL. And then I contracted for CIA. We were hunting ISIS, Taliban, terrorist organizations. China was there. Russia was there. The Iranians were there.

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So Raymond I'm alive. He is. Raymond Ibrahim, he comes from an Egyptian, Coptic Christian family. I just had him on live free. And he's like, he actually got famous around 9-11 because he's a doctorate in Arabic. He got a job at the Library of Congress. So he's back in the stacks. This is going somewhere, I promise.

He's back in the stacks. So those are the books no one has access to. And he finds, in Arabic, transmissions from Osama bin Laden out to a bunch of terror cells or whatever that have never been translated. And then he like blows the whistle on, hey, dude, here's what this guy is saying. This is what they're saying on BBC and CNN about why they're doing all this stuff. Here's what Osama bin Laden is actually saying. and it's, you know, let's kill the infidels and all this. So he blows the whistle on it.

That's where Raymond Ibrahim comes to fame. So anyway, he's on a podcast. He's like a, he's a leading scholar on intersection of Christianity in Islam. Very interesting. Okay. So Ibrahim's on the pod. And off air, he tells me, he's like, hey, you know what actually pushed me to Christianity? I started study in the world and I noticed everything aligns against this one thing.

He gives, dude, he gives this example, which I think a lot of people wonder about this. The example he gives is, like, have you ever noticed that progressivism and Islam, but they always seem to be on the same team, at least in America? You kind of seen that? Yeah. It's kind of, in general, kind of tends to be a thing. Which makes no sense because you kind of got, hey, man, we're over here, you know, gay rights, women's rights, you know, freedom of expression, progressive.

and then you kind of got Islam is kind of, you know, kind of oftentimes the opposite of those things. Well, if you start asking a question, why would this, the women's rights people, kind of align with kind of the thing that, at least in many countries, hey man, they're kind of, you know, they'll do something to a woman that's not wearing a burqa. You know, I kind of, hey man, why are we doing, you know, queerers for Palestine? You know, that's kind of like chickens for KFC, you know, that didn't make sense. Well, the unifying principle is the enemy of my enemy is my friend, anything but Christianity, and anyone but Christ. And Ibrahim sees that, and he's like, everything's aligned against one thing. There must be something to that one thing. Interesting.

You know, do you know who Eli Crane is? I don't. Eli Crane is a congressman out of Arizona who's a Navy Sill. He's a good friend of mine. And he's a huge fan of yours. somehow he must have saw the post where that's awesome we're coming on so he wanted i wanted to wait till the end to ask this but me and eli bat the israel topic back and forth pretty consistently yeah and uh we just disagree uh we have wildly different ideas of you know

what this is and what the relationship should be and what's going on and and um but i you know i I respect Eli. He's a really good friend of mine. And so he wanted me to ask you about Islam and prophecy. Oh, geez. Okay. All right. Just go with it. Just go for it. All right. You already know, if you watch this, you know we go to some dark, dark time. Yeah, yeah, let's go. Okay.

Well, quick caveat. I'm just going to start right here. I'm a pastor and what my heart beats for more than anything else. is for everybody everywhere to know Jesus Christ and to love the Father. So that's my starting point. So before I say anything, I want you, Eli, and anybody else that listens to know, I love every person that calls himself a Muslim, and I hate Islam because it destroys people and eternities. And I can do both of those things.

I can love a person, and I can hate what I believe is a demonic ideology. So let me just point some things out. So, like, some things that are interesting to me. And let me give a quick, I want to set this up. So, like, especially you, maybe you, Sean, or maybe some people that are listening, you're going to hear some things here in a minute. And you're like, man, there's some real dark stuff in a world. Like, in fact, I think a lot of the reason that you're seeing a resurgence of the purposes of God,

a right, I think, Sean, I think a rising hope. I think we got a chance to see something special, man. I do, too. I think we got a chance. And I'm willing to pour my life out for it. I think part of the reason, dude, is in the era leading up to where we're at now, and I'm going to get back to what you just asked, I'm making my way there, is the obviousness of darkness became so smack you in the face that people awoke,

they awakened to the reality that there was a non-ignorable darkness. force in the world. And then, dude, I think what a lot of people do, especially young men right now, is they're gone, man, if there's a darkness, there must be a light. And that light has a name, and his name is Jesus Christ. I honestly think that's a lot of what's going on. Now, that dovetails to what you're saying. I just want to point some things out that, you know, you or anybody else can think I'm an

idiot, that's fine, you know, whatever. Let me point some things out. all right so um what uh what muslims do in general what a lot of muslims do is they trace their spiritual lineage to ishmael so we're gonna do we're gonna do we're gonna do some old testament theology and they make our way forward okay so we're gonna we're new a little bible study real quick so in the old covenant god god makes his covenant with abram who becomes abraham okay and he tells abraham through you and your offspring and it's very interesting Sean this is very interesting just for i'm a bible guy When it says offspring, it's singular. So in other words, you're going to have one future offspring. And through that one future offspring, somebody out of your lineage, Abraham, is going to bless the entire world. How do you know it's singular? In the book of Galatians, it specifically talks about that.

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul calls attention to the fact that it says offspring. So Paul is, what I'm doing right now is I'm making the same point the Apostle Paul makes in the New Testament. So it points that out. It's a singular. Now, obviously, there's nations that come out of him and all of that stuff. But there's a specific promise is going to find its termination in one future offspring that I'll just pull my punch is Jesus Christ. Okay. So that's where we start.

Now, the promise and the covenant that was given to Abraham, obviously he was going to have a child. Now, the child, he has to wait for a long time and he's waiting around for the promise to happen. and he takes matters into his own hands and his wife, Sarah, gives him his servant, Hagar, and they have essentially a covenantally illegitimate child named Ishmael. Then later, he and Sarah have a child named Isaac. So here's what you got. What you end up with because of he and Sarah's disobedience is you have one covenant, but you have two sons.

And now we got a problem because now we got two sons. they're going to end up fighting and all of their offspring are going to end up fighting in the spiritual realm, I believe it's connected to that over this one covenant. So then what you have is you have the children of the promise who those are the Jewish people historically. And then you have what Muslims do is they trace their lineage to Ishmael. So this is what you have. The other son. Okay. So now one covenant, two sons. Now you got a thing going on. Okay, you got that thing going on. Okay. Now, fast forward in Galatians 1-8, Paul says this. He says, but even if we or an angel from heaven.

Now, this is really important. I'm going to give you two verses where he connects some dots. He says, but even if we or an angel from heaven should appear to you and preach to you another gospel, let him be accursed. Bookmark that in your head. Then you got another Bible verse in the New Testament that says that what Satan does is he, quote, masquerades as an angel of light. All right. Now, dude, I'm a, you know, I'm a dumb rural Kentucky kid. But you start putting some things together. And in the 600s, what Muhammad says happens is he, now first of all, let me just say,

I'm not like some Islamic scholar. I'm doing 30,000 foot big rocks. What he says happens is he wanders in a cave. And he essentially does this. He goes, man, man, I was in there and this real weird thing happened. I was in there. And this angel of light appeared to me. And he started revealing to me another way to God that's different than the one that we've had.

Now, dude, all of a sudden, I'm going, well, that's really interesting. Because 600 years before he's doing his thing, you got a Bible verse saying, what Satan does is he masquerades an angel of light. And then you have a specific warning that throughout history that an angel from heaven may appear and reveal to you another gospel. Why? because Jesus came and he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life,

and nobody comes to the Father except through me. And do I just want to say this, and this gets me a little trouble. You may have some experience with this. Every now and then you'll do something, the internet will get mad at you. That happens to me. And, you know, one of the things that pastors

don't have to try to be controversial, they just got to read Bible verses. And one of the things that Jesus said, that man, people, they just hate it. But, man, I didn't say this. Jesus said it. And man, I'd be a whole world. I'd be a liar.

to tell you what Jesus said. And he said he was the way, the truth, and the life. And nobody comes to the father except through him. What he didn't say is I am a way, a truth, and a life. And some people come to the father except through me or also through me. So then you got that. So you have the birth of Islam. And it seems to me, man, like it's the fulfillment of exactly what was warned against in the scriptures.

Now I'll give you two other things. Jesus said, I think it's in the gospel of John. He said, the time will come. and he's talking about the end. I'm not a huge end-time's guy, but he's talking about the end. And he says, the time is coming when they will kill you and think they are offering service to God. Now, I think what a lot of people have done,

especially in America for like the last 30, 50 years, is a lot of Christians have been like, man, we're nervous about the rise of secularism and the rise of atheism, and people are just deconverting and apostatizing, that kind of thing. But honestly, you take that verse that Jesus said real clearly. And what Jesus seems to be saying is it like the final boss? Like when Jesus, like right before Jesus returns, the final boss, it's not going to be atheism.

It's not going to be secularism. It's going to be some other religion that believes that killing infidels is offering service to God. Seems like that's one clear meaning of what. Jesus said. Now, I'll give you one other one and then I'll just point this out. In the book of Revelation, again, Revelation is peeling back at the curtain online. Now, what's been going on in the spiritual realm throughout human history? One of the things that it says is John gets this vision of all the martyred saints. All that means is just Christians. So all the Christians that were martyred because they refused to not worship the lamb. They're like, we're like, we're Jesus.

We're Jesus people. We're team Jesus. And it doesn't just tell us they were martyred. It tells us specifically how they were martyred. And it says, he saw the souls of those who were beheaded. Now, dude, again, I always want to take this with a grain of salt. Like, I'm not a big, like, here's all the charts,

and here's when Jesus is going to turn, all this stuff. But, dude, I do want to have my eyes open with my Bible in front of me. And it is interesting to me, man. that I'm aware of, there is one major world religion and one only that doesn't just specify to sometimes kill people who have a different faith in you. It specifies how. And the Quran calls it striking necks, it's beheading.

So you got that, and then I'll do one last one. It's hard to do from memory, but I'll do my very best. In Islamic eschatology, so that's what eschatology means, It's two Greek words. Eschaton means last, analogy means study of. So study the last. In Islamic eschatology, like the end of the world, what it says is there'll be this figure that rises up called the Mahdi, M-A-H-D-I.

And different, in the same way that in Christianity, there's like different sects of Christianity that view end-time stuff differently. And that's like not my fastball, but, you know, is what it is. It's the same thing in Islamic eschatology. Different Muslims believe different things. But there's some really interesting things that they believe about the Mahdi. They believe that he will rise to power during global tumult. They believe that when he rises to power, he will unite the world in a one-world Islamic government.

They believe that that government will be headquartered in Jerusalem. They believe that when he does it, he will slaughter. the Jews. They believe that he will usher in a seven-year peace treaty in that area. They believe that he will ride in, they believe things like this, that he will ride in on a white horse. That dude, I just want to point this out. If anybody's listening and like, hair standing up on the back of your head and there's little alarm bells going off, I just want to point this out. If a little alarm bells are going off in your head because you read your Bible before, that's because a lot of the aspects of the Islamic Mahdi are the exact descriptions of the New Testament Antichrist.

So do I know that's what's going to happen? Nope, I don't. But I do have my Bible open and I want to be a guy that's like, hey man, I'm ready. I got my eyes open. I'm waiting. That's interesting to me. Interesting. Interesting.

Is Christianity, is it growing or is it shrinking? It's globally growing, globally growing. globally growing, if I understand correctly. Because it seems like, but I've seen a lot of charts, and I think it's globally, I think it's growing, I think there's a resurgence happening. But, I mean, you see all these college kids getting baptized and. Well, that's the best. You know what I mean?

And I just saw another one. It was like a couple thousand people, I think got baptized on the beach. Yes, that's my buddy, Joey Martin. What do you mean? That's my buddy, my buddy, Pastor Jobi Martin. his church, that's one church. Oh, really? Oh, okay.

Church 1122, shout out. One church. They baptized, I think it was almost 4,000 people on a beach down there in Florida. Yeah. Wow. 4,000 people. I mean, dude, we're seeing, man, you know, I'm not a super emotional guy, but if there's one thing that makes my sweat is that, man.

We are, I'll just say this. So, like, in my lifetime, Christianity in America has generally been declining. I'm 43, 1983. Feels like the tide's turning. And every pastor I talk to, man, I'm like every pastor I talk to. It's like more people getting saved they've ever seen, more people getting baptized they've ever seen. Church attendance spike, like, tides turning.

That's what I feel like. But then I see charts and it says, you know, it's a decline. Yeah. I don't know if that's real. Do you have any insight on any of that? Well, you know, I'm not a sociologist. What I can say is, so, you know, I don't like talking about stuff that I don't know for sure. What I have been told is that in places that have generally been characterized as the West, can I ask you a question a second? Am I allowed to do that? Yeah. All right. In a second, I want to ask you why you think the tight is turning. But, for the first, From what I understand, places that have been generally characterized as the West. So you're talking about like Eastern Europe and North America and Canada.

