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#NoDespair2020
#Edified: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIbaw4KT1kE
All right, let's jump right into it today. I hope you had a great weekend. I had a fantastic weekend. So all of you people that were praying for my travels and all of that kind of stuff and my health and all of that kind of stuff, thank you so much.
The conference was remarkable. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about the conference today, but before I do, I just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who came up to me to introduce themselves and all of that kind of thing.
It was just a real blessing to hear about just the impact that my videos have had on your personal lives and your churches and just all of that kind of stuff. It was just wonderful to see. And I'm just so grateful that God has been able to use the platform that we have in such a good way.
And it's just really amazing, really amazing. I'll be honest with you guys. They had a little bit of imposter syndrome going on in my mind because I'm just a regular guy. I'm just a layman like you guys.
It's just been a real blessing to see all of this kind of stuff. I'll say this, the conference had a lot of good moments. No question about it. A lot of good content, a lot of good moments. My favorite moment by far, there were two.
There were two things that I'll say. The first one was the conversations that I had with so many laymen, people that aren't pastors. And there's nothing wrong with pastors. I don't want to make it seem that way, but pastors have a very clear mission from God, a very clear job from the Lord to do.
But it's not the only way to work for the kingdom of God. God definitely has a special job for pastors to do. But I met so many people, machinists. I met software engineers. I met contractors, farmers, just across the gamut, people of various backgrounds that want to work for the Lord.
They want to do the right thing. But so often I think there's this false impression that is given in, let's just be honest, in big Eva circles, that the way to work for the Lord is to go to seminary and become a missionary or a pastor.
That's how you seriously work for the kingdom of God. And that's an integral part, no question about it, but it's not the only way. God has people all over the place. And I don't think that I've ever understood really the whole idea of different members of the same body and the body of Christ more than I do in this moment today, because people are just hungry.
People want to build. People want to do something for the kingdom of God, but they want to do it as a machinist or as a contractor or as a farmer and all of these kinds of things. And there's just so much, there were so many people that came up to me with ideas for businesses, ideas for things to do, and very few of them involved traditionally what you would know as ministry.
And I was so encouraged by that, man. The enthusiasm of people, just the joy that people had as they're telling me their ideas for what they want to do and this and that, it's just amazing. It's absolutely amazing.
Look, I'm a guy on YouTube, building a YouTube platform, doing this kind of thing, but this is not the only way to fight this fight, right? We need people in every vocation, people in every area of life, applying the principles of Jesus Christ, the principles of the kingdom of God.
This is why there's no despair because you can work for the Lord in any area of your life and you ought to in every area of your life. And so it was just amazing to see people, farmers coming up to me with greasy looking overalls and stuff like that, telling me just with excitement of what they're gonna do for the kingdom of God, what their plans are and things like that for their families and stuff like that.
It was just, it was unique. I mean, that's all I can say, it was unique. I talked to a pastor, one of the few pastors that I spoke with because there were pastors there too and that's great. That's great.
This guy's, this guy was like, he's got his country. You know what I mean? This guy's country. And he comes up to me, thank me for the content, stuff like that, telling me about his YouTube channel, which is called Trailer 1689.
And he tells me, he goes, he says, you know what my dream is? And I'm like, what's your dream? He says, I wanna own a trailer park. And I was thinking, okay, what do you wanna do with the trailer park?
And he's telling me, he's like, think about a trailer park, right? Because I grew up in the trailer park. And he's like, you know, it's its own kind of like self-sufficient community. And there's just people and they're all kind of like a captive audience and you're in each other's lives and you can hear what's going on in the next trailer over there.
It's not like, it's not like in areas where there's lots of space between the houses where, you know, people can have private lives. In the trailer park, it's hard to have a private life. You know what I mean?
And we're talking, it's like, man, imagine if I owned a trailer park and I'm a pastor, the amount of impact I can have on people's lives and bringing the gospel and being an example of the kingdom of God for people in the trailer park.
And I'm just thinking to myself, that's a great idea. That's a great idea. Why don't Christians own more trailer parks? Maybe they do. Maybe they do. But that's a fantastic idea. And I'm thinking to myself like, and he's not talking about doing it for free, right?
