BraveMen S3E42: Samuel Rodriguez - Moving Beyond Limiting Barriers

Welcome to Brave Men, the opening scripture of Hebrews chapter 12 says let us run life's marathon race with passion and determination. And that's why we do Brave Men. I'm here with Chris Shields, who's our producer for the Brave Men podcast and Chris says at the end of chapter 12 in the passion translation. It says we are receiving rights to an unshakable kingdom. And I love our guest today, Dr. Sammy Rodriguez, because he really is that guy that's fired up. He speaks of thinks of lives in unshakable kingdom in the midst of chaos and crisis. This guy is a statesman for the faith. It was really, really awesome to be able to talk to him. Yes, yes. And I mean, I love the fact of he took his life and he put it in the book, you know, he did. And he has his new book, You Are Next, where you see not just the, you know, reality of words being spoken. You see the reality of what he's walked out and what he's walked through and he's put it all in a book. Yeah, he's the he's the head. In fact, he was one of the founders of the Hispanic National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. That's over 40,000 Hispanic churches and organizations. I mean, this guy, this guy is a statesman for the faith. This is a man of influence and I appreciated him and he's a man of integrity. I appreciated him taking the time to speak to us. And what was it that happened when we were going to try to get a hold of him? He was transitioning from my conference to our meeting. But he in the midst of it, he kept texting saying, Hey, I did not forget. I said, I was going to be there. I'm going to be there. So he's got a call with the White House. He's got a speaking thing he's speaking at. And since he told you he would be there on that day at this time, he said, yeah, he showed up. You know, we were on Zoom. We're looking at each other and it's funny because he actually went out in a lobby. He set his phone down and we talked to each other. And all I could see was his knees and his face. I mean, because it was kind of, you know, hit that angle. But this is an amazing program today. You are next, Samir Rodriguez. I believe it's men like this that enlarge us. That if we're going to run with passion and determination, if we're going to be fired up about this, this thing, if we're going to have wisdom and courage, we have to listen to men like this. Yes. And that's what encouraged I was just going to add in. That's what encouraged me about this episode. The man left an event came and was still on fire. Just from the event that he came for. He's doing the same. And it's like, if we're going to see this world transform, it takes us being releases of the Holy Spirit like, come on man, it's living, you know. Absolutely, man, this is great stuff. So you're going to hear today from Samir Rodriguez. And I don't necessarily in the midst of talking to him, give all his stuff. But man, this guy, he's a pastor, pastor of New Season LA in Downey, California, a significant church. He's a movie producer and author, human rights activist. He's done all these different things and set down, talk with us. And he stirs me up, man, it gets me fired up. I want to go take some stuff. So you're going to love this day on Brave Man. It's Brave Man with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. I'm with Sammy Rodriguez right now and pastor Sammy, you are the president of the Hispanic Christian Leadership Council conference. And so you've got over 40,000 churches looking to you for direction and input, working with the president on his languaging and the narrative of everything. But you know, you had a message and I've heard you preach a number of times, but you had a message you just recently put in a book called Your Next. And I thought, you know, before we hit some of these other things, if you could hit that, it was such a strong word about healing. Could you hit that for us for a few minutes? Sure, thank you for having me. Your next step is from the gospel of John. It's the powerful encounter that Jesus had with this man who was paralyzed for close to an entire generation, 38 years. And Jesus approaches the man who has been paralyzed for close to 40 years. And Jesus has the audacity, I say, that would great due deference, to ask the man to follow him. Do you want to get well? What are you kidding me? Are you really kidding me? Do you want to get well? To me, that intrigued me, prompted the writing of this book You Are Next. The man explicitly states that he was dependent. He looks at Jesus and says, look, I've tried my best when the waters move, miracles take place, people get healed. And every single time I miss my turn, and in a matter of fact, the following phrase is explicit. He states the following, I'm dependent on other people. So Jesus is asking him this. Let me tell you in actuality where Christ was asking. Do you want to get well? And are you willing to break your cycle of dependency? Wow. You've depended on others for your healing. You stated explicitly, Mr. Parallelized, man, that every single time you miss your turn, because you depend on others. When you depend on others, morning you depend on God. You will be paralyzed. Parallelses will define you mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, your integrity. Parallelses will define your dream and your God ordained purpose if you depend on others, morning you depend on God. So Jesus is asking him, do you want what I have for you? What I have for you? Not your dependency. Can you go beyond yourself and looking at others for your breakthrough? Can you depend on me? Can you? Do you want it? I have something