From what I understand in my lifetime, Christianity has generally been declining in the global, what's been called the West. From what I understand, Christianity has been exploding in Africa, the global South, Asia. That's from what I understand. So you're hearing stuff about like, you know, Chinese house church movement. That stuff starts to explode, especially in the last 50 years, you know. I read something a few years ago, and I may get a detail wrong on this, that at current growth rates of Christianity in China, there will be more Christians in China in 50 years than Christians in America. Wow. So now listen, And that's like... Wow.

So there's stuff like... Man, there's stuff like that that's happening. Well, here's some stats. In 2007, 78% of U.S. adults identified as Christian. By 2023, 24, only 62%. A 16-point decline in just 15 years. Among women, 18 to 29, 43% religiously unaffiliated in 2025, up from 29%. In 2013.

Churches will lose. using 1.2 million members annually before COVID, disengagement has accelerated since. For the first time in American history, young people grow up with Christianity as one option among many, not the baseline assumption. So, you know, I don't, I don't, I mean, I just, well, I live in a, you know, this area is a little different than most parts of the United States. You know, this is Tennessee. We're in the Bible Belt. So he's, you know, everywhere you go, the first question is, you know, what church do you go to? And it's not like that. It's not like that very many other places. Right. But I mean, you asked me, why do I think we're seeing a resurgence?

I think we're seeing a resurgence because, I mean, I agree with you, the darkness. I also think that nothing makes sense. I think the search for, I mean, there has never been more distrust in U.S. institutions, world institutions, our government. We've been lied to a lot by pretty much both sides of political spectrum. And I think people are looking for something that's concrete and they're finding it in the word. I agree. You know, I think it's that basic. I mean, we can't even figure out what gender people are anymore.

We can't. Everything has turned out to be a lie. These wars, lies. Past wars, lies. Government corruption, lies. Is it get fixed? No. It continues on. You know, and there's just nothing to really ground yourself in anymore, anywhere, except the word. That's right. That's right, Sean. That's right, Sean. Man, I think that's, you know, maybe it's a good thing. All this shit's happening. there's a verse in there's a verse in hebrews 12 that says what god does is uh he shakes the things that can be shaken so that only the things that cannot be shaken remain and i think throughout human history the lord does that where he just decides like hey man i got to almost like i got to flip i got to flip the monopoly border real quick so that you guys see like, hey, man, stock markets and institutions and ideas and ideologies, they're going to come and go. Jesus Christ is the same

yesterday, today, and forever. I also think, I think what you said, like our church, you know, is especially, it's reaching, you know, a bunch of tons of young men, it's young dudes walking in with families. I think what we said earlier, like that's a little thing that's like a little bit of my theory is that I think Satan is so real and so evil. You know, it's like that thing, like the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that you might have life and have it the full. And I think he's so full of evil and hate that in every generation when he gets some momentum on the field, there's that thing I said earlier, the devil always overplays his hand. And I think a little bit of what happened in the last like 15 years is like I think

you nailed it. Like you made good theologian over there, Sean, Ryan. I think what he did is we got to the spot where people are looking around and they're honestly like, like, I'm just like normal, normal guys. They're looking around and they're kind of going like, man, like, who's going to tell my son he can't be a chick? You know, who's going to, you know, who's going to? Is that that kind of And honestly, you got to the spot where there wasn't many places in our culture left besides the Church of Jesus Christ. Even a lot of churches are putting that out. Yeah, I don't like calling it. Probably not in Texas.

Yeah, there are. You can go to the Northeast and you can see it. You know, everybody's welcome. Everybody is welcome. Why do you have to say it like that? We know everybody's welcome. Yeah, that's right, man. You know, but.

That's right. Yeah. I would not call those churches, but I understand. what you mean. I think another thing too, you know, is, and I'm not, I'm not trying to get political here, but it just is what it is. I mean, I think that, you know, we've seen, and I'm guilty of it, you're probably guilty. I'm sure everybody's guilty of this at some point, but, you know, you, you, you know, we've just become so tribalized here and we've put our faith in men, in human beings. And, you know, you go on one side of the aisle and it's this guy's going to save the country

and do-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. 90% of it was fucking bullshit. You know, you go to the other side of the aisle, same thing. And so you got these two groups that were both, really, I mean, the majority, the statistics aren't lying. You know, the majority of both parties have been let down by the people that they stood behind and propped up. And it's, it's disheartening.

And you can see what's happening and what's happened. And it doesn't align with what people want. You know, there's some kind of, something's going on in there. I mean, I think there probably always has been. You know, it's just the limelight's kind of on. And these younger generations are a lot more skeptical than we ever were in the people that poor us. And so when you see how bad it actually is, I mean, where do you?

there's nowhere else to go. You know, it's funny. It's like, man, I got a lot of thoughts on what you just said. I think you're on to something. There's a reason the word says, trust not in princes. You know, there's like some things that I can hope that a human leader will do, you know. But at the end of the day, you know, I'm not going to trust a king. I really got to put something in a king of kings, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, your thing of like, at the end of the day, where are you going to go? I think that's what people, you know, what it reminds me of, I love to know how this kind of lands on you is, you know, Parable of prodigal son. And you got the kid who, you know, great dad, the dad represents God. And he runs away and he spends all his money on. parties and strippers and alcohol and, you know, whatever. And then if you read that, there's this little verse, and everybody skips the verse that I think is the most important, where he gets to the spot where he spends all the money and everything that he thought was going to make him happy, and it just didn't. And so he's out of money, and he's in pig slop.

He's feeding pigs, which obviously for a first entry of Jewish guy is like a little no no and then there's one little verse that says when he was feeding the pigs it says and then he came to his senses and he started running back to the father and a little bit man i feel like you know we got a bit of a prodigal nation it's like and a little bit of yourself where am i going to go i think that's what happened to the kid in the story is he woke up one day he's like where am I going to go? And honestly, man, he went. Oh, man, everything else didn't work, but I know I can go home to dad. And I think a little bit in our country, I think everybody's going, man, we honestly do.

We tried everything else. And it didn't work. And I think there's a little bit of people that's going, you know what I can do. I wonder if I could go home to my Heavenly Father. I think that's a little bit of what's happening. Well, I think so, too. I think so, too. Let's talk about forgiveness. All right. I'd love to.

How do we forgive? Here's a question for you. Justice and forgiveness. Yes. Not at odds. They're not at odds. I know. Yeah.

No. How can you want justice and still be able to forgive? Yeah. All right. Well. So, you know, let me just do a few things here. Yes. Yeah.

So a few things. One, let me just get one thing out of the way because what I don't want somebody to think if they hear what I'm about to say and they're like, man, somebody abused me. Or like, you know, somebody committed a crime against me. Somebody raped my daughter, whatever it is. And when they hear what I'm about to say, they think, oh, because I forgave them, I don't need to, you know, I don't need to call the authorities. That's not true. Justice and forgiveness, I don't got to reconcile them because I don't reconcile friends. In fact, what I'll get to in a second is that actually the foundation of true forgiveness.

Sean, you probably figure this out, you know, some things that you've been through in your life. Nobody makes it unless they learn to really and deeply forgive. Dude, they just don't make it, man. I've seen a lot of things as a pastor. One thing I can make you promise. Nobody makes it. That doesn't learn to forgive. So let me just get this one thing out of the way.

What do you mean by that? Nobody makes it. So do what I mean is, man, there's hardly anything that'll mess you up more than not than clinging on. So there's a verse in Hebrews. It talks about a root of bitterness. Hey, you make sure that a root of bitterness doesn't spring up in you. The reason it calls it a root is because roots always grow up. into fruits, right? So, dude, what I've seen, like, let me just, okay, let me do it like this.

If heaven is the place where everybody's forgiven and hell is the place where nobody's forgiven, when we forgive, we pull heaven down into our lives. And when we choose not to forgive, we pull hell up into our lives. Now, you know, what I want to point out is there's this really weird connection in the Bible between satanic and demonic activity and unforgiveness i'll just give you a couple little examples um so first of all jesus calls satan uh beelzebub what that literally means it literally translates to um lord of the flies and the implication is like man if you get like a deep wound like a flesh wound what flies do is they get in there and they infest the wound and then something that that hurt you, well now all of a sudden,

it becomes fatal because they get up there and they infest the wound in it. And so when Jesus calls Satan Beelzebub, what he's saying is, hey man, every wound you got, if you don't by the power of Jesus Christ, his blood and forgiveness close that wound, that is a wide open pathway for Satan's work in your life. I'll give you another one.

In the book of Ephesians, it says, hey, don't let the sun go down on your anger. Why? Because I don't want you to give any opportunity the devil. The book of James, it does the same thing, this weird connection between demonic activity and unforgiveness. It says that bitter people, it says bitterness is, quote, earthly, unspiritual, demonic. So, dude, a lot of people miss that, that there's like a really powerful connection in the Bible. Can you say that again? Unforgiveness is earthly, unspiritual demonic. All right. So they miss it. The

apparently there is some in the supernatural realm, the spiritual realm, there's a way that unforgiveness, it's like a portal, like straight in your soul for Satan and demons. I don't understand how that works. I just know that it works to get in your life. And one thing that it'll do, man, is like, you know, I'm 43 and my life goal, I love being a pastor. I like teaching people to the Bible. All that's awesome, man.

My life goal is to finish my race, haven't been faithful to do. Jesus. I don't want to be one of those pastors that somebody tells a story about someday. Remember what that guy did? You know, I want to finish well. I want to be faithful to my wife. I want to sit in a rocking chair next to Janah, old Rinkley, holding her hand, watching our great-grandkids play around in the backyard, and they love us and they love Jesus. So one of the questions I ask myself the most as I get, you know, I'm getting a little older every year, you know, is if you watch people, there's some people who they get older, and the older they get, the more cynical they get and angry they get, and they just get a little crusty. And then I'll see some other people who it's like, man, the older that guy gets, he just a little more joyful, a little more, a little more soft in the right ways and not the wrong ways, you know.

It's a little happier, you know, I don't know. And man, when I meet people who are the second one, you know, you asked me a question, you've started to ask everybody. When I meet people whose age starts with like a six, seven, eight, nine, and they're just like old and happy, and they got a joyful heart, I always tell them, hey, it seems like people end up this way or this way. What's the difference? Here's what I think the difference is. One person, they cleaned out all that junk in their heart

throughout their entire life with forgiveness. And one of them didn't. And over the years, they just almost become like just real slowly, man. It's real slow. In fact, if you let me babble nerd out, you know, on a little thing. When you read in the Gospels and it talks about people being, quote, demon possessed, that's a bit of an inelegant translation of what that is. It's literally, it's one Greek word. We make it two English words. It's one Greek word. The word is demonized. So kind of like we say

fossilized, demonized. Like in the same way that a fossil, it started out as this, but then very, very, very slowly over time, it was this and now it's this. Honestly, man, a lot of times that's how, like, demonic activity works in people's lives. It's slow. It's imperceptible. Gets up there, maybe in a wound, something like that. And how that guy end up old, angry, cynical, crusty? There's like no love in his heart.

It's all anger, you know? Oh, man, just very, very, very slowly. He didn't learn to clean it out with forgiveness, which brings me back to the beginning. demonic activity and unforgiveness. If hell is a place where nobody's forgiven and heaven is a place where everybody's forgiven, every time we learn to forgive, Sean, you know, you pull heaven down into your life.

Every time you choose not to, you pull hell up. I don't think that's a question you asked me. There are a lot of dog foods out there, and they all say they have the best ingredients. But when you actually look at a lot of them, it's still over-processed kibble, fillers, and ingredients you can barely pronounce. That's why I like Sundays. Sundays keeps it simple.

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Visit Sean Ryan Show.com and grab yours today. I've been thinking about this for a couple years pretty hard about forgiveness, And I think it's more of a, for lack of a better term, almost like it's kind of a selfish thing to do because it's really, you know, what I've figured out is it's, it is it's for yourself, you know, which is what you're saying. I mean, you're healing, healing wounds by forgiving. And the more I do it, the more I figure it out, the better I feel because you are letting go of shit. That's right. And it doesn't mean you have to, you know, be around this person, pray. That's right.

You know, praise them. Talk about them. But, I mean, it's just kind of like letting it go. Am I wrong about that? Bro, you're dead on, man. So, man, the path, like, if I'm a self- Self-cleansing process. A hundred percent, man.

It's really hard to do. But in some circumstances. But people who really haven't been through something, they don't realize this. You probably do realize this. I think very frequently the hardest thing that man ever has to do in his entire life is forgive somebody. Very frequently. Now, when you say that, honestly, man, it's like, it's like you're saying Bible verses and you may not even know it. It's like, so in Matthew 18, you're talking about, man, it honestly feels selfish.