Like he obviously has an ulterior motive. He's a pastor and he wants to spread the kingdom of God and stuff like that. But he's talking about, you know, and I can profit on it too. And that's what I'm saying, man.
That's amazing. That's a great idea. And that's just one example that comes to mind. I've had so many conversations like this. And it's like, like that's the kind of thing that gets me, that gets me going, man.
That's the kind of thing that gets me going. So that moment stuck out to me. So if you're watching this, brother, thank you for that. I'm gonna take that with me for the rest of my life. Just the enthusiasm that you showed for this idea that, let's just be honest, I would find it hard to believe that at a Big Eva conference, you would find someone that would be all about that kind of thing.
Anyway, but let me talk about something that was just kind of personally impactful. So the very first night we had Darren Doan, he bought drinks for, I think, almost everyone at the conference. This guy bought drinks for almost everyone at the conference.
We went to a bar, you know, and we were just hanging out and stuff like that. I was meeting people. It was fantastic. Anyway, so he pulls me aside. He wants me to be on his podcast. And he's interviewing me and Si Ten Bruggenke at the same time, which is amazing because I love Si.
And Si's telling a story about, I might have some of the details wrong here. So if some of these are wrong, sorry, but he's telling the story about how he got involved with these people. And he's talking about Marcus and how he was involved with this video series called Edified, like the first videos that Marcus and Chocolate Knox did together.
And that's how he got involved. And he did some of those videos as well and all that. That was like very early on in their relationship, I guess. And I don't know if there's a video of this podcast that we did, but if there is, I can't wait to see how I look because as soon as he mentions these Edified videos, I'm thinking in my head, like, I'm just in shock because I'm thinking to myself, I saw those videos early on in my conversion, maybe within the first year I converted to Christ, right?
And I saw those videos. And they changed my life. I mean, I'm talking about, they changed how I viewed the Bible. They changed how I understood the Bible. Like I always say, the Bible is way better than anyone's ever told you.
And this doesn't come from me, right? Like applying the scripture, like these amazing truths from the Bible about who God is and who we are and what God expects of us and things like that. Like these truths from the Bible apply to everyday life, right?
And that idea was never more clear to me than when I watched these Edified videos. And they're these like little two minute, three minute videos. And you know, it's the kind of thing like, like, let me just show you this because I went back and I watched them.
There's Chocolate Knox, there's Gary DeMar. And if you look at these videos, they were produced in 2012, or at least uploaded in 2012. And they got 4 ,000 views. And in the grand scheme of things, that's not a lot of views, but I was one of these views.
And these videos, I'm thinking about it now, they inoculated me, man. Cause I was so influenced by Tim Keller, Matt Chandler. I was talking to another brother who was telling me that he used to consume Matt Chandler content like it was water.
Like he would just watch them one after another, listen to them one after another, his sermons and stuff. And I was the same way. I remember commiserating with this guy. I did the same thing. So I was influenced by Big Eva big time, right?
And I'm thankful for that stuff. I'm not saying that there's no value to the Big Eva content that I consumed back in the day. There was definitely value from it. But I was inoculated from the dangers that we're seeing today of the unscriptural stuff that we're seeing today because of this small little video series that these guys did.
They had a shoestring budget. They're telling me the story of this. It's like shoestring budget. They were making their own like lights and stuff, you know, not professional equipment in any way. These are well-produced.
Don't hear me saying these aren't well-produced. These are well-produced videos. 4 ,000 views, man. Small videos, two minutes, three minutes. These guys had no idea that in eight years, there's gonna be a dude with no hair and a weird beard on stage with them in large part because of their videos.
And I was sitting in the airport last night or yesterday, and I had tears in my eyes watching these. I watched all the videos again yesterday in the airport while I was waiting for my flight. And I'm just, I've got tears in my eyes because God is so good, man.
He writes such good stories because I didn't know who these guys were. I didn't know who Chocolate Knox was, Gary DeMar, stuff like that. But I watched these videos and I started reading Gary DeMar's books.
And then I started reading some of Gary DeMar's friends' books. And it just changed the trajectory of how I understood the scripture, right? I feel like this was the start of it. There was another video with Joel McDermott that also started this as well.