to offer you, but it's going to prompt a pivot. That's why this message is so critical, even for our current reality. Yeah, it really is because, frankly, too many of us are looking to somebody else for our spiritual input, for everything about ourselves. That's why it is almost an obsession to look to Washington, DC, or to New York City, or Albany, or to governments somewhere, to solve issues and crises, ensure they're involved, but there's so many things that we need to do ourselves. Yeah, this idea of dependency, and I speak about it in a very extensive manner in the book, is an issue that it's defining the emerging generations, millennials and generations, DC, individuals, truly have this aspect of dependency. As you all know, millennials, and I have millennial children, millennials, and praise God, love Jesus, went to school, educated, and pursued careers in ministry and so forth. But many millennials are at home, till they're 30, 35, 40 years of age and being at home is not the negative component, as a Latino. I mean, we have answered uncles and grandmothers at home, in perpetuity, so that's not the dynamic. The dynamic is the issue of dependency. Right. The sense of embedded de facto and de jour entitlement, and all of a sudden, we have to break that. Even right now, with the current crisis and so forth, with the recent coronavirus crisis, the dependency on government, as you alluded to, government has a road to play. Indeed, but here's the, here's the problem. When we depend more on Uncle Sam, than we do on our Heavenly Father, there is a definitive break in God's higher-archial order. Let me explain, Uncle Sam may be our uncle, but he is not our Heavenly Father. He's just an uncle. He's not your father. And when we depend on an uncle, more than we depend on our father, when our father is alive and well and on the throne, there is a theological shift, there is a break in paradigm of our reality. We have to take this tape. So dependency is an issue. Who do you depend on? Who do you depend on for your joy? If someone else, if someone else is responsible for you, you will be experiencing depression for years to come. If you depend on someone else for your integrity, you can't, you can't project integrity. You can't somehow believe that someone else can live faithfully on your behalf. You can't bicariously live out your faith through someone else. There are things by friend that you're gonna have that depend on God or even on yourself in that same gospel of John, there's a moment where Jesus speaks to a blind man, another interesting story. And Jesus speaks to a blind man and he spits in the blind man's eye, pretty powerful story. What I love about this story is that this man is blind, by the way, it's a double blind study. He's born blind. Jesus spits on the ground, makes mud, places it on his eye, and then Jesus has the audacity to say this to a blind man who's in a double blind study now, right? Blind man with mud on his eye. Jesus says, all right, go wash yourself. Jesus doesn't say, let me take you by the hand, sunshine. And let me wash you right now. Jesus says, all right, now go wash yourself. There are things that we're never gonna experience in life. There are miracles and breakthroughs and a greater relationship with Christ and we will experience when we learn, you know, to pick up those footsteps and to learn to do things with the giftings and the abilities to wherewithal the fortitude and the acumen that God has placed in us. So this idea of dependency on others, we have to break the cycle of dependency. Yeah, it's codependency and dependency. And then there, those of us, I've always told businessmen as an example. If you have the ability that you know how to scale a business, you know how to make it larger, you know how to make it bigger, but you don't do it. You've actually robbed the kingdom and you've robbed other people. Because it's kind of like it's what Paul said about those who know to do right and don't do it to them, it's send the issue is, the issue is that we've got to, we've got to actually pick it up for others, right? So what you're talking about, and is we've got to do what we have to do because we love other people. It's just like isolating with the virus crisis. Why do we do that? Because the government said to do it? No, because we love other people. And if we do it that way, changes the whole mindset, doesn't it? We've out of that, we've out of that. The motive, the intention and the fact that it's the imperative, the impetus stems from us, self-motivated. We have it's in us, the gifting of God in us, the direction of God being led by the Spirit, not by the flesh, not by the circumstances, Galatians, Paul's admonition, absolutely. And if we pick that up, we break dependency and we're able to thrive. Not just survive, we're able to thrive. Yeah, Paul told the Galatians, he said you were doing so well, but you got off course because somebody bumped into you. And to me, it's always speaks of people's opinions. We got bumped into by distractions. We get now in this thing with the coronavirus, we get bumped into by, this is the way we've always done church. Right? Yeah, listen, and this disruptive moment is brought to you by Kellogg's, it's not. This disruptive moment is brought to you by God not being surprised by the coronavirus. I truly believe this disruptive moment has an opportunity to reset things. Listen, I have an iPhone. Right now I'm doing this Zoom conference, you get the conduit of my iPhone. And on occasion, on a couple of occasions, something happened on my iPhone, where I call the Apple School and basically the customer service person said, hey Mr. Rodriguez, you