It feels like it's for me. yeah you know like there's like there's a reason we called the podcast the live free podcast live as people who are free only do not use your freedom as a cover up for evil it's like so in matthew 18 jesus tells this parable and uh he i'm a you know 21st century i'll do my best is he tells this parable about a guy who like owes a money lender a bank and it says like 10,000 talents or something like that. But it's essentially a word that's like, this guy owed this guy the net worth of Elon Musk.

Like that's what it's implying. He'll never, he'll literally never be able to repay it. And the guy's like, hey man, your debt's due. And he runs up and he falls on his knees and he begs. And he's like, man, would you plead, please, please forgive me. And the guy, it says, out of the kindness is hard, he forgives him. But then that guy, he turns around and he finds somebody in all 21st century, he finds somebody that owes him, you know, like the cost of a postage stamp.

And in Jesus' parable, he, like, choke slams the guy, for real. He, like, starts laying hands on him. And he tells the guy, like, you know, pay me back everything you owe me. And, you know, I'm going to put you in prison. You're not going to get out until you pay the last penny. And honestly, man, I'm skipping ahead a little bit. Somebody may hear that and be like, what, how could the guy that was forgiven, the net worth of Elon Musk turn around and examine.

an exact revenge on the cost of a postage stamp. Who would do that? And Jesus' answer is, you would. Jesus' answer is, hey, man, I'm cutting to the chase a little bit, is the basis for us becoming forgiving people as understanding, I have been forgiven by God more than he will ever ask me to forgive anybody else. He forgave me the net worth of Elon Musk. And every time I hold a grudge against somebody,

I'm like making them pay for the postage stamp. Now, what's interesting about that parable, though, let's take it back to where you started, is you're like, man, it kind of felt like it's selfish. In the parable, when the guy is not forgiven, what he is is it says that he's put in prison. And the implication Bible scholars think what Jesus is saying is he saying, hey man, do you know what unforgiveness is like?

is like a prison. And do you know who's in the prison? You are. And you probably notice this, man. The people who don't learn to forgive, what they do is, honestly, they get stuck in time and they spend the rest of their life responding to something that happened ages ago. And they live the rest of their life out of that one event. Well, that becomes a prison.

But I think there are definitely different degrees of maybe levels of forgiveness. You know, I mean, forgiving somebody for, I don't know, stealing a water bottle out of your refrigerator is a little bit different from forgiving somebody that raped you your entire childhood. You know, and so it's a big difference. You know, it's, it's, it's, sometimes it's more challenging than others. And, you know, so how do you do it, you know? How do you do it? How do you do it when... Yes.

Yeah. I mean, you're a popular guy. You're borderline celebrity. People are using you. It's a bit of a celebrity. I'd like to get it there. People are using you. People will abuse what you can, what you have, you know?

And the same with me. And I mean, it just is what it is. You know, there's no getting around that. I've seen people do that to you. So. You can forgive them. And I have forgiven them. You probably have too.

Then it keeps happening. It does. Same people. Yeah. And every time it happens, its little fire comes up, you know, and you get pissed. And then you start thinking about things you probably shouldn't be thinking about. Yeah.

And so my question is, is that is that forgiveness? I really forgive them for the original thing. And I've distanced myself and I've come to peace with it, but then it happens again. Yeah. And then it happens again. And you have no control over it happening. No, you do not. So how do you deal with that?

How do you deal with that with forgiveness? Yeah. Something I personally struggle with. Welcome to team human. You know? It's like, yeah. Hey, brother, me. I'll kind of just get this on a table.

Me too. Mm-hmm. I just want to be super honest, man. I need the same grace I preach every week. Me too. In fact, there's no reason for me to go into it on, you know, here. That's one of the hardest, most consistent fights in my life. You know, it is.

So let me just, you know, let me say a few things. Actually, can I tell you a story about what it looks like? Let me start here and then back up, answer. So every now then, you know, and, you know, when I became a pastor, I knew what I was signing up for, you know. So every now and then I'll say something, and, you know, the internet will get mad at me. One of the first times that happened to me, dude, I didn't know what was going on. And, yeah, honestly, the first thing, you probably, you probably remember the first,

one of the first times that happened to you. The first time that happens to you, it's pretty disorienting, you know. I was a young pastor, and, man, you know, I remember I was taking a long walk, And I remember thinking, like, man, is my, maybe, I wonder if my ministry's over. Like, I was getting, I was a, I won't go into it, I was getting crushed. And, um, and I came home and I was like, man, I wonder if, maybe my ministry's over. And I honestly wonder if I've ruined everything. And, man, how am I going to provide for my family?

I kind of thing. And, uh, dude, I walked in the door and, uh, I smelled, I smelled something. And as soon as I walked in the garage door, my wife, Jen, was there with my three little adopted kids, and they all yelled at the same time, Welcome home, Dad. And they brought me in to the kitchen. And Jana had all the, like she'd cleaned up everything.

It looked spotless in there. And she got these candles out, and she lit them on the table. And she had cooked, like, my favorite meal. It takes a long time to make my little favorite meal. And I was like, hey, what is going on? And she said, she quoted a verse from the sermon of the Mount. She said, Jesus said, Josh, blessed are you when people revile you, insult you, slander you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for great will be a reward in the kingdom of heaven.

And then she said, so tonight we feast. and we prayed. Jana made me. We prayed for some of the people who, you know, they were just, you know, teeing off, you know. Can I just say something to you? Without Jesus, there is a zero. I'm just telling me right now, dude, a zero percent chance that we can be like that. So you ask the question, how do you do it?

And man, you know, this is not you. But if somebody's listening and you don't know Jesus, I'll be honest, man, I don't even know what to tell you. I really don't. I don't know what to tell you. Because if I did not believe that two things, that every single sin will be fully recompensed for. Either, and I'm skipping ahead, either that person that committed that, that person that committed that, that sin against me will become a Christian. And at that point, their sin was paid for by Jesus dying

on the cross, a gruesome, horrific death. Or they won't become a Christian. I'm gonna say something really straightforward, and I'm not trying to be a jerk. This is just like, this is the Bible. Or they won't become a Christian. They'll die and they'll go to hell and they'll pay for that sin forever.

One way or the other, that sin's getting paid for. If I didn't believe that man, in addition to the second thing, the reality that I know, dude, I know down to the deepest parts of my bones. I know I've been forgiven more than the Lord's ever gonna ask me to forgive anybody else. If I didn't believe that, I'll know what the heck I do.

I don't know what I do. So, like I'll give you, you know, this, like, this honestly deserves a lot more time. But if somebody's like, how do you do it, man? I'll give you a quickie. Here's a quickie. We don't need a quickie. All right.

We need the real deal. All right. Like here's an example. You know, I can't stand being used. I don't like being used. Tried the church thing. I felt like that was getting ready to start happening. Then we do a Bible study.

A couple families, because I, in privacy, you know, we wanted in privacy, things start getting leaked. Personal things. I call a lot of shit out on the show, a lot of evil. Pisses a lot of people off. Pisses evil off. Bad to higher security. I've had to double that security. I haven't had to triple that security.

I've had to move. Now I have to move into a gated community because people can't shut their mouth and stop leaking shit. And every time it happens, I forgive them. I'll never do that Bible study ever again, ever again because of that. It put my family at danger. It continues to put my family at danger.

But they get something out of it leaking personal shit about my personal life and my personal family. When the whole thing was set up for discretion, how do you forgive that? Hey, first of all, man, you know, I'm a nobody. I'm sorry. Hey, it's, I mean, it is what it is. it is people are going to people yeah that's a good way to say that but people are going people you know but how do you know what i mean how do you forgive that yeah you try to move on but it just keeps happening yeah dude and that's just one of a hundred examples and i'm sure everybody's dealing with shit like this

you know so one way or another the thing that keeps happening literally everybody there's a few things when you preach on them you know every single time it's got you know whatever you want to you know people are going to talk about it they love they need it the view counts like it connects forgiveness 100% hit rate 100% hit rate because of what you just said so man let me say a few things um number one the chat if somebody's going to sit down and i'll just give listeners homework if you're like hey man what do i do this thing happen to me what do i do what you need to start doing is study matthew chapter 18 Matthew 18 is where jesus starts walking through, Jesus essentially does a Bible study on what to do when your brother sins

against you. So there's a few things. I'm a rapid fire these and just do my best here. He starts the passage saying, if your brother sins against you, there's a few things there. Number one, if. You need to make sure, did somebody actually sin against me? Or was it honestly? Was I just offended?

And I'm not talking about you, by the way. These are just generalities. If your brother sins against you. The first thing I've got to figure out is if. Did they really sin against me? Is it like an actual Bible sin that occurred? You know, or honestly, man, am I just being a little sensitive? It's really just my feelings if your brother sins against you.

Number two, it says if your brother sins against you. The second question I got to ask is, man, is this person a brother in Christ? Like, I'm just telling you how I'm going to pastor somebody through it. Is this person a brother in Christ? Okay. Because if not, man, me having a conversation about this forgiveness happening, that's really not the conversation I need to be happening. I need to be having a conversation about this, like you and Jesus, man.

Like, you all got to get good, you know? So if your brother, if your brother sins against you, okay? Was it against me? I'm making sure this thing. What I don't need to do is take up somebody else's offense. And then I'm angry on behalf of somebody else. Like, we call that Twitter. You know, what are you going to do?

So then it says, well, the next thing you do is it says go and show him his fault. You know, hey, I'm going to talk to you, man, man, I'm just going to talk to you. Here's what you did. Okay. Now, you do all this stuff. You kind of walk through that process. If that doesn't work, then it says what Jesus says is, if that doesn't work, then take two or three others. You know, let me take a few other brothers.

Like, hey, man, would y'all come with me? We all, we all love each other. We all love Jesus. This is our little band of brothers. Let's talk about this thing together with an open Bible and open hearts. See if we can figure this thing out, reconcile. Let me pause and say this. There is a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.

Forgiveness takes one person and it's always possible. reconciliation takes two people and it's not always possible. Forgiveness can, like literally every time, I can forgive anybody of anything. Because honestly, dude, that forgiveness, just to put it in a straightforward way, I do not have a right not to forgive somebody who sins against me. Because Jesus paid the penalty for that sin and he has commanded me to forgive everyone who sins against me. So I wish it were different sometimes.

I'm not allowed. It takes one. But reconciliation takes two people. It takes two. You got to want to reconcile. They got to want to reconcile. And they got to be willing to own what they did.

Bend the knee. I'm like, hey, dude, I messed up. I'm sorry. And then you have to go. We're doing a little Bible study here. You got to go to the book of Proverbs. And Proverbs gives a taxonomy of three types of people. And, man, Sean, just as, I think,

I think there's a blessing on your life. and like the fact that you'll even have a pastor like I saw you have Bryce on and some other guys Jeremiah some other guy like you're gonna have some people who try to take advantage of you and sometimes that's gonna be because the enemy's gonna work in it okay so you're gonna have this you know you're gonna have this thing happen this like for for guys who man for whatever reason they got a lot of people who know who they are like you this little thing from the book of Proverbs might be one of the most important things you

ever internalize. In the book of Proverbs, there's three types of people. Wise, foolish, and evil. And so when you're deciding whether or not you reconcile with somebody, and I'd say this, not just Sean Ryan, I'd say this anybody, you've got to figure out, is this a wise person? I probably want to reconcile with a wise person. Is this a foolish person? A question mark, because fools, fools can hurt you, right? Is this an evil person? You definitely want to stay away from an evil person. So I think you're going to ask that question. Then I think what I'd say, if you're just going, hey, how do you do it? Number one, if you don't get like, dude like down deep, deep, deep in your soul, the reality of the gospel. The gospel is the good news that I am not a mistakeer in need

of a life coach. I'm a sinner in need of a savior. And that God so loved the world they gave is one and only son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life. man, God so loved Josh Howard and that he gave Jesus Christ so that if Josh Howardon believes in him, Josh Howardton would have eternal life. If I don't receive that forgiveness, it's like in Kentucky, I grew up in Kentucky, you might say it like this. You can't give what you don't got. Can't give what you don't got. So one, I got to start there, right?

Now I'm going to start there. Now I'll do these others. Try to be a little more. Try not do a whole sermon here. You can do this. discern it, man. It's all good. I'm trying to respect you. All right. I'll do my best here. There's no reason to speed it up.

All right. All right. What happens to most people, in my opinion, is honestly, man, they never fully realized what happened to them and is still happening to them because of what happened to them. And it's like, you can't forgive what you didn't identify. I can't solve a problem that I didn't define. If I can't define it, I can't solve it. So I got a buddy that recommended this, and I've been recommended it for years. Is that parable in Matthew 18, it says that when somebody sins against you, it is as if a debt has been occurred.