But the Gary DeMar stuff was integral, no question about it. And then I'm thinking like, man, they had no idea that eight years later, less than 10 years later, that we would be having a conference with a thousand people and we would all be getting together.
And look at these men, man, look at these guys. And each of us, we're gonna be having these ripple effects too. Like again, don't misunderstand me. Like these videos are well done, but I mean, only 4 ,000 people watched them.
And I was one of the 4 ,000. So who knows what other ripple effects are happening here? Because now I'm talking to more people than they were talking to at the time. And now they're talking to more people than they were talking to at the time.
And there's these ripple effects that are going out. And now like I get to see some of the receipts of this because now I'm standing on the stage with them and people are coming up to me and saying how helpful they've found my content.
Families, entire families with kids and stuff like that. And some of them were with the requisite, yeah, sometimes I don't agree with your tone, but what you're doing is so helpful. And I get that, it's not for everybody, I get it.
But man, God writes good stories, man. God writes good stories. Because I could have easily gone all the way woke. Like I was ripe for it. I was the perfect target to go all the way woke. But God inoculated me with this edified stuff, man.
This stuff. We're gonna go through one of these videos. I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about it. But like, man, God writes good stories. He really does. And I'm sitting here in the airport and I message Marcus and Knox.
And I'm just saying, man, I'm sitting here crying, watching you guys' videos, man. It's like, it's just amazing that God writes these stories. And the thing is like, God's writing the story with all his people, right?
Like do not despise small beginnings. This is what No Despair is all about, maybe. I'm talking about No Despair 2020. The reason why you should not despair is because even little things, and we're talking about video content, but it doesn't have to be video content.
I'm talking like anything, right? Like raising your kids, right? Like the way you raise your kids, the way you train them, the way you discipline them. These small things that you don't know what kind of impact that's gonna have on generations into the future, man.
You're just trying to obey Christ now. But you see any little thing, whether you're a farmer, a contractor, or you're just raising your kids or whatever it is, like it might seem small to you, but when it's for the Lord, God can do great things with it, man.
You don't know the ripple effects that it's gonna have into the future. I was talking to my brother and he was a little bit, he was a little bit despairing a little bit because he, before COVID, he had 20 kids in his youth ministry.
And now after COVID, like he doesn't have hardly anybody. And they're not like, they don't know anything. And it's just a small little beginning. He was a little bit frustrated with that. And it's like, but you know that it's a small beginning, but you don't know what the faithfulness that you have now is gonna do for the future, man.
That's what no despair is all about because God's commands are simple. His commands are simple. And when you're working for the Lord, whether it's small things or big things, it doesn't matter. God can use that stuff, man.
So whether you're writing the next institutes to the Christian religion, or if you're just raising your kids, you're not doing anything like that, where it's like this epic splashes, this tremendous work of genius, that's okay because God can use it.
When it's for the kingdom, it can be meaningful. And not only can it be, it will be meaningful, man. And so when you spank your kids because God requires it for a certain reason, right? Like those small obedience, obediences, obediences, they reverberate through generations, baby.
So stay humble and obey Christ today because that is how the kingdom of God moves forward, man. You spread that gospel of Jesus Christ. So the great commission, we always talk about this. What does the great commission say?
It says, make disciples. So we're trying to convert people, but it doesn't stop there. Like you convert people, yes, but then the rest of the commission, teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded, I'm with you to the end of the age.
And so this is simple stuff, man. This is simple commandments. It's not always easy. I mean, I'm not saying it's always easy, but it's simple. You don't need to have a theological degree to understand the commands of God.
He speaks to you in a way that can be understood. And so if you're following people that are confusing you, right? They're making things complicated that are really quite simple, like lots of Big Eva does, right?
Like this is what I'm talking about. I would stop paying attention to people that are trying to confuse you, or even if they're not trying to, if they are confusing you, understand that the Bible is something that is meant to be understood.
God wants to be understood. And so if your favorite pastors are confusing issues that are really quite simple, I just, I don't see the value in that. I really don't see the value in that. And so just to, that was an amazing moment for me, just to see like eight years of stuff happening.
You know what I mean? Eight years of decisions and small little things happening and things that are out of your control, things that are in your control. And all of a sudden I'm sitting two seats away from two guys that made a video, a two minute video with 4 ,000 views.
