Provoked: The Importance of Dying To Self

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Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity. I mean, this is what's wrong with the

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Christian church today. We don't know who God is, and we don't know who we are. This is where we hold them.

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This is where we fight. Officer, you need to repent of your lawless conduct.

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You don't know the law, and yet you pretend to represent it. That's not law enforcement, sir.

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That's being a thug. We will not stop fighting and bothering you all until this monstrous, barbaric practice of legalized abortion ends, and we are teaching our children to do the same.

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God's word says that the shed blood of innocent humans cries out for justice, and mark my words, they will have their day in court.

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Nobody gets saved by being treated nicely. They get saved by hearing the gospel. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

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If we don't open our mouths and commend Christ, we're not loving them, no matter what we're doing with our hands.

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What's going on, everybody? You've tuned in to another show, and the show's called

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Provoked. Yes. My beautiful co -host is not in right now.

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My little red -headed, fiery woman of a sister, Desi. She's had her number three.

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Is that her third baby? That's her third, yeah. His name is Knox Zachary. I was going to say

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Morgan. The first guy right here. Yeah. Yes, it is. One of the great men of God on the planet.

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So she's not in, and she's taking a little break. But I have here a couple of my best buddies in the whole planet, Pastor Luke Pierce.

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Just trying to ball with my bros. And all the way from the island of Kauai, Pastor Zach.

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Yes. How's it going, brother? It's going great, man. Good to be here from the Garden Isle. Yeah, it's good to have you.

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It's good to see your face. You ever have a sandwich somewhere, and it's just fat bread on both sides, and then there's one slim piece of meat or something in the middle?

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I can't eat bread, but thanks for bringing that up. That's what this is. It's like slim sandwiches. That's fitting.

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Hey, so the show's about provoking you to preach the gospel, rescue babies, and destroy idols.

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It's really based on Acts chapter 17. It says when Paul went into the city, he was provoked by the spirit of God.

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And the provocation of the spirit of God actually led him to go and confront the idolatry with the gospel.

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And that's something that we needed to do. We don't have a surplus of provoked Christians or pastors, I think, in this nation.

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I think people who are seeing what's happening and actually being provoked to action, I think what you're seeing is we see what's happening, we kind of complain about it, and then maybe we justify it or we find comfort in,

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I think, an erroneous eschatological system, which is just, well, it's all going to hell in a handbasket anyway.

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It's kind of like rearranging the chairs on the Titanic of where to get involved. So let's just self -fulfill prophecy and wait until Jesus kind of brings us up out of our clothes naked.

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So what I think needs to happen, what we see, especially through the example of great

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Christians all throughout church history, is this seeing what's happening within the world, loving your neighbor, and going about obeying the commands of Jesus.

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I mean, preaching the gospel, rescuing babies, destroying idols, they come completely out of Scripture.

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So that's what our show is about. We hope it's been a blessing to you. If it is and it has been, share it.

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And what you can do, most importantly, is you go to ApologyofStudios .com and become an

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All Access member. It's what you can do to help what we do. All that we want to do here at Apology, all Apology has done for just about a decade now, right?

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Church, yep. Yeah, studio, eight years. Right. I think we're going to be eight in December.

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Yeah, I think so too. I think so. We'll go with eight. I don't know at all. I just said I think so. Just round up to ten.

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That's good. But all they've been, all these guys have been doing, so I think so awesome and exemplary, is getting the gospel out far and wide around the globe, rescuing people from cults.

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So when you go to Apology of Studios, you become that All Access member. You get this great education of the top -notch guys in all different fields, and you're educating yourself as you continue to learn.

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And then you're bringing that into the home, but you're also supporting us financially because it takes money to keep the lights on and to keep us expanding out, which you see, which is pretty awesome.

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God just using Apologia in just this incrementally expanding way to just do more and more.

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And so as you give, we get to do what we do, and we're so appreciative of that.

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The Bible calls us to let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, and that's what we're all about.

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We want to get the gospel out. I can't even talk right now.

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It's okay. I got where you're going, though. I'm with you. I'm catching what you're putting down. Yeah.

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Picking up what you're putting down. My brain just shut off there for a second. Great commission stuff.

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Yeah, exactly. Yeah. What we're going to do today, what's the overall thrust and purpose of this show?

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I think because we have this awesome opportunity to have Zach all the way over here from Kauai. We want to pick his brain.

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I want this show primarily to be something that's going to be beneficial and encouraging to pastors, not only pastors out there, but to young pastors, young missionaries.

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Because you're not only freshly into your pastorate about a year you've been into it, but you are a missionary.

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Yeah, in a sense. I mean, you take Kauai, even though, of course, Hawaii is a part of the States. It's just like a different world out there with different culture and different difficulties.

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I think that's the distinction. There's the pastor. There's that role that you fill.

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But then there is the element of being a missionary. Anytime you journey across cultural lines to bring the gospel to a different people.

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Obviously, the Hawaiian Islands are very much diverse. Lots of different kinds of people there.

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You know, lots of English speaking everywhere you go. You know, it's not like you're going into a completely foreign culture in the sense that you have to learn a brand new language.

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Right. Even though that is something I'm trying to do. I would love to. There is some of that though. Yeah. Yeah.

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There's still some people that speak the language and there's still a culture within that visiting culture of the people that live on the island of local

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Hawaiian people. And so anytime you're trying to bring the gospel to a people that don't look like you, don't necessarily share all of your cultural values or traditions, that's missionary work.

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Exactly right. Yeah. Absolutely. And so I thought it'd just be cool because there's so many guys out there that need help.