have an option, hard reset. Hard reset means press a couple buttons and you go back to your default settings. You're gonna, you know, the least of the most recent things you did, and if you do not upload to the cloud, however, you're gonna go back to your default settings. What we're experiencing right now with the coronavirus is a hard reset. We're going back to our default settings, both the church and the families. Let me explain about the church. We're going back to our default settings. We're going back to John 3.16. It's about the gospel, baby. It's about Christ's Lord. It's about salvation through Christ and Christ alone. It's about eternal life through Christ Jesus. We're going back to John 3.16, biblical orthodoxy, the message of the gospel, the good news. We're going back to Matthew 25. Let's take care of other people around us. Let's be compassionate. Let's crunch the thirst, beat the hungry and welcome this stranger. Take care of the meaty. And we're going back to Acts chapter two. Every single house was filled. You remember the two occasions that Acts chapter two it says this, and the house was filled with the Holy Spirit twice in the book of Acts in the upper root Pentecost experience. What does it mean? That's what we're going back to. We're going back to us. We're going back to John 3.16, Matthew 25, and our houses, not just the church houses, not just the conference, my friend, not just the auditorium, but our house is being filled with God's precious Holy Spirit. It's a hard reset. It looks like things are turning off, but when they turn back on, man, I think we're going to be better. We're going to be a lot of those bugs and viruses that were inundating our smartphones and iPads and computers. They're going to be gone. That's what a hard reset does. So get ready, let's not your heartbeat trouble, man. You know, I believe that. I believe I was on a phone call with Willie George the other day and Willie George said this. He said, I believe that it was a group of us with my friend, Robert Berger, and he said, I believe. He said, the last five months of this year, we will see more people saved than our churches and more people attending than we have seen in decades. He said, this is going to bring a new wave of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit, Jesus, when he did the miracles, Dr. Rodriguez, you know this, when he did the miracles, few of them were in the synagogue. Most of them were in farmer's markets. They were in houses and they were in streets. So here's my deal, farmer's markets and houses. Houses is where we're out right now, the streets. I believe that's the internet, right? And then you've got the farmer's markets, which is the gathering, we're able to do that again. I believe that's where people are going to be healed, not just in the synagogue, but where we're at, where the whole, the ruac, the breath of God is. The ruac, the new, a dorsi, we're not in cancers anymore. It's a, it's a new day, but a rise in shine, your light has come and the glory of God has risen upon you. Hey, how you doing, guys? Let me take a moment right now in the middle of this great conversation to remind you how to get in touch with Paul in Christian men's network and the Global Fatherhood Initiative. You can find all the resources for mentoring and fatherhood at C-A-M-N dot men, that C-A-M-N dot men. Also, you can write to Paul at Paul at C-A-M-N dot men. That's Paul at C-A-M-N dot men. We have tremendous resources for churches with special discounts for groups on that website. Everything a church needs from A to Z to mentor and disciple men of all ages and backgrounds. Now let's get back to this awesome interview between Paul and Sammy Rodriguez. I'd like to, I did this the other day on a broadcast. I said, though, whoever asked God to change the world, would you raise your hand? Yeah, absolutely, right, right indeed. Because here we are, the world's changed. We prayed, we prayed for decades, Pastor Sammy. God changed the world, God changed the world. Well, bam, here it is. And I love the hard reset because I think most of us who use computers and smartphones would have had to do that at some point. And I love that whole picture is, and the default is you go back to the manufacturer's specs. Absolutely, absolutely. This is the creator, the designer, the architects are a regional plan, my friend. And it takes this. It takes a coronavirus and invisible reality with great consequences. It takes that. And it reminds us, by the way, that the invisible world is so much more powerful in the visible world. It's the reminder that the things that we do not see, and we do not see have greater impact than the things that we do see. What a reminder. Yeah, it's a tremendous reminder. Faith comes by hearing, but so does fear. You're the word of God. But so does fear. Here comes by hearing also. Faith is believing what you cannot see will come to pass, but so is fear. So now what we've got is the collision of two kingdoms and a really very crystal clear choice to make between those two kingdoms. Now, I want to speak to one other thing, and I know you've got to run. You've got so many meetings, you've got churches, you've got tens of thousands of churches are responsible for leading plus the churches there in Sacramento and Los Angeles. And the things you're doing with the president and other people who ask for your wisdom. So thank you for the time, Dr. Rodriguez, for being with us on this moment. But we have got here where I live, the crisis homes are full. The abuse homes are full, they're packed. Spouse abuse has gone off the charts. There's police are answering more calls for that than