That person took something from you. So in your analogy, that person may have taken your ability to feel at ease and safe around pastors. away from you. I hope the Lord redeems that. And I would just say to anybody, this is not, this is not about you. This is just about anybody. Anybody who receives a wound, anybody. Satan will get in there and try to capitalize on it. And that's the prison. Hey, because that thing happened to you, you can never, you'll make an inner vow. I'll never do that again. I'll never trust men again because that dude did that to me when I was six. I'll never go to, what people don't realize, when you start using that time,

type of language, that's prison language. All net, in other words, bars have been erected between me and that thing. And I just wanna give a gentle watch out to everybody listening. Sometimes that thing is a really, really good thing that Satan's trying to use an old wound to keep you from ever getting that good thing again.

So what you go? If you're talking about, are you talking about my particular situation? I'm saying, that's it anything. That's it again. No, that's, I use that an hour. I'm talking about anything. Doesn't mean I'll keep myself from the word. It just won't be.

Yeah, of particular. Of course. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm saying, no, no, what I'm saying is typically when somebody is deeply wounded, and it doesn't matter your thing, anybody's thing. And this is not what you're saying. What Satan will sometimes do, I'm preaching my little sermon here. What Satan will sometimes do is get them to make an inner vow.

Like, let's say a girl is abused when she's seven by her uncle. she'll make an inner vow it's like a demonic reverse covenant is what it is i'll never trust men again and what satan is trying to do is cut her off from honestly a lot of men that she's going to need in her life to become the beautiful noble woman of god you see what i'm saying is that makes sense that's perfect sense there you now let me ask you this do you think that wisdom can come from people sitting against you oh bro yes My gosh, yes. It's like...

Because if you, you know, with that becomes experience and why you may, maybe it would be foolish to say, I'll never trust another man again. I think a lot of wisdom can be pulled from that and maybe I can, I will never trust this type of man again. You can see through, you know, you'll, you know, a lot of times, you know, you can just see right through people, you know, through experiences of things happening.

And then you'd notice patterns that, come with every human being that's like that. Yes. I strongly agree with that. That's exactly what the word means when it says that God works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And all things includes all the jacked up things.

It'll redeem all those things. All right. So if we're going back to how do I do it? Man, this next thing that I'm going to say is like for real it's one of the hardest things you're going to do and it's one of these things

you can't do it in five minutes like it's going to take like five hours, five weeks or five months but this thing that's got recommended and I've been recommended ever since you got to almost like make a debt ledger this is what Jan and I have had to do for people

who have very egregiously sent against us and they were never going to own it they're never going to own it you know this is what we had to do so Jesus Matthew 18 says like a debt so what you're you do is you get out a sheet of paper. There's a little exercise and it's not fun. And you sit down and first of all you pinpoint who send against me. And I need specificity. What you got to watch out for

is they. You know, there was one time, you know, a lot of people don't think about this because people do get hurt by pastors. See, you got that story. I wouldn't say I've been hurt by a pastor. There you go. I would not say that. I don't want to put that on anybody. There you go. But, you know, with some people, I'm just trust. Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense. But what, you know, and I'm not, this is not a pity party at all. But what I will say was some people sometimes don't realize is, man, you know, pastors getting get shot at, sheep bite.

So there was one time I was, I went to counseling for a little bit when I was in Nashville because I was honestly part of it because I was struggling with someone. forgiveness. And this guy asked me, he was like, you know, hey man, what's going on to you? And I was like, man, the church, I'm a pastor. The church hurt me. I'm doing this thing. And he paused. It was one of the most powerful things he ever did is he stopped me. And I was like, hey, man, he did, you know, he judo moved me. He said, well, hey, hey, wait a second, man. What do you mean by the church hurt you? I said, what church? You're a church? I mean, man, this is, we're going through this thing.

And so, wait a second, Josh, your church, I think my church at the time was a thousand people or something like that. He said, hey, man, your church is a thousand. Did it all thousand hurt you? I'm like, well, no, shut up. Shut up, nothing to know. He said, well, hey, man, here's what you do. Write down the names of every single person who actually hurt you. And I wrote down those names with Jana.

And when we got done, it was seven people, you know. but but what i think satan had done is he had gotten me to transmit the pain that came from seven people to the church you know so what you got to do is it starts with getting like specificity who specifically sinned against me i think step two and it's not fun is you got to take inventory of what what was taken from you right it's like i'll give an example that probably probably a lot of guys that listen this podcast like now you better watch out this will get you is your your story is one time you stood at altar and you said till death do us part and you meant it and then one day you woke up and found out she didn't and now somebody else is

tugging your kids into bed at night all right well heads up man that's gonna leave a mark You're going to need to clean some things out. When you get to that debt ledger, what you got to get down, okay, this is who's in against me. Now I've got to start going, I need to name everything that was taken from me. And dude, you got to write down, you got to write down like all the stuff. Like, man, it's hard for me to, you know, let's say this example I just use. It's hard for me to trust women anymore. That was taken from me.

man, I spent eight months of my life not sleeping good and drinking too much because of that girl. Hey, you know what's taken from me is half my income. You know what's taken for me is all the job opportunities that would have had if I'd have been able to focus for that year on my career. Hey, do you know what was taken for me? The ability to, now I see my kids, you know, 50% of the time. I just lost 50% of being a debt. Like, you've got to get down and, like, you've got to get down.

And the reason I say that, man, is people who don't do that, like, if you don't get like, this is what's going on, what's taken for me, you can't cancel a debt that you never inventoried. And if you don't do that, like, okay. Now, once you got your debt leisure, okay, and that'll take you a minute. You have two choices of what you're going to do with that. And the first one, they both suck, but in different ways. you can, one, you can hang on to it.

I'm going to keep this, I'm going to keep this debt ledger for the rest of my life, you know. And everywhere I go, everybody's going to know. The reason I'm pissy and angry and crotchety is, everybody's going to know, is because they did this and I'm holding on to the debt. And actually, and I will say this. One of the biggest reasons nobody likes to talk about that people don't forgive is because if they forgive somebody, they lose the excuse for why they act like they do.

It's a damn good point. It's like, if I forgive them, I don't got an excuse anymore for why I'm angry all the time and why I don't trust nobody and why I'm cynical all that. You know, it's like, you gotta watch out for that, man. So you got that, you know,

either you can hold on to it, but that comes at a real big price. It costs you the joy for the rest of your life. Or, I think it's the book of Colossians. You can do this. And it's not easy, but it's the best thing that'll ever happen to you.

It says that what God did is he canceled the record of debt against us with its legal demands, nailing them to the cross. And what you can do is you can take that debt ledger. And I'd encourage you to actually, like,

physically do something like this. Like, me and Jana, Jana, burned her. She took it out to our fire pit and burned it. We got an old cross on our property. We bill has got some sentimental value to me. Sometimes I'll walk out there and I'll literally just like old school late 80s youth camp. Like I'll nail it. I'll nail it on there.

But you've got to make a decision to cancel that debt and just say, okay, Jesus, I'm trusting. that either you paid the penalty for this sin on the cross or that person will pay the penalty for it in hell. But what I know is it's not up to me. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, declares the Lord. Not up to me. What about forgiving yourself? Yeah.

Man. That's probably the biggest one of all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, when people say forgiving themselves, That's a big ledger. It's a big ledger.

For some people. It's the biggest one. Biggest one. I had a guy write me from prison a few years ago after listening a sermon, and I was talking about the grace of God and how God can redeem anybody, you know. And he said, he wrote me a letter, and he was like, hey, man, I want to believe that, but you don't know what I've done. And what I would say to that guy, actually what I did say that guy is, hey, man, that's actually not the problem. The problem is you don't know what he did.

because Jesus Christ went to a cross and he paid the penalty of your sin for you. Man, what about forgiving yourself? There's this really interesting thing that happens the longer somebody walks with the Lord, where the longer they walk with Jesus, there's this weird thing that happens where the better you are but the worse you feel. It's actually a weird thing. I think John MacArthur, an old dead pastor said that. and it's interesting if you watch the life of the apostle Paul a lot of people miss this because the books of the Bible are not in chronological order of like when they were written they're in a different sequence but if you line all the books up in the order that the apostle Paul wrote him he starts by referring to himself as one of the apostles and then he goes a little five

and he says, well, I'm the least of the apostles. And then he goes a little farther, and he says, he calls himself the least of all the saints. And then, and I think the last letter he ever wrote, he says, this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Jesus Christ died for sinners of whom I am the foremost. So it's almost like a reverse testimony. It's almost like he started feeling like it was here. And the reason for that is the longer you walk with the Lord, you sort of know him a little better.

And the more you know him, the more of his perfection you see and the more of your imperfection you see, and you feel that gap. So what happens is that gap gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Here's what I should be and here's what I am. And honestly, the longer you live some life, you send some more sins, it's like the gap gets bigger and bigger, you know. You've done some stuff and seen some stuff.

But what happens is the longer you walk with the Lord, the gap gets bigger and bigger between you and what you should be and what you are. But if we're really understanding, we're looking at the cross and we're understanding what Jesus did for us, what really ends up happening is your understanding of the grace of God to you and what Jesus did for you on the cross. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So John Newton, who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace, he was involved in the slave trade. I think when he got saved, if I remember correctly, and had a pretty radical conversion,

and it bothered him for the rest of his life. At the end of his life, I think he had a little dementia. And at the end of his life, one of the last things he ever said was, though I am old and my memory is fading, I remember two things very clearly. I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior. And man, if somebody's going, how do I forgive myself?

Man, honestly, what I would say is you got to get your eyes off yourself. And it's really not about what you've done. It's about what he did. And there is, I'll just last thing. I'll just say this. There's a little bit of me that just gently, gently with a pastoral heart, look at a guy that says that and be like, hey man, who do you think you are? You know, do you think you're a better sinner than he is a Savior?

I don't think so, man. I don't think so. So I think you just got to go back to the cross over and over and over again and know, that thing was nailed to the cross, and I really am free. I really am. The original question was, how can you forgive, still want justice, but not be overcome with vengeance? Yeah, that's right. That's good. This gets into a something that's called, the theological, logical term for it is sphere sovereignty. I'm going to be a little nerdy for a second if that's okay.

So in the Bible, God has established three institutions that when they work like they're supposed to work, it's good for people and it's good for societies. And the three institutions are the family, the church, and the state. And all three institutions have different roles. Okay. Okay. So, you know, kind of the image that theologians have used to just Bible, be Bible, you know, Bible nerd for a second, is what they'll say is, you know, you got the rod, the keys, and the sword is what they'll say. You know, sort of the image that's the logo of the family is the rod. You know, hey, we're good fathers discipline their children, raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord. The image of the church is the keys. That's Jesus when he talks to Peter. I give you the keys of the kingdom. whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven whatever you're loose on earth will be loosed in heaven that kind of thing keys it's about ordinances you know uh helping people understand helping people

be saved and then helping people understand that they are saved okay keys and then uh the image for the state is the sword that comes from romans 13 and it says that the government uh the human governments as very imperfect as they are i think we agree on that uh that they have been instituted by god that actually the governments are a good thing. Bad governance is a real bad thing, but a world with no government is a real bad thing. And what it says is that God has, one of the roles of the government is to, quote, bear the sword

and be vengeance to the wrongdoer. So to get back at this question, how can I forgive somebody and still seek justice? Well, here's what you do, okay? Romans 13 is the passage where it talks about the role of the government is the sword. It's to bring justice on the wrongdoer. What's very interesting is right before that in Romans 12, it says this, you're actually alluding to it. It says, vengeance is mine.

I will repay, says the Lord. In other words, don't seek vengeance. Don't ever do that. What it's acknowledging is there's a difference between the role of an individual and the role of the state. So you as an individual, my job is to love you, to forgive you, to release you from your debt. Like, I'm not walking around trying to take vengeance on you. It's actually wrong for an individual to try to do the job of the government. Okay.

So I can forgive you, but then it's still a good, godly, and just thing for the government to do its job to try to bring justice on the wrongdoer. So, man, honestly, it's fully appropriate for somebody that commits a crime against somebody. for you to forgive that person and then call the police and be like, hey, man, this person just did this and report them. Those things are not in conflict. Does that make sense? That makes sense. It does make sense.

Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Yeah. Why did he have to do it? I mean, he's God's son. He's God's only son. Why didn't God make another son? We've got a lot of questions there. I mean, I just don't.

I don't fully understand why it had to happen if he is God. Why couldn't he just forgive? Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Man, that's like my favorite question to answer ever. All right. So the Bible says that God did it that way so that he could be both, let me say it and then explain it.