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You know, I'm going to go into a little bit of my past and my preparation for the pastor and how confusing. And it seems like the greater or the

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American Evangelical Church, what they're feeding into these young men are some things that you really need to unlearn,

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I think, to be ministerially effective. And so I think it'd be good just because all these things are fresh in your mind, fresh in your heart to really speak to them.

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How can we encourage them? How can we place courage into them? And also talk about things that not a lot of guys want to talk about or maybe are left unsaid.

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And I think that we can talk a little bit more about this. I think it's basically because of the blueprint that much of the

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American Evangelical Church is building with isn't the scriptures. You know, it's requiring pastors to be everything that the

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Bible doesn't require of them, like a CEO or a comedian or an entrepreneur or all these different things. You say comedian?

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Yeah. Standard comedian. You know what I mean? Yeah. Entertainer. I do know what you mean. An entertainer in many cases.

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Right. Because zeroing in on the pulpits, zeroing in on the pastor is what we need to do.

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I mean, you look and you see our nation, you know, crumbling just infrastructurally, if that's a word.

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It is now. If it's not, it's a good word. That's what's great about this show is you're guaranteed to learn a new word.

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You're coining new terms. Every show there's at least one. Yeah. It's a bonus.

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But what do we see? We see, yeah, we see our world coming apart. And then we've got riots and all sorts of stuff going on right now.

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And we can either sit back and complain about it or like I said previously, just make excuses not to get involved.

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But the culture is the report card of the church. Monson said that. I know that we've said that on the show and in our networks a billion different times.

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But if the culture is the report card of the church, it really has to do with the church's involvement or lack thereof.

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Then the fingers need to be pointed at the pulpits and we really need to speak to these young men who are coming up.

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Because if things don't change as far as how we're bringing up pastors, as far as what they think that they need to do, the content of the message that they need to preach, the foundation that they need to build upon.

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If it's not biblical, we're just going to keep on doing this over and over and the nation is going to continue to decline and decline.

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When I was setting out to be a pastor back in about 2007,

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I went to a conference, it was 500 bucks. I don't know, have I ever told you about this?

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It was a Saddleback Conference at Rick Warren. I think you may have. Yeah. So I went to this, 500 bucks for Jess and I and then my friend

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Pastor Zach and his wife. And so we go to Rick Warren's massive just megalopolis type of city thing he's got going out there and it was crazy.

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But it was all, I mean there was not much scripture in all of that. When it came down to the end of the two or three days that we had gotten there, we came away with we needed 100 grand to start a church.

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Wow. And me and my friend Zach were looking at each other and we were like, we don't have $100 ,000, what are we going to do?

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And so we walk up to these panel of leaders that are leading this whole thing and we're like, hey guys, I don't know about anybody else but we don't have that type of cash.

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We feel like we want to make disciples out of people. We want to build like Christ would have us to build.

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What do you think we could do? And they literally, the head guy looked at me and he said, you guys are pretty good looking.

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You'll be okay. Wow. And he was wrong. Yeah, he was wrong about that. A number of things. Yeah. So it just stunned us because we're like, wait a second, what's happening here?

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Wow. So much of the American Evangelical church is based upon that type of seeker sensitive system of building a church.

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Attracting carnal men. Yeah. Attracting carnal men. And I like what Pastor MacArthur says, it's a good way to build the church of the tares.

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Right. But not necessarily the wheat. You know how much money we start Apologia Church on? How much?

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Guess. Nine cents. Goose eggs. Nothing.

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I was close. Nada. Right. Nothing. Zero for those of you that don't know Spanish. Right. And look what

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God's done. But you didn't build on the foundation of wealth or thinking that you needed a certain amount of money.

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Right. The point is it was all Jesus. Yeah. Right. You built on the right foundation. Right. And I'm going to get in a little bit about that.

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Certainly wasn't good looking. Yeah. Yeah, you're okay. All you had was the word.

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That Matthew 7 foundation had nothing to do with your external appearance. And that's all you need.

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But it was crazy going to this conference. Just thinking back and listening to like, man, I remember, you know, they're saying, look, you're going to launch now and you got to make sure you spend like a hundred hours on this sermon because it's got to be a home run.

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You know, you got it. And it was all that I hit a home run and my launch date. I hit this home run. It was talking about the series that they did.

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Yeah. And there's I think the first series was how to amass wealth. Right.

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Or something. So you're building. You're launching a church. And the first series that you're preaching to your people there is it's all about them.

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Right. Right. And how to do this, how to fix your family, how to. Five steps to be a better version of yourself. Exactly.

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Yeah. But what was just so disheartening was it's just all man -centered. Yeah. Right.

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It's all attractional. It's all just to get people in. And that's something that we have to, we got to tear down.

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We've got to address it because so many men and so many young men are getting in and they're getting out quick because they're building on, they're not building on the solid ground of scripture.

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They're building on sand. They get in for a couple of years. It doesn't produce the results that they think that they need to produce.

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They don't feel like they're a successful pastor because they don't have any money or they don't have any people. They're not. A lot of guys are saying you need to plant a church within the first five years which is just absolutely crazy to say something like that.

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So there's so many disillusioned pastors, so many discouraged pastors because they're being fed this stuff when all they really simply need to do is get back to the word.

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Yeah. Absolutely. So segueing in, I just want to serve up some softballs for you guys because you guys are some pretty awesome pastors in my book.