I changed my perspective, now I'm working with them. What a blessing, man. What a blessing. So let's watch this video and I'll do some color commentary on it. Now guys, you should watch all of these videos.
There's like seven of them or something like that with Gary DeMar. They're called Edified. Let's get, let's double the view count on these videos, guys. These videos deserve a lot more views. Let's just, let's just put it that way.
But here we go.
You don't like me? What do you mean? Why are you so far away? You're kind of close. No, you're too far away. What do you mean I'm too far away? I'm just, I'm leaning here. I'm leaning this way. My left side is where I lean.
I don't lean to the right on these things. Oh, so you're liberal. I lean right, you know. Hey, I don't give the left the left. You just gave the left the left. I don't give the left the left. Oh, so I'm wrong.
This was at first. They just want to give us the right. We got it all. This is why most Christians today are wrong about stuff.
Listen to this. So that's a small thing and he's kind of joking, but he's kind of not. Like this is like, this messes your mind up, right? Like when I was a new Christian, cause I grew up in the church and stuff, but I don't think I was converted until later in life.
But this messes your mind up. Cause I don't give the left the left. No, Christ owns it all. Like Christ has crown rights over it all. We don't have to be in our little pocket over here, little Christian pocket of, no, no, no.
Christ owns all this. That changes, that messes your mind up, man. All of a sudden you're acting different because it's like, no, no, that's Christ's. That's Christ. We're going to take that. And the gates of hell can't stand against it.
That's Christ's. That changes, that messes your mind up, man. That messes your mind up. Because when I was a young Christian, that's not the message that I heard. Maybe that's the message people were telling me, but it wasn't in a clear way like this.
See, this is what I'm talking about. God's word is clear. And so when you're listening to a pastor and he's clearing things up and he's giving you the sense of God's word, that's the stuff right there.
But if he's using these theological terms that all they do is confuse the issues and all of a sudden it becomes right to vote for the party of Baal, run from that. Run from that. And so this is the stuff, man.
This is why I like these videos, man. This is why I like them. By the way, I was joking with Knox here. Back then, eight years ago, his beard was very dark, but now he's got lots of gray. You know what I'm saying?
That's that wisdom though. You know, he acquired wisdom and he earned those gray hairs. You know what I'm saying? I still got, I got some work to do.
I got a little bit of gray, but I got some work to do. To be like, I'm like eight years behind Knox. You know what I mean? They want to say, well, we need to get involved, take back the culture. No, the culture is ours.
You see what I'm saying?
That's right. We don't have to go back and take back the culture. No, it's already ours. You just don't know it yet. Gates of hell can't stand against us. This is ours, man. It's Christ's. Christ owns it all.
He's over it all. It's, he runs this place and we're his people. And so we need to go out there and tell them, no, no, Christ runs this place. He's the King of Kings. He's the Lord of Lords. And you must defer.
You must kneel. You must lay your weapons down. And if you don't, well, just wait. Just wait. Now, the best part about this is Knox is coming from a charismatic background. And we talked about this, this weekend.
And so am I. So Knox pushes back in the same way I would have pushed back before. So that's, maybe that's why I found this so helpful. Maybe, maybe you could find it helpful too.
We're just not, we're just not, we're just not responsible. You know, we gave it up.
I'll challenge you on that. Jesus said, this kingdom is not of this world.
Jesus said, this kingdom is not of this world.
So if this was his kingdom, his soldiers would fight.
That's not what he said. He says, if his kingdom were of this world, his soldiers, they would fight. Right. Yeah. But it's not. What did he say though? He didn't say his kingdom wasn't over this world.
He didn't say his kingdom wasn't in this world. He said his kingdom wasn't of this world. All these lights and so forth are plugged into something. They're drawing their source and their power from an electrical source.
There's an outlet in the wall and it's deriving its source and its power from a power station somewhere. So when Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world, that means the power source comes from somewhere else.
It's all authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me. Where does the source of Jesus' power come from? It doesn't come from the earth. It's not like pilots' sources of power because his kingdom is not of this world.
It doesn't derive its power and authority from this world.
So he was saying it was about his kingdom advancing.