So he could be both just and the justifier of the ungodly. All right. So just and justifier. All right. So my favorite way to illustrate this is by a story. Okay. So best illustration of why God had, why Jesus had down on the cross I've ever heard.

All right. It goes like this. Once upon a time in a far off kingdom, there was a king who was known by everyone of the kingdom to be the most just and loving king who had ever lived. But then it was discovered that somebody was stealing, from the king's treasury. And so the king being a just king,

he sent out an edict that whenever it was discovered who was stealing from the king's treasury, that that person would receive 10 lashes. Well, the theft continued, and so he issued another decree. When it's discovered who's stealing

from the king's treasury, it would be 20 lashes. The theft continued, 30 lashes. Until finally, the king issued a final decree, and he said, when it's discovered who's stealing from the king's treasury, it will be a sentence of 40, Lashes. Now, the problem with that was that 40 lashes was a death sentence. And so the theft

continued until eventually it was discovered that none other than the king's daughter was the one who was stealing from the treasury. So then, a question began to ripple through the kingdom. What would the king do? Some thought he would forgive her, but then how would he be just? Some thought that he would issue the sentence, but then how would he be loving? Well, it was decided. The king sat down and decided, you know what? The sentence is just, the punishment must fall, and so the decree stands. And so one day the entire kingdom was gathered. And in front of everybody, the king's own daughter was marched up to the podium in front of the entire kingdom, and she was bent over the podium, and the back of her shirt was ripped open. And the executioner was

stood there and he began to raise his whip to land the first slash and as soon as he did the king yelled stop and there was a silence that fell and the king strode forward and he took off his own shirt and he bent over and he wrapped his body around his own daughter and looked back up over his shoulder and he said now hit her and the executioner objected and he said but king those lashes, they'll fall on you. And he said, the sentence must stand. It's just hit her. And so 40 lashes fell on the body of the king that protected the body of his daughter,

and the king died in the stead of his daughter. And what happened, Sean, in that story, is the king was both just because payment for the sin had to be made, and the king was the justifier of the ungodly. she went free because he took the penalty. See, the reason Jesus had to die on the cross is because God is just, and so payment for sin has to be made.

If somebody walked into a courtroom and a judge just went, you know what, man, you raped that girl when she was young, but you're real sorry, and I have the power to do it. You're forgiven. Nobody would think that was a just judge. So penalty for sin, sin had to be made, but God is love. So he made the payment himself. That's what the Bible means

when it says, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Okay. So it's a substitutionary sacrifice in my place condemned he stood. Wow. It's a great explanation. Does it make sense? Makes perfect sense. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. You want to take a break? Let's do it, man. A lot of guys think getting healthier means adding more and more things to the routine, more supplements, more tracking, more protocols, more complicated systems. But the older I get, the more I think it comes down to getting the fundamentals right

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That's A-R-M-R-A.com slash SRS. All right, Josh, back from the break. We just wrapped up forgiveness, but I did have one more question. Is there anybody or anything you're struggling with? to give forgiveness. You got any stories on that? Anything going on right now? Dude.

I think we all struggle with it. Yeah. Tough. It's hard to do. Yeah. Man, you know, probably not, you know, I don't know if there's anything I would want to put on air. Gotcha. You know, there's probably like you.

Maybe something I could be transparent about. Being a pastor is a, it's a weird thing. It's a peculiar, it's a peculiar, it's a peculiar life. And, uh, why do you say that? It's just a, it's a weird life, man. It's like, what's weird about it? Hmm. Well, you know, uh, you know, uh, you know, everywhere you go, um, probably similar to you, at least where you are, people know who you are.

Uh, and they have extremely strong opinions about what you do. and then you kind of talk, you know, you get on top of that. Man, my job is to say, to open the Word of God and then do my very best to apply it to your life. And man, you know, sometimes that's going to get up all in your... Do you let those opinions get to you? Does that bother you? Not as much anymore. Not as much anymore. However, there are people who over the years, and it, what I... Usually it'll last for like, this is weird.

I've kind of talked about this publicly. There are people who, for whatever reason, might be a personality type, might be something else, who they'll just decide they hate you. And they'll just, it's almost like a dog on a bun. They'll like a latch on. And like they make destroying you their life calling for a few years. And you know, man, it's like that affects. I'll give you an example. Here's how it affects me.

Like, this is a debt ledger kind of thing. You know, like, I preached a sermon a couple years ago. They got into culture on political applications. That year, our home insurance application was denied. They got it. We were threatened by multiple people. Lawsuits. They got a hold of Janice, my wife's cell phone number and just spam the cell phone.

they posted our address, that's probably, that happens to all, everybody, this public. They posted our address a million places, a million story, like, you know, it's like, every time to open the internet, it was, he's a, he's a pedophile. He's, I mean, like, insane, you know, stuff. Posted, you know, pictures of our,

of our kids playing in our yard on the internet. I mean, it's like. Privacy violations. Yeah, dude. And it's like, what did you get out of that? Yeah. Why'd you do it? Did you get something?

I hope you got something out of that. Yeah. Well, they don't. I know you didn't. Yeah, they don't. You think your friend gives a shit that you... Yeah. Saw my kids playing out front.

They don't. They don't give a shit. And then they do it again. Yes. And then they got to pretend to be your friend or that, you know, that's kind of like some of the stuff that I was kind of getting at earlier. You know what I mean? And it's just, it's like, they just don't realize how much that, like... It's not even, it's a safety thing.

Yeah. And it's like, what did you get out of that? I know you didn't mean anything by it, but what did you get out of that? Well, no, I think they do mean something by it sometimes. Well, yeah, I mean, okay. I was talking about, you know, people that don't mean you harm. There you go. You know, but then there is the other side of it.

Yeah, dude, when I got, you know, that year, we had some, you know, I don't, I think it's okay to talk about it. We had somebody like arrested on our property. You know, I was, you know, our kids are coming home asking why is dad on the news? You know, because they're, you know, it's just like, honestly, it doesn't bother me when it starts messing with my kids. Yep. That's a new ball game. Yep. So yeah, yeah, I do.

Yeah, I do. Dude, I want to go back to one thing you said earlier. You asked the question is like, man, the same thing will happen. And it just sends me. Like, I just keep feeling the same thing over. and over again. One of the misconceptions I think people have about forgiveness is they think it's a one-time event. There is a reason Jesus says, hey man, you're going to have to forgive seven times, 70 times. And honestly, Sean, what I've learned is a lot of times, all of them are for the same thing

and the same person. Like, I'm going to have to forgive if somebody's husband cheats on them, they forgive him and they reconcile and they keep the marriage. That happens in our church. all the time, then every time they see their husband talk to a woman even completely innocuously in the lobby at church. It's like just saying hi to somebody that's on their serve team. She may have all those same emotions shoot back up, even though he's not doing anything wrong. She's going to have to forgive again and again and again for the same sin. So you're saying every time somebody sees the perpetrator, it comes up again and you have to go through the process all over again.

That thing Jesus said of, how many times should I forgive Jesus, seven times? And in Matthew 18, Jesus goes, no, Peter, it's actually going to be seven times, 70 times, 490 times. And what he's saying is infinite. And honestly, a lot of times, you just can't have to forgive the same one sin over, and over and over and oh because it keeps coming back up in your heart the reason that's important is people will live with false guilt and they'll think man the fact that i still struggle with anger on this it means that i haven't forgiven i must not be a good christian it's like no man you're a normal human and you're just doing the forgiveness thing over and over and over

that's a good point let's go back to the comments it sounds like it sounds like people's opinions bother you. They, uh, you know, at this point, uh, you, do you, does that, does that, is that in your head when you're up there giving your ministry? Oh gosh. You know, is this not at all. Good. No, not at all, man.

The first few times, it happened to me while I was younger. It does. It did. No, like, uh, you don't become a pastor unless you like and care about people. I hope, you know, there's probably some psychopaths out there. So, yeah, the default mode is you do, man. You want people to love and trust you. And the first time, you know, you get a little internet mob or whatever it is,

it does mess with you. At this point, it's just so, you know, there's always a little other. You just kind of get to the spot where it's Galatians 110. For a man now trying to please man or am I trying to please God? I'm trying to please man, I am no longer a servant of Christ. And you just sort of, let me just turn it off. Yeah, I was just going to bring that up. I mean, it's interesting.

You know, I'm kind of going through that right now. And I've never thought that I was influenced by my audience, but really by anybody. and then, you know, and that's really important to me that I'm not influenced by anybody. And I always say what I, I always say what I'm going to say. I don't let anybody dictate what I say, well, by opinions, I don't care, you know, but I do care. I did care a little bit, you know, I would get the internet mobs and it would, it would hurt. And then I would steer away from certain conversations for a little bit until I felt like

I was healed and then I'd dive back on the fight, you know, and I realized that, what am I trying to say here? You know what I realized? Ever since I came to Christ, probably about, I don't know, three years ago maybe, like fully committed. I read this thing in the Bible once that said that many people, I'm not a guy that quote scripture so but he was talking about many people will say they're doing things in my name and they aren't that's right and that's right i kind of self-reflected on that and that may have

been like six months ago maybe half a year ago so i'm like shit man like i feel like i'm you know he's always in my head you know i'm always trying to do the right thing but then you get all these people coming up to you and they're like oh you're doing god's work And you look at the comments and they're all like, oh, yeah, you're doing a great job, Sean. You look at the views and the likes and the negative shit too. You know, and you get pumped up, you know what I mean, by all these people. And then it, I mean, for lack of the better term, it mind fucks you. You're like, oh, shit, I am doing the right thing.

But it's just a bunch of people that don't know anything. better than me or you or anybody you know and then just going with the flow and so you you are you you you it tricks you into thinking that you're doing the and i'm not saying i was doing the wrong thing i think i've done some stuff that's wrong you know on here that i thought was right that i was influenced by praise you know and i feed off the like oh well if all these people think i'm doing the right thing that i must be doing the right thing right but they don't know shit yeah And I don't know shit. And so I just recently just cut it all off.

I'm not on, I don't look at any of it anymore. I don't even look at the financials behind anything anymore. Really? Okay. Because I don't, I just don't want to be, I want to be totally uninfluenced. And in touch with God as much as possible without man, human beings, getting in the middle of that relationship. You know, I really want to know, like, what do you want me to do? here what do you want me to talk about what do you want me to do not what all these people

you know six million people want me to do want me to do so i cut it all off i don't i don't even have i don't have any of it on my phone i will watch youtube and that's it on my tv but i don't i don't look at any of that shit anymore i see how it goes i could crash and burn i bet not but it feels pretty good so far dude i think you're heading the right direction i think i love what you think about this you know kind of what what i learned when some of that stuff started happening is like you know um there's a proverb that says uh whoever walks with a wise becomes wise and a companion of fools will suffer harm and it's kind of that principle of man over time you and me we will end up becoming whatever is like the average of the five people who are closest to us

whoever those five people are you extrapolate out five years 10 years that that's who i'm going to be and so you know how i've kind of thought about it i love know what you think how i've kind of thought about it is like man you you know what I'm gonna try to do what I'm really gonna focus on is assembling the band of brothers around me and and getting I care who that is a lot like who are those like five rider die guys that that band of brothers like they know my junk I know their junk and when it hits the fan that's who I call and those are the guys that like I got those guys I got five or six guys they know we text multiple times per day they're praying for you today

And that, you know, it's like, hey, ma'am, what do you see in me? Am I missing it? And just like, hey, I need you to. Because I will say there are some people who like. Who are they? Who did you put around you? Yeah. Do they work with you?

Are they part of your ministry? There are. Are they the guys out the side there? There's a few, some of them. Actually, some of those guys do function like that. So our elders, we've got elders in our church. Every year, I do the same thing. What do y'all see?

I'll see. What I do every year is I'll ask that. First of all, they've got an open door. The key to this that I've noticed is you probably felt the same is like, man, as a, man, I say this with humility. I hope that, you know, as your platform grows, your notoriety grows, it gets harder to find people who will be honest with you. So then what I've noticed is I have to like deputize people. Like, I'm giving you authority to call me if I'm breaking the speed limit. that's your job like I'll say I need you to keep me out of the newspaper I'd rather be

embarrassed in front of you than embarrassed in front of however many millions of people or whatever you know so for me we got elders our church they're like we're meeting constantly and they know like hey man tell me once a year I ask those guys what should I start doing what should I stop doing what should I keep doing what do you see in my life I've obviously got Janna Janna should be number one Jana me and Jana take a walk I'm not saying everybody's got to do this I got a lot of problems in my life. I got a real good marriage. I got a real good marriage.

Jana is a wise, very courageous, very godly woman. We usually take two walks a day. So we usually walk about four miles a day together. And really all we're doing is it's just like, we're talking about Jesus, we're talking about life, we're talking about our kids, we're talking about ministry. and Jana will tell me if she sees something, Janice can tell me. But she'll also be the person that if I were to ever like need to preach something that was difficult, it's like, I know this is going to make people mad.