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And just, let's just kind of break this down and let's kind of get into it. I think Zach, what's been so great for the past year, what's been so encouraging me, even though I'm 10 years older than you,

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I really look up to you and your ability to handle the word and just, especially this last year being thrown all of this difficulty, just the difficulty of being a pastor for the first year is tremendously hard.

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Then being on the island of Kauai where the enemy wants only to take you out and he only wants to uproot you and get you out.

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Then you get COVID as a - Yeah. Something to carry on top of all it, which just has exacerbated the difficulty.

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What we've seen in you, especially in your ministry is such a steadfastness and a rock solidness and a faithfulness.

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And so I'm so thankful for you for that. Thanks, bro. So I know you've got a lot that you kind of want to address, because again,

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I know this is all fresh on your heart. That's why I want to just focus it on you. But what are some of the most pressing things a young aspiring pastor needs to hear?

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Well, I think we talked about it a little bit before the show in preparation, and that's just the idea of what success looks like for church planting, for missionary work.

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And that kind of goes along with how we should prepare ourselves for this work. And the fundamental bedrock issue there is, as you already mentioned, the importance of the local church.

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We have to understand what the local church is for. The biblical pattern is to be raised up within local bodies and then sent out.

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And even that whole idea of being a missionary, being sent out, like we get this from the

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God that we worship. He's the missionary God. He's the God who sends his son to give his life as a ransom, to lay his life down in the service of others, to pay for their sins.

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And so the missionary God ordains his vehicle for bringing his gospel goodness to the world.

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And that's the church. Not just the universal body of Christ, filled with ransomed, blood -bought believers of every tribe, tongue, language, and nation, but local, regional assemblies of the kingdom that come into existence that are the result of laborious and hard and long -term -minded work.

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That's the key, I think. Right, exactly. And this is one of the biggest things I've learned is the realistic expectation of going into a place and understanding that you ought not to expect rapid multiplication right away.

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That's key. It's just not realistic. It's not, especially when you're trying to bring the gospel in a unique and powerful way,

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Lord willing, to a group of people that don't look like you, that a lot of times don't share your foundations, that have idolatry entrenched within the culture already.

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It takes time to displace those things because you don't want to risk just running the risk of syncretizing

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Christ with those beliefs and kind of coating it with the veneer of Christianity. You want to displace the idols.

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You don't want to bring Jesus along as another option, as another suggestion, or as even something that's more powerful.

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And so they say, yeah, I'll take your Jesus, but I'll hold on to all these other things too. And so you end up with a place like Kauai.

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There is so much syncretism. I would say the biggest idol on that island is syncretism.

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Of course, there's pluralism, the idea that there's more than one way to God. You want to explain syncretism for people? Syncretism is just that.

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It's bringing together what was the dominant religion with other worldviews and kind of meshing them all into jello.

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Like a spiritual buffet kind of. Right, right. So that's why you could have, for example, someone going to church on Sunday, a

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Christian church, and then taking their child to see a witch doctor on Monday for healing, right? It's a syncretism of the practice, of the worldviews, of the beliefs.

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And so in preparing for that, like I said, to go back a little bit, is young men need to have a healthy appreciation and an involvement in their local church.

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They need to be faithfully serving, laboring. They need to be already doing faithful ministry where they're at first.

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And then in preparation to be raised up and sent, having that ecclesiology is what we refer to it as, understanding a proper church doctrine, like what the church is for, what it is and who we are in it.

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Like that faithful ministry needs to be done there. Because if you don't know what a local church looks like, and you're going to go plant one, that's a problem.

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Absolutely. That you need to understand what it looks like, what community looks like, what accountability to godly shepherds and elders looks like, what it looks like to be under the care of someone for your soul and actually give them the capacity to discipline you if you're in sin, what evangelism looks like, what all of the community aspects of a church, because like when we left

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Apologia, like we left a thriving church body, like with all those things are present, but it took work to create that.

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And now the goal is to create, like to take that, what we know, what we've seen modeled before us in faithfulness and in gospel -driven

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Christ -centered community and now do that, Lord willing. And so if you don't know what it looks like, like what are you trying to accomplish?

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Yeah, that's important. Just because within even the last 20, 30 years has been such a huge proliferation of independent churches.

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And I think that was like a reaction from mainline denominationalism, which got really corrupt and was bad.

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But there's these independent churches that don't wanna be constrained by corrupt denominational systems, but it lends to, okay,

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I feel like I'm a pastor. I feel like I'm called to preach.

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And it's really, I think, exacerbated in the negative way within America, because it's so celebrity -style church to where you come into a church, a young man comes into a church, he sees a single guy getting all the attention.

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I mean, the church is orchestrated to give this guy focus. I wanna do that. I wanna do that. I wanna be that guy. I mean, people are kissing his butt after church.

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I mean, it's just, it's a lot of a celebrity -style type of worship. And so you have these young men that are aspiring to do something.

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They say, wow, that's cool. And so I think that's for me. But I think something that might be provoking to the people that listen to us is that you don't just start a church by yourself.

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Self -appointed pastors are some of the most dangerous men on this earth. And more importantly, it's just not biblical.

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It's just not biblical. It's not scriptural. Exactly, it's not the way to go. You can't point and show that in the scriptures based on the

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New Testament pattern. Absolutely right, yeah. I get emails like this all the time.

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I even got one today. Someone that was like, you know, I'm in wherever, some other state, and they see what we're doing here, and they're like, oh, there's nothing like that in my state.

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So I'm thinking that I'm just gonna start my own church. It's like, that's not how this works. Yeah, we've gotten a lot of those.