anything else right now. And so would you speak to that? Cause to me, it comes back to manhood, biblical masculinity. And the fact that as our churches go back in the motion, we've got to raise up some men, some warriors. Unfortunately, my friend, it's under reported. It's under reported, but it is a truth. They can't not be denied. I have a friend named John Jackson. John Jackson is the president of William Jessup University and one of my closest friends, one of my theorist friends. And John spoke to me about a season of revelation. He said, hey, Sam, this coronavirus is really exposing who we are, dynamics about society, about the church, about government, limitations, capacities, weakness and strength. This crisis is revealing the fact that there is not just a fracture, but a massive, massive crack in the foundational, the foundational cement of family and civilization for that matter, which is righteous men, men. The fact that we have this increase in child abuse, domestic violence, there's an issue right now. And when this crisis is over, all hands on deck, there should be a massive fatherhood and thank you for your leadership on the fatherhood initiative globally. That there should be, I'm by the grace of God, have the opportunity in the previous administration to work on the fatherhood task force. How about that? So we need to put all hands on deck. There's an issue, a crisis with men. What did the coronavirus really reveal? A lot of things, but what are the most significant things? There is a crisis with men in America and around the world. This is what you reference in Texas, it's not just Texas. It's global. It's global around the world. This issue with men and domestic violence, child abuse, and again, we know what it is. It comes back to issues of identity, of definition, of course, the lack of Christ, of about things, pornography, the infestation of pornography, alcoholism and drug abuse. Again, the lack of father transferring legacy and man's rights to their sons. And we get all that. It's been studied, your dad led the way you're now doing even greater things. I mean, we get all that. But what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do? Come on, man. We are compelled not just to identify the issue, but to address it prophetically and scripturally. We are compelled to see a brand new movement emerge. Don't mean venues and conferences, man. I mean something that will go actually down to the core, to the home, to the house. We need to build a firewall. And somehow see men redeemed and aligned perfectly in their biblically defined purpose as the high priest of the home, as the leaders of a righteousness and justice movement. I want to see men in the book of Joshua in the 21st century, in the chapter where the walls of Jericho came down. It's beautiful, because it talks about the following. And do your Biblical due diligence. It says they had men who carried the ark. They had men who were blowing the shofarers. They were men who were carrying swords and think about it. And it's also as a Biblical metaphor. The sword is the word of God, it's the word of God. We need men back in the word of God. We need men as worshipers. And we need men who carry the glory of God into their homes and into their cities, into the market place, into government and politics and business and entertainment. We need these men to arise. But it's up to you and I, Paul. It's up to you and I and pastors and men who are watching this to rise up and disciple other men. Disciple other men. Let's do this. We're in this together for the sake of our children, of our children's children for such a time. As a sorry for preaching, but you has got me completely animated about something I'm passionate about. Seeing a brand new generation of men rise up in the name of Jesus. And we call it the sons of Zebulin. It's, you know, the sons of Viscar, new, come on to do. They knew the time. But the time was equipped for warfare. It says they were equipped. They had weapons of every kind of warfare. And it says they were loyal to, and one translation that says they knew how to keep ranks. In other words, they had to go arm and arm. Women bond face to face, but men bond shoulder to shoulder facing a challenge. And we can't just do the kumbaya little church thing. We've got to raise men up and get together and face a challenge. And that challenge is, what's the future going to look like for our kids if we don't step up as men? What's our world going to look like? And so, man, yeah, you get me going after I get you going. I mean, that's fantastic. And so, you know, Monday night, March of 30th, Monday night, we started a team week global men's intensive. Half hour that every church can use the second half hour of an hour, you know, to do social media talk to the guys. But I'm going to teach strong men and tough times. Look, my father wrote about the life of Daniel. So I'll do that in March of 30th, Monday night. And believing and expecting that what comes out of that will stir other people up. You know, that's part of the thing, isn't it? To stir people up to add things. To stir people up to do warfare. To get them to stand up. So I appreciate you, Pastor Sammy, and everything you do with the Hispanic Leadership Conference. And what you've meant to so many people. But let me ask you as we wrap up, married children, are you guys calling your house and you separated? Yeah, you know, married for 30 years, 30 years, with the most amazing woman on the planet. Next to my salvation, the greatest gift God has given me. Truly. Yeah, I met her when I was 11 years of age. She's the only woman I've ever known. And yeah, yeah. And we have three kids