It wasn't about. It was about the source of his power and the nature of that power. And the only way you march in Jesus' army is through a transformed heart and following his command. So you see what he's saying is,.
And this is important because this is the pushback people get. In fact, people push back on another one of these videos in this way. They say, well, his kingdom is not of this world. But the thing is though, what he's gonna say in a minute, if he doesn't have authority in this world or over this world, then there's a contradiction in the Bible because in the Great Commission, Christ says all authority has been given unto me.
So Christ has all authority. That's an all-encompassing statement. All authority has been given unto me. And so he has authority in this world and over this world. All authority is his. The government rests on his shoulders, right?
But the thing of what the, my kingdom is not of this world. What he's saying is I don't get power. I don't get authority. I don't get a kingdom in the same way that this world gets kingdom. So Pilate is a perfect example that Gary is gonna use.
Well, how does Pilate have power? How does he have authority? Well, he gets it through political maneuverings. He gets it through military might. That's how he asserts himself. That's how Pilate has authority.
But Christ doesn't have authority in that way. He doesn't get it from this world or of this world. That's not where it comes from. That's not the source. The source is, well, all authority has been given unto me.
Who gave it to him? We know from the Psalms, you know, you sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a foothold before your feet. This is Christ's kingdom. He owns it. He created it. He's the king of kings.
He's the Lord of lords. And so that's a big distinction because if you think that my kingdom is not of this world it means that his authority is not in this world. Like God has his area of authority and then Satan is over here and they're duking it out forever.
And we're going to see who wins. If you look at it that way, the world looks a lot different than if you say, no, no, no. Christ has authority over everything. And I'm going to tell you about it. And you have only one hope and that's to lay your weapons down.
That's complete surrender, absolute surrender. And if you don't surrender, you will perish. That's the gospel that Christ spread when he was here on earth, right? Repent or perish. That's the message of the kingdom of God.
That's the gospel of the kingdom of God. When it says that Christ preached, started preaching, that's what he preached. Repent or perish. It's a big difference. That's a big difference in posture, but also it changes how you do things.
It changes what you do. And so we had a conference full of laymen, people that are ready to take dominion over the areas that they're a part of. Whether it's laying bricks or farming a field, they're going to do it according to God's rules, according to God's standard and for the kingdom of God.
They're going to do it with excellence. They're going to obey Christ wherever they're at. That's what they're going to do. Everything that they do, they're going to do it for the glory of God.
Because Christ owns it. The army is not some earthly general telling you what to do and taking the streams of earthly power and forcing compliance on people on the nature of man's way of running the kingdom.
It's always inside out. And the way you get that power on the inside is from the source of heaven. Amen. So Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world. He's not saying his kingdom isn't over this world because he is.
He's king of king and Lord of lords. Otherwise you find a contradiction. Jesus couldn't have said all authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me. He couldn't have said that unless his heavenly power was in fact impacting the earth through his.
Do you see what I mean about the ripple effects here? Because you've heard this kind of talk from me. You've heard this kind of talk on this channel, on my podcast, and I didn't come up with it. You know what I mean?
This is not like, this video is stuck with me, man. It messed my mind up in a good way. It messed my mind up. I couldn't go back to the typical way this is presented where the kingdom of God is essentially powerless in this world.
Yeah, you know, it's powerful to convert people, but it's really not that powerful in like the public square. Like that's not the message of the gospel of the kingdom of God. You know what I mean? You understand what I'm trying to say?
You've heard this from me and it's because of a short two minute video like this that they couldn't possibly have known the ripple effects that this was gonna have. Good stuff, man. God writes good stories.
He really does. Through his people. Sure, it's been given to him, granted, but not yet completely fulfilled yet. So he has it, but right now the devil is still ruling and reigning right now. No, he's not.
That's just nonsense. Well, look at all the wickedness in the world. Look at what's all the stuff that's going on. You and Flip Wilson. The devil made me do it.
Look, the devil's an angel. The devil is a creature. If he's over in China doing something, he ain't here. He has no more power than any of God's angels. Resist the devil and he'll flee from you. He was defeated at the cross.
We're the problem. Read James chapter one. James doesn't blame sin on the devil. He blames it on us.