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I get it all the time. It's like, nope, that's not what you need to do. And they use the type of the verbiage, like, I feel like the Lord is calling me to do this, or I feel the

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Holy Spirit leading me to do that. Yeah, because that's the ultimate trump card. It's like, how can we -

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How can you argue with my desires? And that's the key, it's your desire. I'm no prophet, but that's not what he's telling you.

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Absolutely. And it's just something that's gotta be addressed. I mean, we really gotta tell guys, I mean, if there's young pastors out there who are aspiring to do this, you have to get into a local church.

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You have to be under biblically qualified elders that are looking into your life, that are helping you and training you and discipling you and watching you for a period.

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We have Wade over here that's been going to our church for a while, and he's aspiring to build a church in Utah.

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And I think he's going about it the right way. He's striving. He has a high level, and this is important too, he's got a high level of connectivity to the church, being a servant into the church.

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And those are the types of men that are really putting themselves in the position to be promoted by the

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Lord. A lot of guys think, you know what, I want this position. I might be legitimately called to be a pastor, but they have a low level of connectivity to the local church, which is really an oxymoron, because local church should be about high levels of connectivity, not only for elders, but everybody else.

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So I think that's a good springboard. Well, I think that calling should be at least verified by local pastors.

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Of course. Too many guys are like, oh, if you'll call this, well, to keep in the same discussion, it's like, well, is your pastor feel the same way about that?

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Yeah. Well, I don't have, then that's a problem. And then that's the same whether you're a pastor or whether you're preparing to be a missionary.

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Like you need to have men who know you, who know your foibles and your failures and who can look into your life over a pretty good period of time and look at your character and be able to point things out.

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So it's the same, whether you're a missionary about to be sent by ascending church or a pastor about to be sent.

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By ascending church. And one more word about that based on just experience too, over the last year, there's a, let me tell you, there are many, many churches on Kauai.

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There are many churches on Kauai. A lot of Christian churches. There is no sense or very little sense of an appreciation for the local church on Kauai because you have people and this just is probably the way that the culture is already.

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There's not a lot of constraint on you or demand upon you at all because that's where you go to do what you want to do.

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And so that has also been carried over to church culture and you jump and you bounce from place to place and you don't have a man whose authority you're under or people that you're accountable to or men who can discipline you and you don't have that.

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And so there's very much an appreciation of the universal body. We're all believers. We're all together. We're all Christians.

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We all, you know, go to church and then, you know, next week I'll go to your church and then, you know, you go to your friend's church.

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There's no, like, incorporation locally and a, like a loyalty there, if you will.

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Like, these are my people. This is my body. These are the men that care for my soul. These are the people I'm on mission with.

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There's very much lacking a sense of that and everyone needs to understand the importance of distinguishing between not only the universal body of Christ but how

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God brings his dominion is through the local church being faithful to the proclamation of his word, the faithful administration of the ordinances, the teaching of the sound doctrine, the refuting against error and those who contradict that and, you know, all of that assumes a structure.

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It assumes elders. It assumes deacons. It assumes all of these things that you must have in place before you go and you must be grounded there in a local church doing that.

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Yeah. If I can just add something before we switch topics. Early on, you kind of mentioned what success looks like and then you mentioned we were just having this conversation the other day and for me success is whether or not you're being faithful to Christ.

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It's not how many people you have. It's not how much money you have. It's not how big your church is.

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It's are you being faithful and this also ties into why it's important to have a sending church because you know so like say your situation where it's very difficult and it's very hard to sometimes to get people to come especially since COVID like you know you still have backing from a from a sending church.

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You know if you were can you imagine doing what you're doing this all on your own? No. Absolutely not. You wouldn't be able to keep your doors open and so as long as you're being faithful and you have a church that says you're being faithful that's successful we have your back as long as that is the case then just be faithful.

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You know and if you don't have that backing you didn't even if you're being faithful and you don't have that church you're not gonna you're not gonna do very well.

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And something that's assumed when you use the word faithfulness is long -term work because to be faithful requires long -term sacrifice and so what a success looks like like what's the goal?

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Like I've been asked that quite a bit even I'm quite like what are you trying to like what's the goal? You know obviously Matthew 28 18 through 20 going to all the world disciples baptize and teach them to obey right?

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That's the charter verse of Christianity but more specifically planting a church that outlives us that is self -replicating that is self -governing a body of believers that we can not only see through the doors of our fellowship and into Christ but all the way to maturity and whenever you talk about maturity you talk about time being invested over a long period in order to get to that point it's not oh five years we're going to do this and then we feel like the

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Lord is calling us to jump ship and go back home it's no this is a long work and if you're prepared to go lay your life down prepare yourself not for short -term missions prepare yourself for faithfulness over a long period of time and just have it in your mind that this is where I'm going

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I'm going to lay my life down and that requires a long -term view of the future and that's what the scriptures say it says don't despise the day of small beginnings you know

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Jesus talks about the kingdom of God being like a mustard seed so it's all right there meaning that yeah we just if we're expecting some quick results our you know our understanding of success our understanding of what we're what we're supposed to be doing is askew too so kind of splicing into what you were talking about pastor

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Luke if pastors these young pastors are supposed to be faithful and I think you're absolutely right faithfulness is the you know definition of being successful you know when all said he's going to say hopefully to each one of us well done good and faithful servant but what should young pastors prepare themselves to be faithful to do so what are the duties of a pastor because I mean

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I went through all these church planning like groups and I had evaluations and they were evaluating my entrepreneurial abilities my looks you know my community of course yeah you do your hair yeah

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I got an F on that one I don't I hate you guys so so all these pastors especially within America they're thrust what's thrust upon them are so many duties that don't necessarily