If I flaked and I walked off stage, Janet will be the first person to be like, I love you, you flaked. So she'll speak into my life. She'll also put steel on my spine. She'll do that. Nice. And then I got, I got some of these guys out here. I got a group of pastors that I've been friends with for a long, long, long time that we're on a group text.

And we keep in touch. These are guys, a guy in Arizona. There's a guy up in state of Washington. This guy over in Atlanta. Those guys. But that, you know, I don't. I mean, it's interesting. I love it.

And I do the same thing. And I've got everybody's in, I mean, everybody, got four people in this building that have been with me since the beginning of this damn thing, or right at the beginning. One of them came before that, 17 years old, when I was teaching tactics. He's been with me for 10 years now. And these people are like my family. And so I have that.

Now, on the flip end, I love them. love me and and we've been through a lot of shit together and we'll go through a lot more stuff and i always take you know what they say into into account and but the interesting thing is they're also influenced by the success of this and so you can't a hundred percent buy into everything that they're telling you because they are influenced their lives are influenced by this so of course they're influenced by this same with your guys out there they're influenced by the success of what you're doing and so that's right you have to keep that at mind that's right you got to have the outside but what that does at least for me is when stuff hits the fan which i pray is not frequent

you know that the little axiom becomes for me criticism should be weighed not counted so i'm not taking a poll of how many people liked it and how many people didn't like it and if more people didn't like it than liked what i said it was wrong now man we got bible verses for that let god be true and every man a liar amen we're going to be in the minority on a whole bunch of stuff we're we're going to stand on stand on the word of god and let god be true and every man a lot we're okay with that it hits the fan and I'm sorry to asking people, man, what did you think? Do I miss it? I'm not counting.

How many criticisms did I get? I'm weighing who did it come from? If it came from Jana, I almost don't need to hear anything else. If it's one of my elders, I almost don't need to hear anything else. If it's one of those guys, it's like a ride or die. So that's how I kind of think about it. There's a point where you realize you're doing the same,

things you used to do, but your body just responds differently. Same workouts, same effort, same discipline, but recovery takes longer. Energy isn't as steady and you don't bounce back the way you used to. And once you notice that, you start asking questions. Is it stress? Is it sleep? Is it age? Is it hormones? That's when guys start looking into testosterone and that space gets confusing fast. That's why I started taking Mars Men. What stood out to me is that Mars Men is designed to support healthy T levels, energy, stamina, and recovery without forcing hormones into your body. It's built around helping your body use more of what it's already producing. And since taking it, I've noticed steadier energy, better recovery, and more drive throughout the day. It's not like a caffeine spike

that just feels more consistent. It's made in the USA, third-party tested, and has a 90-day money-back guarantee. And that matters. Because if you're going to put something into your daily routine, you want to know it's clean, tested, and backed by a company that stands behind it. For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off for life, plus free shipping and three free gifts at men go to mars.com. That's men go to mars.com for 50% off for life and three free gifts when you check out. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. My wife's the same. It sounds like our wives are very similar.

You know, my wife, there are days that she just is like, we can stop at any time. We don't need anything else. And I think about that. And I'm glad she's like that because, you know, if it's the other way, she would just want more and more and more. I was going to say, dude, that tells me everything about your wife. Yeah. Because what that tells me is she's into Sean, not what Sean can do. Yeah.

She doesn't like this. she loves what I do she doesn't like she doesn't like the notoriety she doesn't like the notoriety that comes with chill she low key yeah

that's how Jana would roll if she could yeah we were going to do that editing room over there with all the computers that was going to be our studio we were going to do a husband-wife thing and we did

nine pilots and they were wildly successful and we deleted them all. Because she didn't like the eyeballs. She's like, we got kids. One person on the light is more than enough.

And I don't want anything to do with it. And that's cool, man. Because most women... Opposite. Yeah. Man, I don't know anything about her. That's a good woman. Yeah.

Is, you know, Genesis. you know, pattern of marriage, and this is one thing that'll get you in trouble a little bit, is, hey, in a God-honoring marriage, husband's job is to be a loving head, and her job is to be a respectful helper, and there's nuances to that. But when it says helper, it's Evan, so the Hebrew is Evan Azar, it means necessary ally. And the implication is, man, God designed her for Sean Ryan, and there's a whole bunch of battles that Sean could not win, if that woman was not at Sean Ryan's side.

And, you know, if you watch, every man either marries a launch pad or a lid. And, you know, you probably feel the same way as me. There are guys that, man, do there. They were way, way more talented than me. And way better opportunities and that kind of thing. And a lot of the things that, that's one of the other things.

There's a couple of things I can't talk about with my sweating. One of them's Jana. The reason that we've been able to, you know, just see it happened. Some of the things that happened is because I married a launch pad and not a lid. There's no way I'd go a tenth of as far as, you know, we've been graced to do if I had married Jan Howard in. Howard. Blind date. A blind date. Blind date. I was a senior in college and I was single.

Janah was, she got saved, gave her life to Christ in college. She was the president of her sorority over there at Western Kentucky University. And so she went to college in the town where I grew up. So the guy that disciples me, and for listeners all that means like, when I became a Christian, it was an older, godly man that I met with to like, and he showed me, here's how you, here's how you be a Christian man. That's all that means. He disciples me. The guy that discipleed me, his wife disciples Jana after she gave her life to Christ in college. So then Jana's there and she's president of her sorority and everything and they just,

they just started asking her, hey, why are you single? And she's like, I don't know. And they sat her down and did you grow up in church at all? Say that again? Did you grow up in church at all? Catholic. Did that, I don't, this is, I'm going to show my ignorance real quick. Did they have like an old, when I was growing up, we had church directories where they have everybody's names and pictures and phone numbers.

Did they have that? Not that I'm aware of. All right. Well, my old Baptist church had that. So they, uh, they were sitting down in Jana and they pulled out the church directory and started finding all the guys who age and they were like, what about him? What about him? They did.

They did. And then they finally got to me. And they were like, what about him? And she was like, man, you know, I don't know. And so they sent me an email. And his name, Jeff Carlisle, I mentioned him earlier, my youth pastor. And he was like, hey, man, I got this girl that you need to trust me. You need to meet this girl.

And I'll be honest, man. The first time emailed, I was kind of like, well, man, you know, I'm Josh Howardton. I'm not desperate. And then he sent me a picture and I was like, I'll be there next week. And I drove up to Bowling Green, Kentucky, and blind date. And we dated for four months, got engaged, engaged for four months, got married fast as we could. Best decision I ever made. What did you like about her?

What was the first thing that hit you? Well, first of all, she was very attractive. That's the first thing I noticed because I've got a picture. So I'm a lot to say that first thing I noticed. When you met her. When I met her. Oh, say it again. What's the, what's other than that, what's the first thing that hit you?

Man, she loved, she loved the Lord. Honestly, man, it was like in two seconds. Like, all she wanted to talk about was like how she wanted to pour herself out for stuff that mattered. I figured out real fast. She obviously wanted to enjoy a great marriage. She wanted to find somebody that she could live. and die with throwing haymakers for the kingdom of God.

I figured that out real fast. And she was wise. She is a wise, wise person. Very wise. Her judge of character is ridiculous. You probably had a few moments where you got betrayed by somebody

and it's like, are you kidding me? Like, I knew you for eight years or 12 years or whatever. She saw it. There has never been a time, a 100% hit rate. That sound familiar? Oh, yeah. The Bible doesn't call them a helper for nothing. Yeah.

Sounds like an amazing woman. Yes, she is. So these elders, do they have different opinions than you on topics? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we'll have meetings. and now there's a great unity of spirit. But man, they love me. And they love me enough to, hey, man, what are you?

Here's what we're thinking. We'll pray about it and talk about it and argue about it and then pray about it some more until we get consensus on a thing. That's very, oh, very, there's a very, very high level of trust and love among those guys. And those guys at our church, they're not, you know, like you said, Hey man, you got to watch out when somebody's, you know, it's like their livelihood is tied to the successive thing. That'll affect their judgment.

These guys at our church, man, not every church like our church. At our church, they're just, they're just godly church members. They're not getting a dime from the church. Not tied to that. Which gives them the ability to love me enough and just like, hey, dude, here's where. here's we're seeing here's what thinking yeah now the guys i'm talking about i mean they could they you know they yes there is that aspect but they're also you know just to give them credit

they all tell me like hey if you end this today it's we're good with it we just want what's best for you know so i got to give credit where credit's doing it like i said i love those dudes but i also like you know i like so i like talking to eli you know i brought up elicraine earlier and and uh That's, you know, if you watch, you know, that's been a topic on this show, the Israel topic. And I always talk to him. Every couple of months, we battle it out. And he hasn't changed my opinion. But, you know, maybe one day he will.

And I love it when somebody does change my opinion because it means, you know, you're growing. That's right. And, but. That's iron, sharpening iron. Yeah. That's what you just described. We got a Bible verse for that. That's right. That's great. Sometimes sparks fly when iron hits iron.

And usually, a lot of times, those are the best friendships that take you the farthest. Yeah. He's a good dude. And I know there's no financial incentives behind him, you know, that are swaying his opinions. And I deeply respect that, especially a man in politics. That's right. So. But how many people are in your church? On a normal week now, you know, let's say here recently, 30,000. How many?

30,000? Yep. Holy cow. 30,000. I know, man. I know. It's a lot of people. I know.

Wow. Yeah. Did you watch my episode about the religion business? I was sent clips. What'd you think? I got a lot of, a lot of texts. Well, man, you know, there's, you know, I don't like commenting on stuff that I didn't dig in on. I know there's a lot of misconceptions about that kind of thing.

And, you know, there's some truths. It depends who you're talking about. So let me just, I'll shoot you real straight. There are some guys that are, you know, quote unquote, pastors. Yeah, man, it's like, that's not a good guy. Absolutely. Yeah. But, you know, the weird thing about what I do is, like, a lot of those guys that are like pastors of, you know, bigger churches, like, I know all those guys, you know.

And it is, the thing that I'll, you know, again, this stuff I never talked about publicly. The thing that can be tough for me is when I, you know, is when I, you know, it is, I know, you know, the thing that guy that I know and I'm like the internet mob, whatever, the public perception is this. And I'm like, I know that guy. I know what you're commenting on. And I know how that is like a freakishly cartoonish caricature of this thing that actually happened. But because of the realities of the terrain, he's never going to, he's never going to correct

the record. That's tough. That's tough to see, you know, again. Because he's got something to gain off of it. that's what you mean is that what you're saying somebody that somebody that will start controversy to make themselves relevant even though they know it's not true is that what you're talking about so it can be you know and dude i'm not talking about anybody i don't have a name in my i might but i'm not going to think well 30,000 it could be any name you know what i mean oh oh you're talking about

my church members oh i don't know i thought that's what you were talking about oh i'm talking about just like in public when you'll see pastors get shredding like, you know, like kind of that kind of vibe. I'm talking about when there's like this massive gap between like, I know that guy and I know the real story on that thing. Oh. You see what I'm saying? Okay.

Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Okay. That can be tough. When you're watching, okay, yeah. When you're watching somebody that you know be defamed, is that what you're talking about? Yeah, and I know, bro, that is not. Yeah.

That ain't what happened. And so what will happen is some of these guys. is because, you know, the incentive, you just were mentioned this, you've experienced this. The incentive structure of the internet is for people to be big game hunters. Who's got a big platform? If I can create that person, if I can create controversy by attacking that person, I can harvest some of their platform for me, which, and not in all cases. Let me just really quick say, there are some people.

who are saying righteous and true things about people who are not good men. Absolutely. So let me just say that. I don't want anybody to get me wrong on that. Then there are other people that's like, man, what's real interesting is, you know, you're saying this about this guy, that he's just doing all this for money or whatever it is. When actually what's happening is you have a monetized website and whenever you create a bunch of controversy, you drive a bunch of clicks to your monetized website, you know, it's weird. It comes off weird. What are some misconceptions? Man.

Anything in particular? So, first of all, my big caveat is there are guys, and I'm not going to go there on public. There are guys that I don't know well enough. but when I hear about him, I'm like, that guy does not sound like a good guy. That guy don't sound like a good guy. I've been around some guys where I'm like, it just didn't feel integris to me.

I think I'm going to make my band of brothers these guys over here, you know. So let me just say that. But sometimes, man, the gap between reality and kind of the vibe of like, man, all these big church pat, they're all having affairs and they're all just in it for the, money and they're just exploiting people and getting rich. I'm like, dude, that is, it's just not true, man.