So we're the reason that the world's going to hell in a handbasket? Yeah. So who's reigning right now? Jesus is reigning right now. Over the world? Yeah. Okay, so here's We're disobeying him. What do you want him to do?
Well, I guess Wanna come down here and club all of us? Well, if Christ is now king here reigning on earth, wouldn't this environment be a lot different than what it is right now? For instance, here, gay marriage, abortion.
I mean, do I need to name any more than that? Moralism has taken over our culture. Why? Who's the problem? You got Christians out there who say we're not supposed to get involved in politics.
Politics is dirty. It is. So what isn't? Everything's dirty. You have to look at Everything's dirty, right? That's right. That's right, but that doesn't mean Christ is not Lord over it. We're commanded to go make disciples, conversion, right, conversion, and then teach them to obey everything that Christ commands, baby.
And it's not clean work. It's not clean work. If you're never gonna get your hands dirty, then how are you gonna sow the field, right? That's good stuff, man. This is good stuff. This messed my mind up when I was a young Christian.
Maybe it's gonna mess yours up too. I hope so.
Politics included as like a dirty diaper. What do you do with a dirty diaper? You gotta change it. You can't just say, because it's dirty, I can't get involved. Your wife would love that. She leaves you at home with the kids and the kids come home screaming and so forth.
She goes in there and she says the kids have dirty diapers and you say, I know they did and that's why I didn't change them is because their diapers were dirty. Good stuff, man.
You should watch all these videos. There's like seven of them. They're all pretty short. And they'll mess your mind up, man. They will mess your mind up in a good way, in a very good way. But yeah, man, we'll do more content about the conference and stuff like that.
And I've got a lot of political content coming up because we got the election coming up. And I think that the Big Eva is doing their best to massively confuse you about this upcoming election. And it's a shame and I'm gonna come hard and hopefully you'll find it helpful.
But man, guys, just never forget this, man. Do not despise small beginnings, no matter what you're doing whether you're creating content on YouTube, whether you're making a podcast, whether you're not doing anything like that but maybe you're a contractor or whatever, it doesn't matter or you're staying at home raising your kids, right?
Your wife staying at home raising your kids, you have no idea the ripple effect that God will put into action throughout the generations for the obedience that you display today. One of the things I said at the conference, I'll close with this.
I said that we're supposed to be a people that's demonstrating our faith by our works, right? Like we're supposed to be demonstrating our faith by our works. Bible also says we should be devoted to good works, right?
That's something that is definitely true, right? We should be acting for the Lord. We should be loving the Lord and how does he say obeying his commandments, right? And so we ought to be talking about strategies for how to go ahead and take the commands from scripture, take the words from the mouth of God and apply them to everything that we do in everyday life, right?
That's what we need to be spending time talking about. And I'm talking about real stuff, not like the nonsense you get from Gospel Coalition, the goofball stuff where it's like, okay, I got an idea. Well, we're gonna do a series on how to strategize.
What do you do when someone in your church posts something on Twitter about politics, right? Here's 10 strategies for how to deal with that. It's like 10 strategies for how to deal with Twitter posts.
That's nonsense. That's nerf. That's ridiculous. Like how about this? Here's a strategy. This comes straight from the Bible, ready? You got a problem with someone? Talk to them. We don't need to bring nine psychobabble strategies into this.
If you got a problem with something, someone posted on Twitter, talk to them. That's nonsense. Because here's the reality, like you're busy writing about how to deal with social media nonsense, first world problems, right?
And meanwhile, we got people that are gonna go to work on Monday morning. Their boss is gonna say, here, you gotta sign this statement that says you love LGBT and everything that they stand for, otherwise you're fired.
That person needs to be equipped on how to defend himself and how to position himself in the kingdom of God so that he can be ready to do the right thing when it's time to do the right thing. And doesn't destroy him and doesn't destroy his family.
He needs to learn how to be anti-fragile. You're not gonna get that kind of content from Big Eva. And so I just, you know, God's word is better than anyone has ever told you it is. And I hope that you find that this content is helpful in that regard for you to know that and understand that.
And I hope that you understand that your obedience today to God's simple words, right? No despair is going to have an impact on the generations to come, man. God bless you. I hope you found this video helpful.
God bless.