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I don't think they jive at all with the scriptures then what you see these pastors later on in life have heart attacks there's massive heart disease within the pastor and I think one of the biggest issues that leads to that is these guys are doing stuff that they should not be doing or they're thinking they have this ecclesiological problem or this church government erroneous way of looking at it that it's just one guy leading the ship and they have to do everything all the time they end up burning out falling into sin whatever it may be so let's narrow in on that what should be pastors young pastors faithfully doing in the pastor what's our job well

29:26

I will say that if you're initially planting a church you probably will have to do a lot of that stuff yeah because until you can grow and get you know but you're right pull guys around you but yeah as you as you grow as you and this goes down to the you know apostolic spreading or laying on hands of guys and like you know so as you raise guys up not that we're apostles but you know as you raise guys up and you pour time into guys then you can give more people those tasks so you shouldn't be doing that forever but just since we're talking about guys starting out initially initially it's you do what needs to be done especially when it's only you you don't have a choice right so you just you work so if something needs to get done you make sure it gets done but once you get out of that stage to answer your question

30:26

I think obviously faithful preaching from the pulpit faithful worship and I would say faithful proclamation of the word the gospel in the public square right and I say those are probably the three the three main things and then obviously if you have a flock then shepherding your flock so four and of course above all that Christ family then church yeah family has to come first um yeah that's good otherwise your pastor becomes a mistress yeah within family your marriage um yeah a huge priority maybe just something to help two acts six and the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables therefore brothers pick out from among you seven men of good repute full of spirit and wisdom and whom we will appoint to this duty so the appointment of the first deacons of the early church but I mean right here the the primary duty is is prayer and the word just to simplify it for pastors like primary to the duties should be prayer and the word of God this is what you signed up for this is who you are and so there needs to be ample time

31:45

I mean obviously some pastors um have to work you know by vocational which makes that more difficult but that's that I love

31:53

Martin Lloyd Jones on that I mean he there was such a single mindedness in his pursuit like these are the ordinary means of grace this is what we do

32:01

I as a minister pray and read the word and don't those are non -negotiable that's your lifestyle that's your life is prayer and the word primary first place importance right and that's so important like you said as you're starting out and I you know

32:16

I think we've all planted churches here you have to do them but what I was see my problem was

32:23

I was trying to be somebody that it wasn't or it wasn't a God glorifying foundation that was the bedrock it was

32:30

I need to get people into church and so I was busying myself with so many activities that were just attractional you know and I'll see what you guys think about this but MacArthur says this he says it's not even the job of a pastor to grow the church because Jesus says or build the church because he says

32:52

I'm building my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it right but pastors feel like they have to build and grow their church and that's areas of activity that I think rob from prayer go ahead

33:06

I'm so glad you brought that verse up because the context of that verse is not you sitting back in your church and trying to build from within because you know we say this all the time but gates aren't proactive so the gates of hell aren't prevailing against the church because the gates of hell are defending themselves against the church who's going out and that's how you build your church is go out into the world you don't sit back within your four walls and you know make popcorn and have movie nights and whatever like you can do those things but that's not the point of I just spit all over the place

33:51

I'm so excited right now you know the point is that you go out into the world and so the gates of hell don't prevail against the church because the church is going forth there's an assumption of forward motion but that's good because that's the opposite of the

34:06

AEC American Evangelical Church it's all let's bring them in let's bring the unbelievers into the church and do whatever we have to do

34:16

I mean one church they were putting up money up underneath the seats and giving people like $100 bills and you're going to fill your church up pretty quick I mean you do something like that where do

34:26

I go? I know where is that that's the opposite it's this highly attractional get them in and then once I got them in I'm going to preach the gospel to them but we need to understand young pastors need to understand that the church of the living

34:40

God is not for unbelievers worship is not for unbelievers of course they come in all the time and Jesus even said there's tears among the wheat we know this but what we can't do is we cannot adulterate the scriptures we cannot build on this foundation of just bringing bringing the lost in and somehow you know validate that by oh we're going to share the gospel with them that's just that's not that's not a

35:07

God centered God glorifying approach to planning or serving God as a pastor it's a very man centered just getting them in and I think what was so refreshing for me coming to Apology is that we never talk about numbers it's not all like oh if this is producing numbers is it if this is getting people in the church because my past was you know

35:27

I'd really try to go into a church and build an evangelistic system you know a ministry kind of like what we have here and it was always shot down because it was like dude you've been doing this but we don't we don't see anybody in the pews we don't see we don't this is only good if it affects the number of people that sit their bottoms down in the pews and that is man that is the way the church operates and I think it's causing so much disaster

35:53

I was going to say the church is specifically like a

35:59

Sunday worship service is a hospital for Christians right that's where the Christians come to get fed you know to find healing and encouragement and admonishment that's not the church service does not serve as primarily an evangelistic opportunity right which is what you know a lot a lot of modern evangelical churches have become it's like you said it's like oh invite your friends and then we're going to do an altar call at the end you know but that's not the purpose of the church service you know that's why that's why

36:35

Christ is in the great commission to go therefore go out and not bring in go out and not that we shouldn't invite people to church you know but the point is like that's not what that that's not the church service was not designed as that it was designed to bring healing to the body of Christ yeah and that's that's provocative and I think

36:59

I did a post no pun intended I think I did a post he always is finding a way to throw that in a couple months ago

37:06

I said oh yeah evangelism I remember that yeah evangelism for people that I love is not inviting people to church and this is something huge I think young guys need to hear you do not see within any part of scripture evangelism bringing certain people into a certain location especially the worship of our holy

37:25

God that isn't evangelism I'm not poo -pooing on bringing people to church of course but we shouldn't call that evangelism

37:32

I think what young men and pastors we all need to hear is that the scriptural definition of evangelism the scriptural example is that we go out and we plow and plow and plow and you are a sod busting pastor and I pray for you everyday because it is some of the hardest work as a young pastor in a location especially like Hawaii that has been crusted over with the cults and just everything that is going on over there it takes this plowing and plowing of going into the fields of going into the marketplace, of going door -to -door, sharing the gospel, preach and proclaiming out in the streets, to break up that ground to where then the seed of the

38:10

Word can get in, and there can be harvest down the road, right? I know you wanted to touch on the idea of cultural relevancy, but this really drives right into this in terms of your methodology.