Like, here, let me, let me, I'll give an example of this. So, uh, uh, uh, I was 16 years old. God had just called me to ministry and I'm in high school. Um, the path, and I'm going to say his name. Uh, the pastor of the, at the time, I believe the second largest church in America, the man's name was Bob Russell. He pastored Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. I'm 16 years old, God calls me a ministry, and my dad, because he was a good dad, my dad went, hey Josh, so here's what you need to do if you want to be a pastor someday. You need to find good, faithful, fruitful pastors.

You need to go get in front of them. You need to ask them intelligent questions. You need to write down everything they say, and then you need to do everything that they said. That's the book of Proverbs. Step one of getting wisdom, get wisdom. You got to go get it. Okay. So I was like, well, you know, who's the best pastor I've ever heard of? And I was like, probably Bob Russell. The problem was he pastor at church that like in the 90s was a church like 20,000 people or something, which back then, like, that didn't even exist back then. So I'm going to confess to sin real quick. I was 16 and I drove up to the Southeast Christian Church new members class. It was for people who were trying to become members of the church.

And the reason I did it is because I knew on a weekend, because there's 20,000 people there, even though he's always in the lobby, I might not be able to talk to him. But I knew he taught the new members class, and there was only a few people there. I was like, well, I'll go to that. So I sat through the whole new members class. And then at the end, I came up. I said, Pastor Bob, I am so sorry. I'm not trying to become a member of your church. I live two hours away.

But God called me to be a pastor. Is there any way I could take you out? lunch. I'll only take 45 minutes of your time. I'll drive to you. I'll bring prepared questions. And I just want to ask you questions about how to be a pastor. And he said, he said, you know what, Josh, if you'll reach out to my assistant, you know, we'll see if we can set something up. So she set something up for, I think it was two years later, if I remember right. Now, that was probably a gentle way to see, is this kid going to fall through? I think it was like two years later. Now, I'm going to give you a date. Okay, I bookmarked this date in your head because it's

going to be important in a second. She set the date for, I think it was September 13th, 2001. So two years later, I'm in college and I wake up that day. And now remember, I just want everybody remember, this is the pastor of the second largest church in America. I'm a 16-year-old nobody, even more of a nobody than I am now when he meets me. So that day I wake up and I drive five hours from Union University up to Louisville, something like that. And I get there and I sit down with him. And back then it was pre-Iphone. So you remember those little tape recorders that you could put it on a table and you press the thing?

I brought one of those. I still had the tape. And I sat there at the time I was 18 then and I put it on the table. And I had spent two years thinking of what are the 20 best questions I could ask? a faithful pastor. And I sat there and Bob Russell, the pastor of the second largest church in America. He sat with a 16, then 18. He sat with an 18-year-old, nobody.

College kid didn't even go to his church. He sat there for two hours and two hours and answered my questions. And I still have the tape. In fact, the story is not over the best parts to come. In fact, to talk about what we said earlier about our wives, I'll never forget this dude. The last thing I did is I said, Pastor Bob, is there anything that I need to know that I didn't ask you? And he said, yeah, Josh, there is.

You need to know that the most important decision you make for your ministry will not be what seminary you attend or what first church you take. It'll be what woman you marry. I never forgot it, dude. I never forgot it. Mike dropped. All right, so we finish. And then I drive him back in my little 96 Kia Sophia to his church. and I drop him off.

And as I drop him off, his assistant goes, do you know what he just did for you? And I was like, man, yeah, he spent two hours with me. It was amazing. It was amazing. Thank you so much. And she said, no, no, no. Did he tell you what he did to meet with you today?

Now, I said earlier, it was September 13th. It was September 13th, 2001. Two days after 9-11. Bingo. She sits there and explains that that, morning he had gotten called by the largest radio station in America and the largest TV station in America to do an interview a nationally syndicated interview about God and 9-11 and Bob Russell said no because a righteous man swears to his own hurt and he does not change and so instead of

talking to the entire country that day he said no to that so he could sit with an 18-year-old nobody and tell him how to be a faithful Christian man and grow up and try to be a faithful Christian pastor. Now, some of me looks back and I'm like, I think I would have done the other. But what I will say is those are the types of stories. Sometimes it'll bother me because you'll hear these bad stories that go viral.

And it's like, that story doesn't go viral. Yeah. And there's a, brother, there's a million, a million of those that's a cool story man I like that in fact somebody said that once

I saw this somewhere I heard it somewhere you know you know who the most important person in the world to me is right now you are I like that I like that a lot it means something if you think about it

it sure does and people feel that they feel that from you I'll sometimes when I'm around these guys and I won't use their names because they're the kind of guys they wouldn't like it but it is weird because they're all my buddies like I know them so I got here I'll just give like maybe just a couple examples so like one and it's fun for me because all the names popping

in my head you know one one of the pastors of one of the three largest churches in America. Nobody will ever know this. He asked his elders to cap his salary years ago. They don't raise it. And he and his wife sit down every single year and they go on a generosity retreat. And they try to figure out how can we give more. And they're now up to giving away 60% of their income just to help people. And they give these little anonymous donations to people in a church. And they're never going to know it came from that guy. One guy was a pastor of, I think, one of the two largest churches. maybe in American history, maybe, maybe. He wrote a book at the time.

He wrote a book that became, I think, one of the three or four best-selling books in world history. And what a lot of people don't know is what he did with all the money is he reverse. First, he repaid the church every dollar that they'd ever salaried him.

And then he and his wife sat down and they figured out how to reverse tithe on the money. So they gave away 90% and they only lived on 10. And he used that money to start a series of nonprofits that just helped the poor. This guy's name, I will say. I'm a brag on him because he's on our teaching team at Lake Point. There's a guy named Pastor Mike Bro. He pastored church of over 10,000 people in Lexington, Kentucky. I grew up listening to him as a kid. Now he's on our teaching team at Lake Point. And I'm going to brag on him. He may kill me, but I'm just going to brag on him.

That guy retired, stepped away from his church when it was like, I mean, peak, like crushing. And he stepped away, and you know what he ended up doing? He ended up helping his daughter plant a church in a city in California. Like, rub two sticks together. Nobody's there. Help his daughter plant a church in a city that, like, didn't have many churches. And you know what that guy does now?

Every Thursday, he wakes up and he leads a little Bible study at a local Starbucks for recovering addicts. and he volunteers his Thursday afternoon to help widows repair their homes and mow their lawns. This dude, like, everybody would have been like, mega-charomatic. Like, and I could keep going, like, dude, I got, there's another guy who he sets aside, another one of the pastors of the largest church in America. They set aside a large portion of their personal income to help families in their church adopt kids. And what they do is they set it up where every time somebody in their church is adopting,

that person anonymously gets sent like thousands of dollars. And they'll never know it, but it's from that guy that's the senior pastor. And they've set a goal of funding at least 100 adoptions. Like, you know, with what they're doing. Now, I could just, I could keep going on and on and on. But when people hear that, I think a lot of people hear that about, you know, these megachurch pastors. And I think they go, well, man, Josh, yeah, but.

why don't I ever hear those stories? Because planes that land safely don't make the news. That's a good point. Thank you for sharing that. I always notice when somebody goes the extra step. It does not have to be some huge thing. It could be someone following up when they said they would, giving you a straight answer, or taking a little extra time to make sure the job gets done right. That sticks with you because it shows they actually care. And if you're hiring, that same thing matters. You don't just want someone qualified.

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Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. So in a church of 30,000 people, I'm sure everybody's wanting to get some time with you, that want your advice, that want some help. How do you determine who you personally give your time to? Because it's impossible to die, divide it up to 30,000 people. Plus, you've got three kids and a wife.

I do, and that's my first ministry. Well, a couple things I say is that's true in, any church that's really over, you know, honestly, I don't know, six, eight hundred people. It's kind of the same thing. So what I'd say is a few things. Do you give it to anybody? Give what? Your time.

To just anybody? Who do you give it to? Do you give it to anybody? Oh, do I give it to? Oh, of course. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Of course. Yeah, man.

Like, what I've, what I've, so let me say a few. What I do now is what I try to have this motto of do for one, what you wish you could do for all. So man, can I do it for 30,000? No, I can't always do that. I'll talk about that in a second. But I never want to get to the spot where the shepherd doesn't smell like the sheep. So what I'll do is me, me and Jana, whoever it is. First of all, we're in the lobby after services, pray with people.

You know, after every service, every week, unless I preach too long and I can't get out there, you know. And we're just praying with people. Anytime I'm not preaching, we just travel. I did this last weekend. We just travel all the campuses and we just get there early and stand in the lobby. And we just sit there and pray with people. It's like the, dude, it's like the best thing. It's like my favorite.

It's the best thing ever. I do that stuff. One thing that I'll do. And then what I do is, so in the book of Acts, when the church gets, it's the same thing, Sean. You know, the first church ever existed, Acts 2, you got 3,000 people. By Acts 3, it's 5,000 people. there's indications later in the book of Acts the church definitely grew larger than that

so you know you this has been around since the beginning and in the book of acts I think it's in the book of Acts when it gets to the spot where the church grows to the spot where there were a group of widows in the church that the pastors the apostles themselves they were like personally handing all the food

to distribute to the widows to help them the church eventually grew to a spot where they were spending so much time doing that that the Bible says they were distracted from two things, prayer and the ministry of the word. So then what they did, if you read the book of Acts, is they essentially restructured the leadership of the church. They added a layer of leadership that we now call deacons.

That's where that came from. That deacon word just means servant, you know. They did a leadership restructure, added a layer of leadership, and it uncorked a little kink in the hose. So that now, hey, man, these deacons are the ones. They're administering this ministry to you, so these guys can focus on prayer and the word. It's kind of been the same thing forever.

So that's really what we try to do is, man, my job as the senior pastor at church is not to personally do every aspect of ministry in church. My job is to be responsible as best I can that ministry happens for every single person at church. It's like we have, you know, our team, we have hundreds of pastors that are trained. So when somebody grabs me in the lobby, they're like, hey man, I need to meet with you. Well, one, I'll talk to you right now in the lobby. Let's talk. What can I help with I pray? But one of my questions is I will sometimes ask, hey, man, which one do you want?

Do you want help or do you want me? Because if you want help, I can get you with a person that's actually more gifted than me for the ministry that you need that's actually going to get you better help. That's why the Bible talks about how there's one body with many parts. Everybody, including every pastor, has different spiritual gifts. Let me get like, bro, you don't want me counseling you. I mean, when I used to do some counseling, I'm just not great at it. I'm like, hey, man, quit doing that.

You know, let me pray for you. And here's a sermon to listen to it. But we have people on our team who like, you know, I'm not the best preacher in the world, but God's given me some good ability there. We have guys in our team who are like, they are way more anointed and gifted to personally counsel somebody going through a really traumatic thing than I ever will. be. So I want to try to get them to the pastor that can help best help them. The last thing that we do is, you know, we just never want to get to the spot where the shepherds

don't smell like sheep. So we constantly got people in our house. We lead at our church, it's called a rooted group. It's a little discipleship group. And Jan and I, we usually lead at least one per year. Last time, we just led a big discipleship group with 30 young adults, just sort of random young adults, a bunch of kids sitting around our living room, and we're just discipling, 30 kids in church. Or if I hear sometimes about somebody that's like going through it, like I'll just tell you, man, we had one of my favorite church members in our whole church just died of cancer.

He's hugging Jesus now. Kelly Goudreau. Best dude ever. For the last part of Kelly's life, you know, I'm calling Kelly and checking up on him. I'm praying with him. I'm seeing if I, hey man, what kind of, what kind of? You know, and we, we interacted almost every day for the last, however many time. So what I try to do is do for one what you wish you could do for all and stay connected to the sheet.

Does that make sense? That's what I try to do. Does it make sense. And I get it. I mean, I'm not a pastor, but I've got a lot of people to watch this. A lot of people who want to come on here. I look for the biggest impacts. biggest way I can make an impact.

Let's move into passing the torch, meaning how do you get your kids? How do you get young adults? How do you, how do you really? I mean, like I told you, you know, I grew up Catholic, went to church every Sunday, did the Sunday school thing, and it never sunk in. It never sunk in until I got slapped around by God a little bit. And then it sunk in.

And, but, you know, hopefully not everybody has to go through what I go through because it's tough, real tough. And so how do you successfully pass the torch and get them to get it? Like, really get it, not just sit there, you know, I mean, I'm still Catholic. You know, I bring my kids, but, you know, bringing a five-year-old to a Catholic mass is like torture. Good luck, sir. You know, but I mean, how do you, how do you get the little guys engaged? How do you get them to get it without having to get knocked around? Yeah.