who are grown up now. So my kids are grown up. They live nearby and married and so forth. So, and we're supposed to be isolated, but we are a very tight family. So every day we're driving out mom and I and we're visiting one of the kids. Making sure everything's clean, CDC. We get that. But yeah, we're taking care of our kids. Even though they're in close to 30 years of it, 25, 26, 27, 28, we're taking care of them anyway. We're still parents, right? So, yeah, we love our family. For such a time as this, my friend, here we are. Let's do this. We're in this together and we're going to come out driving in Jesus' name. So are you an abuelo? I am. I am an abuelo. A abuelo for those that do not speak the Spanish vernacular. It's a grandaddy. I'm a grandaddy of three. A Liam, a landed, and a Mela. That's fantastic, Dan. You know, we all have a boy and a girl, man. That's awesome. We all have to learn Spanish because they, Robert Berger told me that's what's in heaven. This is unofficially, officially the truth. So, I'm working on it, but man, I love Hashtag. Love being abuelo, man. I love being proper. Love it. I like it. God bless you and everything you're doing and your church is there in Sacramento, Los Angeles. And now, are you doing some online services? We are online. Our church is not Latino, by the way. Our church is 40% Anglo, 40% African-American, 20% confused. So, it's an amazing, I'm a comedian, guys. So, it's an amazing church, multiple campuses. And yeah, we're doing online. We're online and we grew. We grew exponentially online. Yeah. And that's a new season, we had built new season, new season of worship. Yeah, new season. Eden, Delegal church, biblical truth. Christ-centered, Bible-based, spirit-empowered. Just loving Jesus, preaching the gospel. Come on, somebody. Yeah, so, man, this is, I believe I wrote up an article and CBN published it on their global news. I believe it's the greatest day in the history of the church in the sense of what will come out of this. I'm desperately grieving over a couple of friends who have just passed away. Who, their underlying issues were exasperated by this virus. So, very difficult watching that happen. And yet, in the midst of all of this, we see the church having grown through persecution and acts because passion always overcomes persecution. Indeed. So, Lord bless you. Beautiful. Thank you. God bless you, my friend. Take care. God bless. Wow. I don't know how much fire was in my hand from writing so much notes from this interview. Like, when he started dropping bombs, I was like, can I keep up with him with all the notes? It was great talking to him and I appreciated him taking some time. He was actually in the middle of a conference. I think it was at the White House and he came out, he went off to the side, we did this conversation. And he has a man with great influence. But what I love about him, he's passionate about reaching men for Jesus Christ. Yes. And that's his bottom line. Yes. He's involved in all kinds of political stuff, governmental things, changes going on in our cultures involved in all of that, but center for him is men coming to Christ, being discipled and as he talked about standing up with some co-honas. Yes, exactly. And the thing that blows my mind too is the fact that he is a man of integrity. He leads, by example, he had promised us that he was going to be a part of this. And he made sure he was texting us during the walking out of the conference. And he was just like, hey, I didn't forget about y'all. I promise you, it's delayed, but I'm going to do this today. So I just love the fact that he's not just a man that talks it, he walks it. Well, he wasn't trying to be like, you know, big time famous. Like I'm famous, sorry guys. Can't do it today, you know, Trump called me. Or like we like to call it Hollywood. Hollywood. Yeah. Well, I did some of that. It's been interesting, Chris, for you to produce this because you've actually come face to face with some Hollywood. Oh my gosh, I will not name drop. So we're not going to talk about them. But that's why, you know, here's a deal. Brave men, the whole point of this is not just meeting guys. Exactly. We're brave men. But letting this stir us up. Exactly. Well, I think guys like Sammy Rodriguez and Nick Stumbo and David Barton and Chris Bursard, Demario Davis, you know, let guys like that stir us up where we become what we're talking about. This is a brave man. And the way you could say it, too, is I'm inspired to be inspired. Wow. You know what I'm saying? That often times we miss that. Now you're exactly right. Let me write that down real quick. Yeah, you can have that. Yeah, okay, that's because when I share that next week, I'll do that opening, you know, my next time I preach, I'll go, you know, I was thinking about this the other day. The Lord just dropped something in my heart. Yeah, I know that's how I do that. I know that's how I was. Does that go striking? No, that's, and that's not the ghost. That's the other one. Or is that plagiarizing, you know, plagiarizing? That's what we're in the middle of. Hey, thanks for being with us today on Brave Men. It really is meaningful that we spend time together. And we work on this very hard at Krishmin's network in order to bring, we're just not doing a podcast to do a podcast. We're doing it so that it enlarges our hearts, stirs us to good works, and increases our love for Jesus Christ. That's the center, that's the foundation, that's the bottom line. Thanks for being with us today on Brave Men. You just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian men's network. Connect with Paul at cmn.man. Or write to him at Paul at cmn.man.