38:24

Are you about getting people in just to get them in, or are you about what you just said, which is taking the gospel to them, because the temptation for anyone,

38:34

I feel like, in my position is, we're results -driven people, especially men.

38:41

We want to see things happen. We want to see visible fruit that our labors aren't going wasted, and so when you make it about that, the pressure is to display results, especially to people back home.

38:55

You want them to think that God is blessing this, because results, honestly, results drive dollars. Like, it drives support for the work.

39:04

But again, taking that long -term view of things and understanding that it's about that consistent obedience, consistent faithfulness, and about not a pressure to display results, because if that's your focus, on the other side of that is compromise.

39:24

And by compromise, I mean doing what's friendly to people's sensitivities and to the way that the culture already operates, in order to gain that.

39:34

And so, just an example with Kaua 'i, I mean, there's something that we talk about often. There's a couple of major idols there, ohana, aloha, two very wonderful things in and of themselves.

39:48

The emphasis on community, family, friendliness, agreeableness, respect for your elders, all of those things are just wonderful, and then they're biblical principles.

39:57

But when you take a good thing and you make it an ultimate thing, it becomes a very bad thing. When you take a good thing and make it a

40:03

God thing, it becomes a bad thing. And so, it can become idolatrous, and then your practice can become about, how do

40:11

I not step on that cultural sensitivity in order to disrupt the flow of daily common life?

40:16

Because there's a way that we do things here, and if you're not doing things that way, you're not gonna go a long ways here.

40:23

You're not gonna fit in, and you're certainly not gonna win people to your message and to your

40:28

God doing things in that way, right? That's the belief that's propagated.

40:34

And so, if your focus is on results, if it's on getting people through the door, what's on the other side of that is not where you want to be.

40:44

Pete Absolutely right. And that's cultural relevancy, and that's huge within the church, especially when I was being groomed and discipled as a young pastor.

40:54

It's, hey, you know, the methods change. But the message, don't ever change the message. Do whatever you need to do to jive with the culture so you can get them in, and at least, because it's all about gathering people in, and then you can preach the gospel to them.

41:10

And so, what I see in that is that the culture now becomes the authority by which you bow to, right?

41:18

I'm only gonna be able to talk to you about the things of God if I somehow acquiesce to your demands upon me.

41:26

And so, the blueprint, the God that you bow down to, I guess, in your methodological system here is the culture.

41:33

But that's, so what you're telling me is, we get to go into a place like Kauai, and there's this massive pressure to conform.

41:40

And unless you conform to what they want you or they allow you to do, then you may be ostracized, you may be seen in a negative light, which you are, you know, the church there is.

41:51

But what do we do? What do we do in the midst of that when everybody's saying, you know what, we're gonna do everything, we're gonna create

41:59

Craigslist ads to demonize you, to demonize the church, you're never gonna have any type of, we're gonna work relentlessly to get you off this island.

42:08

What should our response be biblically? Yeah, because the groups, I mean, everyone, they're friendly to every worldview but exclusivity.

42:17

Right? I'm friendly to all worldviews but exclusive truth, right? But our response, of course, should be love, should be grace, but it should be not a compromise on the truth and how

42:28

God has called us to do this. Because our instruction doesn't come from what seems good, what the culture wants to see, what they want to hear, how they want it to be done.

42:38

The instruction comes from the scriptures. And so this isn't, this isn't just theological, this is applied theology.

42:46

Does your belief in the inability of man to come to God in and of his own volition, his hostility to God in his natural form, is that real?

43:01

Because it will affect the way that you try to reach people with the truth. Right. If you believe that man is what the

43:08

Bible says, that he is dead in trespasses and sins, by nature a child of wrath, that he is at war with God and in danger of hell, unless you actually allow that wonderful theology, which is true, to get legs on it and to drive the way that you do outreach evangelism, the way you see the people that you've been called to minister to, the compromise is so, it's right there on the other side of that.

43:32

Unless you have the biblical truth to keep you there, grounded, and then in your application of that truth, like, this is what

43:40

God says about people. It's the same. God and his gospel are the same, no matter where you go.

43:46

All of us are an Adam by nature, and we need to get in Christ. And so God is the same, he demands the same justice, he has the same message to bring about all people to saving faith in Christ, and so that's really the hope, and that's our response, is

44:02

God and his gospel are the same. How that comes across, we need to understand how people communicate, we need to understand how different cultures receive information.

44:10

Right, that's cultural intelligibility. Cultural, yeah, sure. Being mindful of the culture that you're in, that's why you should learn it, that's why you should learn, have an idea of the language, how they communicate, so that you don't end up doing more damage by not communicating things in a way that they'll understand.

44:25

So amen to all that, but that's one thing, versus trying to get them into a more softened state of mind so that they're more open to hear what you have to say.