Well, one, I don't want to give somebody a promise this, not a promise. So let me just say, here's why I say that. Like, as a pastor, what I've learned. is when I say what I'm about to say about how to do it, what you're going to have is hundreds of thousands or millions of dads, moms, grandpas, grandmas, that when I say what I'm about to say, they're going to get overwhelmed with regret of what they wish they did. And they're going to start blaming themselves for their kid getting sideways

or going prodigal or whatever. So here's my caveat. It only works for you. You know what I mean? It's just one way. there's a hundred different ways to do this. I'm asking how you do it. Okay.

Okay, that's good. That helps. And your way wouldn't necessarily work on everybody else, but I'm just curious, you know, how do you do it? Yeah. All right, that's good. That's good. All right.

My caveat for those people to dovetail you making that point is I do not see a promise in the scripture that if you do this, 100% of the time, your kids will turn out this way. Okay. My example of that is Garden of Eden. Garden of Eden, you've got a perfect father, God's a father, that's pretty perfect. You got a perfect father. You actually have perfect kids. Adam and Eve don't got a sin nature yet.

And you have a perfect environment, Eden. There's nothing. It's a perfect. So you have perfect father, perfect kids, perfect environment, and they still rebelled. So I will just say, hey man, give yourself some grace. You know, that kind of thing. Now, I'll tell you, as far as how I'm doing it, my kids are 15, 11, and 7. So I'll be honest, man.

Jury's still out. We'll see. We'll see if I do my job. But I do know I'm going to give it everything I got. Let me, here's what my dad did that I'm like, that worked. And I'm doing it with my kids and I'm going, that seems like that's working. I say three things. Okay, number one, your faith doesn't got to be perfect.

It does got to be real. So, like, dude, I remember being a little kid growing up in church, and my dad's sitting in the front row, and, you know, we're worshiping. They're singing hymns or whatever. And my dad's, like, not a super emotional guy, but, like, I remember watching dad and, like, just a little, his eyes would just start sweating just a little bit, you know. And I remember being 13, 14, 14.

15, 16, and watching that and being like, that man is not just leading a service, that man is worshiping his God. And I remember thinking like, man, I want to know who he knows. He knows somebody. I want to know his God because that's real. And there's a million times I saw stuff like that. Like, whoa, whoa, that's real. Okay, so it doesn't got to be perfect.

We're going to need grace. but it does got to be real. Number two is what everybody tells you when you're younger, you're a new parent, is like, hey, man, here's a secret. You know, here's a secret, Sean. You got to get down in their world, you know. If they're into blueie, you're into blueie. You know, if they're in a cocoa melon, you're into coconut, you know, whatever it is.

Now, that strategy, that might be fine. I'd say until they're like six or seven. But eventually reality kicks in. And oh, by the way, reality's undefeated. And I'm going to say something with a bit of an edge to it. But like, again, reality's undefeated. Kids are fools. Like, we got a Bible verse for that.

Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. Kids are fools. Their default mode is foolishness. That's why they need moms and dads, godly moms and death. Okay. So here's a thing. I don't need to get down into their world as they get older. Their world is full of rebellion and foolishness.

I don't want to get down in their world of rebellion and foolishness. Instead of getting down in their world, I want to pull them up into my world. So here's what I started to see. Like my dad, he's a pastor. He's got a good band of brothers. I remember growing up, I think it was Tuesday night. I remember growing up, their whole discipleship group was coming over. A bunch of couples.

They were awesome. Like they were like actual normal people that loved Jesus and loved each other and had fun lives, you know? I'm seeing all them like opening that book and like talking about it and, you know, all that stuff. So then I get a little older and my dad started doing this thing. And looking back, I'm like, I know what he was doing. I didn't know what he was doing in the moment. My dad started doing this thing where like the church staff who were all awesome, they would like go out for lunch. And my dad would be like, hey, Josh.

you want to duck out of the thing you got today? Why don't you come to lunch with the staff today? So then here's what's happening is now he's pulling me up into his world and his world was full of wisdom and righteousness. And he's pulling me out of my world of rebellion and foolishness. So then I'm growing up around all these people. And I'm, dude, I'm growing up going, man, the people that I respect the most, I'm like, it's Jeff Carlisle.

That's one of my dad's adult buddies. It's this, like I can name all the families to this day. And what that did is I grew up sitting around at those lunches or at our home and gone, you know, I want to be the type of person that can fit in with these people instead of looking at like foolish, rebellious kids and doing that thing. So Hillary Clinton wrote that, was it a book that she wrote, I think, called it takes a village, something like that. I can't remember. She wrote something. I can't remember what it was. That's a lie.

I'll just tell you right now. That's a lie. Because if the village that you're using to raise your kids is a bunch of like woke pagan secular swifties or whatever, if that's the village, well, if the village is a bunch of pagans, they're just going to help raise a whole bunch of other pagans. So you don't need a village. Here's what you need as a dad.

You need a redeemed village. The Bible calls that a church. So it's like, I gotta grow up. What I'm doing right now, I'm doing exactly what my dad did. Like I was literally this week. Yesterday was our all staff meeting at church. It's so funny, I didn't even think about this. I literally yesterday did what my dad did growing up.

My dad's awesome. Yesterday was our all staff meeting. My 15 year old Eliana right now, she loves Jesus, she loves people, and there's a call, there's like a, there's a little grace on her life leading worship, you know. She loves serving at church, doing that stuff. So yesterday, I'm like, hey, Eliana, why don't you, that's so funny, dude, I'd, exactly what my dad did. I was like, hey, Leanna, why don't you duck out of what you got today and come to staff meeting with me and your mom?

So what's she doing? She's sitting around, I don't know, 400 pastors and their wives and people who love the Lord and they're trying to serve him. And that's who she's around. Well, what am I doing? I'm not getting down into her world. I'm pulling her up into my world. last thing I'd say is uh is uh and I by the way I got these from a buddy of mine named Josh McPherson he's probably the best dad I've ever seen

uh is whoever tells the best stories wins dude this is a total this is a total cheat code parenting hack man so what's interesting if you go back and next time you read your Old Testament you'll notice all these times where like God does like this amazing thing, parts of Red Sea or defeats AI or whatever it is. And then he tells all the people, hey, before you leave, will you guys please set up a big pile of rocks right here? And, you know, and the Hebrew word is there's a hymn that if you're listening,

you grew up singing those old hymns, there's an old hymn called, come thou fount and one of the lyrics of come thou found is here I raise my Ebenezer is what what is that that word Ebenezer it comes from two Hebrew words I said it I'm just realizing I said it wrong earlier two Hebrew words Evan Azar which means stone of help okay so what all those little rocks were that got said pile those up is he was going hey all throughout this little country the size of New Jersey where you're raising all your kids. Every time you walk past one of these piles of rocks, God was going, hey, hey, dad,

what I want you to do is stop and you're going to point of that rock and tell your son, man, when Papa was here 60 years ago, he was standing right there. And him and all his buddies, they marched around that city seven-time son. And you're never going to believe what happened. The Lord gave us this promise. You don't got to fight. You just got to be still and I'll fight for you. And son, you're never going to believe this.

But our God is so powerful that when your grandpa was over there and did it, God conquered that thing. And so they grew up telling all these stories. So here's a deal. God was wiring into how the culture was structured. He was giving all the dads and moms. Here's all your story opportunity. So for me, growing up, like, us sitting around the dinner table at night, you know,

I was just constantly hearing all these stories. Dad would come home from work. And I was constantly hearing all these stories about, and this widow that somebody just gave her a car. And I just, because they out of nowhere. And this marriage got healed. Guys, that addict that we've been praying for for three, but they just got free.

And, you know, I was just hearing all these stories. And it just, it just gripped me. And the older I got, I was like, well, I want to be a part of the thing where all that cool stuff happens, you know, and it just rubbed off on me. So I think the thing I'd say, the just encouragement I'd give to, you know, guys who were in the thick of parenting like you and me and all the guys listening trying to figure it out doing their imperfect best, just like me, is,

Man, the most significant thing you do with your life if you're a father, it's probably not going to be something you accomplish. It's probably going to be somebody you raise. It's a pour it all in. That's cool. You said that. Trending your replacement. It's good stuff, man. That's what we're doing.

Thank you. Yes, sir. We've got one last question. It's a hot question. Oh, buddy. I actually have one here, but I got my... own okay what is your favorite miracle that jesus performed in the bible and why well am i allowed to cheat and go resurrection you know let's do it all right you know uh other than that one

that one dang man oh that's fire that's good all right this is shooting from the hip If I have more time, I might think something else. All right. I think it's when Jesus touches the leper and he heals him. Can you go into it? Can you tell the story? Well, he heals lepers a few times. And honestly, there's not much description to this miracle.

But there's a specific time, or maybe a couple times in the Gospels, where Jesus reaches out and he touches the leper. But there's a reason that most people, it's not the kind of thing you see. There's a reason that's my favorite. Okay, might be my favorite. So in the Old Testament, there's all these laws about what to do with somebody that's got leprosy.

And in the Old Testament, if you had leprosy, you were ceremonially unclean. And the kind of the rules were that if a claspelior, clean person touches an unclean person. The unclean person makes the clean person unclean. So then, you know, what you would have to do if you had leprosy is in that time, you would have to stand, you know, according to tradition, maybe 50 paces away from somebody and you'd have to yell unclean, unclean, unclean. So when I read that miracle about Jesus just walking right up to the guy and, you know, he's like, hey, will you make me clean? You know, and Jesus is like, you know, I

will and he touches him. I will be clean. One, that guy that had spent his entire life having everybody stay 50 paces away, Jesus walks up and he's like, man, I'd really like to get right up in. I want to get right up where you are. I want to be close to you, brother. I get close to you. And then when Jesus touches him, it heals him. And for the first time in the entire Bible, instead of when a clean person touches an unclean thing, the unclean thing makes the clean thing unclean, Jesus works it backwards. And because he's clean, the clean thing touches the unclean thing, and the clean thing makes the unclean thing clean.

And it's like a, it's a picture of what happens when you, by faith, and repentance, reach out and touch Jesus Christ, and when you touch Jesus Christ. and when you touch him, he makes you clean. That's a good. I love it. How did the people react to that? Well, in different times, they reacted different ways. A lot of people did not like it when Jesus did healings.

They did not like it. Why? Because it messed with a lot of their traditions that had built up around the thing. In fact, one of the things that, sets off the series of events that leads to the crucifixion of Jesus is him healing people on sabbaths. They were like, hey man, you ain't allowed to. That was like one of their little rules. What legalistic people do is they take the rules that God actually gave in the Bible,

and then legalistic people add rules to the rules, and then they condemn you for not obeying the rules. They added to the rules that actually God didn't make in the first place. And they did that with the Sabbath laws. I think they're called the Targums. they did that with the Sabbath laws. They took one command, hey, don't do work on the Sabbath.

Keep it holy as unto the Lord. And they had a bunch of rules about, well, what counts his work? And then they added rules to the rules and ended up all this time. Well, one of their rules was, hey, no healing on the Sabbath, which is real dumb. Like God never said that.

And so one of the reasons that they got mad is, well, you're breaking our little religious tradition. You're making us look like idiots. We said you couldn't do this. and you're doing it. I never understood that. You know, it seems, and I'm not well-versed. I read it.

I don't understand out the stuff. I read, but when I read, you know, the miracles that he did, it seems like the people were pissed every single time he performed one. Very frequent. But I don't understand. I mean, like, he's doing unexplainable things unless you have faith in God. And so what, I mean, he's doing it. right in front of them.

How were they pissed? How do they not get it? Well, I think two things. You know, I think one, it was a threat to their fame and religious, sort of the power that they had. It's like, hey, quit busting up our thing. We're the ones that are in charge of all the stuff. So when Jesus kind of, you know, he kind of rolls in and starts breaking their thing,

there's two things the Bible says about the Pharisees. Now, there's actually a time where Jesus pronounced. his woes on the Pharisees, and I won't be able to rattle them all off off the top of my head, but he gives seven woes. And it's essentially like, here's what's wrong with you. You know, you ask people to tie the tenth of this, and you neglect the weight of your matters of the law, justice and mercy and loving your neighbor. And he goes through like seven different things.

But two things the Bible that Jesus says about the Pharisees is they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. So one, what they cared about like, you're like, hey man, why wouldn't they want people to have faith in God because that that really wasn't they cared about that's not what they cared about about a whole lot what they cared about a whole lot was people thinking they were awesome power yes they love the praise of men more than they love the praise of God I think power plays into that and they were like man what we really care about in their heart of hearts everybody cheering us on and applauding us and us that's and then it does say that they loved money And so I think those two things, if Jesus rolls in and bust up their thing,

that's a threat to their two things. Well, it's a good miracle, but I like the idea. I like how you told that. Well, Josh, it was an honor, man. John, it's my honor. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you.

God bless. Yes, sir. No matter where you're watching the Sean Ryan show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please like, comment, and subscribe. And most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review.