44:34

Absolutely. I was just thinking, we talked about the last time I was on here, but I say this all the time, we become what we worship, right?

44:41

So if cultural relevancy is what you're worshipping, right, then that's what you're going to become, you're going to become culturally relevant.

44:52

And I think, you know, I was talking about smashing idols, again it's the idol of comfort on this, right?

44:58

Because if you're culturally relevant, that's comfortable. No, it's very safe. If you're bucking against that, it's very uncomfortable, right?

45:06

And so it's the same root idol, you know, we need to demolish as comfort.

45:12

And even, you know, talking about, just going back to people inviting their friends and family to church to hear the gospel, again

45:20

I think is the idol of comfort. Because, you know, as Christians, we all should feel conviction to preach the gospel, to reach our friends and our neighbors and our family.

45:32

We should feel that, right? And so it's almost like, well, I'm not gonna tell my brother about the gospel,

45:40

I'm not gonna tell my neighbor, but if I can get him to church and then my pastor does, that's like scratching that itch, right?

45:48

Then we can like feel good about ourselves, like, oh I feel good now because my neighbor heard the gospel. It wasn't for me, but I got him to church, you know?

45:55

And so it's, again, it's all, I think it just all goes back to just comfort.

46:00

That's so important. Before young pastors and missionaries go out, if you're not giving the gospel to your family and the people close to you, what makes you think that you're gonna go to a place that you're uncomfortable in, that isn't your natural habitat, spiritually or physically, and that you're gonna be so bold to do that when you won't even do it with the people next to you?

46:18

Don't fall into that. Even myself, to an extent, like the majority of evangelism that, you know, was taking place when

46:26

I was here too, the very event -driven, you know, we go as a group, we go together. But lifestyle evangelism, no matter where I am, like Jesus is on my lips, his word is in my heart, and I'm ready to share the gospel with the lady at the bus stop in the morning, you know?

46:41

Just, and that's much more, you need to be doing that and engaged in that work before you go.

46:48

That doesn't mean we're all perfect in that, but just having a view of evangelism that says, if that's your mindset, you're really gonna struggle when you get into a place that you're not familiar with, and that you're not comfortable with, and you try to be bold then.

47:02

You need to be bold now, where you are, in preparation for where you're going, when you're not comfortable.

47:08

Right. And then, go ahead. I'll just say, sorry to interrupt you, but I think, I don't know if you were intending to bring up this point, but it's a good point.

47:16

I think if you're preparing for the pastor, you should start living your life like you're under a microscope.

47:23

Yeah. Right. Transparency. Especially in Kauai, you're literally, your life is literally under a microscope, because you can't go anywhere without someone being like, oh you're that guy that was preaching the gospel at the beach the other day.

47:35

Yep, that was me. Well, maybe just so everyone that listens to this knows, like, what we're talking about, this is an island with 70 ,000 permanent residents.

47:43

Yeah. Which is not a lot, and there's really nowhere to hide. There's nowhere to go, and so just like you say, you will see that person in line at Costco.

47:53

Yeah. You know, the following day. There's no escaping. Right. That kind of a thing. Even here in the valley, where there's, what is it, six million people or something?

48:01

Yeah. Like, you know, people know who we are, and they recognize. So, like, I can't go to the store.

48:08

I, like, I always have to be in my best behavior. That goes back to living your life under a microscope. You always have to be living for Jesus.

48:15

You can't have your guard down. Living quorum Deo, before the face of God. Exactly. You can't, like, only live for Christ at church, or when you're in front of the camera.

48:22

That means at the store. That means when you're getting gas. That means wherever, because someone's always watching.

48:29

Right. So, start preparing your life that way, if you're preparing to be a pastor.

48:34

Yeah. That's awesome. And you'll need to, because there will always be someone trying to find fault, or bring something.

48:42

Exactly. Yeah, and, you know, you see these churches operate with this desire to really, you know, only do what the culture allows them to do.

48:50

Backing up a little bit into cultural relevancy, but what does that produce within our nation, and especially on the island of Kauai?

48:58

There's no gospel going out. I mean, there's nothing happening there. There's no sowing of the gospel.

49:04

So, there's just this compounded crust, and the soil there, if you, you know, the spiritual soil kinda has become so hardened because they've acquiesced to this, oh, you can only do what we allow you to do, and just stay within your own little tribe.

49:19

Don't go out, don't go to the ward and preach the gospel to the Mormons. Don't ever go out on the beach and lift up your voice to preach the gospel.

49:27

You do what we would have you to do. And so much of the church of this nation, especially, and this is not to, of course, you know, there's faithful folks, faithful brothers and sisters on Kauai.

49:37

I wanna make sure that's clear. Sure. But by and large, I think there has been this deep cowardice, this deep giving into that idol of Ohana, and trying to be culturally relevant.

49:50

And then what has amounted to that? I mean, the cults have proliferated that island. And so,

49:56

I think what we need to do is we, if we do bow down to that, we do feel like we have to become relevant in our evangelistic strategy.

50:04

We've abandoned scriptural or biblical evangelistic methodology.

50:09

We've abandoned it. And we're doing nothing. Nothing's gonna happen. There's no seed planted. There's no harvest if there's no seed planted.

50:17

It's not gonna happen. One of the things that I heard so much in preparing to live there and move there, and even now living there, like I said, there's churches everywhere.

50:26

Churches just everywhere. I feel like there are days still when I drive by and it's like, Oh, there's another church. I didn't even know that was there.

50:32

But the argument is, why would you do that? Why would you bring another church to this island? There's already a ton of churches.

50:38

And Jesus refers to the people of God as salt and light, preservative and that which dispels darkness.

50:46

And so, you look at the state of Hawaii, you look at just on my island alone, the idolatry, the pluralism, the syncretism, the idea of all that we are needs to come from the state and the permission of the state to give us our livelihoods.

51:04

And what does that produce? Like you said, it's produced darkness and it's produced spoil. And so, the question is humbly, if there's so much light here, why is this place so covered in darkness?

51:14

That's it. That's it. If there's so much salt here, then why is this place wasting away underneath the boot of the state or encroached upon by false religion and the cults?

51:28

And so, that's the question. And really, that needs to be answered.

51:35

That's it. That needs to be answered. If there's so much light, why is it so dark? Yeah. I think there's something that there's a lot of in Kauai, I think is a good example.

51:43

I'm just thinking coral. Coral, right? Like if you go to the coral reef where it's alive, it's beautiful.

51:49

It's amazing. There's fish. It's gorgeous. It's fun to snorkel that stuff. But when it dies, it's dangerous and it will destroy you.

51:58

And it's hard. And like talking about the crust, you know, last time I was in Kauai, I got thrashed on some coral, like bad, like cutting my hands and my feet all up.

52:06

I was bleeding everywhere. And so, I think that's a good example of what it looks like when there is life.

52:14

And you could apply a spiritual principle to that, where there's life, it's beautiful, and there's fish, and it's gorgeous.

52:20

But when it's gone, it's dead, it's gross, and it will destroy you. Yeah. That's exactly right.

52:28

And I was thinking about just the Scottish Reformation and how they bled and they died.

52:34

But the results of just getting back to the Word of God, being faithful in the midst of tremendous persecution was massive national revival that spread throughout that nation.

52:43

Of course, it's in a state of degradation because they've moved away from it. I mean, what we need to understand is regardless of the culture that we're in,

52:52

I mean, we as Americans, American pastors, American church, we have not resisted to the point of shedding blood.

52:59

We get mean things said to us. They're not people knocking on our doors. I mean, you know what they did to the covenanters?

53:06

I'm not gonna get into this, this'll be a bunny trail forever. But they would literally set up quarter in their houses if they found...

53:13

If the dad went out to listen to preaching or he went out and he had a Bible in his hand, they'd murder him in front of his wife.

53:19

Then they'd set up a dragoon of soldiers or soldiers were the dragoons and they would eat all their food and they would rape the wife and these people would be destitute their entire lives.

53:31

And they remained faithful to it. What do we do? What do we do on the Island of Kauai? What are we gonna do now? We are gonna march forward and we're gonna preach the gospel and we are gonna cause godly trouble until they murder us.

53:43

That is our assignment and nothing is gonna change that. If we allow culture, pressure, you gotta do it this way.

53:50

If we allow that to move us away, that just equals more decay, more degradation. Of course, we abandon our

53:56

Lord and we fail to do what he's called us to do. Yeah. I think one practical thing for young pastors or young missionaries being sent out to that very end is, of course, reading more about the covenanters and those groups, but reading missionary biographies, like understanding that you're not alone in what

54:13

God has called you to do. This is not a new thing in the history of the church for men and women to lay their lives down.

54:19

And many of them never even see their families or their homelands again. Like they left knowing that they would never come back.

54:26

And look at us here in the 21st century, like I can take a plane still.

54:31

I mean, I don't know how much longer, but I can take a plane to come back and get refreshed and get encouraged. But for young people getting prepared to go out like, you know,

54:40

Amy Carmichael's, John Patton, Hudson Taylor, like even the missionaries on Kauai, like reading about their stories.

54:48

Like if you want to understand like how good you have it, read by comparison, the men and women who really suffered.

54:54

And that's not to say that what you're going through isn't real. Like it's very real. It hurts. Like, but when you read it by comparison, it puts into perspective that the sacrifices that those men and women made are why you're where you're at right now.

55:08

And you have much more benefit because of that sacrifice. So Jesus says, unless a kernel of grain falls to the ground and dies, it doesn't bear much fruit.

55:17

The reason why we go is we're that, we're that grain. We need to hit the ground and die.

55:23

And from that will come the fruit. It's awesome. Lord willing. We haven't signed anything in blood yet.

55:28

So until that happens, shut up. Get to work. Yeah. Let's get to work and move forward.

55:34

Well, I think we can go on for hours. I mean, there's so many different things that we could talk about, but I think, yeah, it's been hugely beneficial.

55:42

I think there just has to be, like Rusty says all the time, just a paradigm shift in the way that we think about our jobs as pastors, especially as American pastors and what we set our hearts to do and to accomplish.

55:55

But man, I'm so glad you came on. Yeah, me too, man. It's fun. I'm fired up to keep on moving forward and I appreciate you and love you.

56:03

Thanks, man, for coming on the show. And thanks for watching another show of Provoked. It's been awesome to have my two buddies on here and we pray it's been a blessing to you.

56:14

If you're a young pastor and you need help, well, we would say number one, get to your pastor, submit yourself to a qualified pastor.

56:22

He's going to come alongside you, love you enough to disciple you and train you. And we'd like to help you too.

56:29

Send us a message and we'll do everything that we can to help. The hope of the world is the Christian church. The hope of the world is pastors being faithful to the duties that Jesus has given them.

56:39

Because as they do that, they teach and train the church, the church becomes the salt and the light of the earth, as they see their pastors and are led by the pastors and then things are as Christ would want them in this earth.