Joel Brooks - Wisdom, Compassion, and Questionable People

00:03 - Speaker 1 I'm with my great friend, pastor Joel Brooks, who is I say pastor, and sometimes we tend to narrowcast that my friend Joel Brooks is a philosopher, a Jesus practitioner, a man who speaks into culture in a remarkable way, and does that with a number of different groups across the United States and around the world. Pastor Stone's Church in Kalamazoo, michigan, in Grand Rapids, married to Yvonne, a number of children, six grandchildren, but you speak into my life, man. Every time we talk, in times like this, there's something I write down that by the by. 00:44 - Speaker 2 The next time I share this it's mine right, right same here, man same with you appreciate it same. 00:53 - Speaker 1 So one of the things that I texted you the other day, I said I want to talk about this, okay, because it's it's you've got. You've got the ability to step back and look at things from a really remarkable and interesting, unique perspective. How do I reconcile compassion? I've got compassion for people. I've got love for people. I've got a large worldview for my family, let's say, security, safety, uh, you know, sovereignty, right? Okay, how do I reconcile those two things without it becoming, uh, I mean people, people hate their neighbors, right on political stuff, right? Political stuff, right, it it changes every two years, right? How do I reconcile those things, pastor Joel? 01:52 - Speaker 2 Well, I think you look at your values. You base your values on what works, okay, okay, and what kind of a society, what kind of culture, do you want to have? Okay, I believe culture is to life what water is to a fish it's the environment. If the water is messed up, you can't live. What I don't allow, what I'm for and against, has to do with what's healthy, okay, and so I can't allow compassion to create an unhealthy climate in my world. Okay, wow, I've got to have health in order to be healthy. I've got to breathe clean air, as it were, in order to be healthy. Breathe clean air, as it were, in order to be healthy. And so what is the byproduct of what I'm doing, what I'm allowing, what I'm embracing? What is the byproduct of that on my culture, on my values, on how we're going to live? 02:56 Okay, some things don't reproduce, some things don't produce good, you know, and like I say, for instance, I look at the promise of socialism. It promises utopia. If we would all just throw our money into the government and let them take care of us, we'd be okay, but it just has never worked. It's not a healthy thing. Anytime you look at the fruit of socialism. It's always anti-Christ, it's always against the church. There's a need somehow. 03:27 - Speaker 1 But the words sound right. 03:29 - Speaker 2 Yeah, the promise is good. Just like you can be your own God, you won't surely die. You know, to me everything goes back to the original lie, which had three parts. You know, lie which had three parts, it's that you won't die. There's no consequence to sin. God is the problem, and you can be your own God. We don't really need him, we don't need his restrictions. We could work this stuff out of ourselves. 04:00 And so whenever you see any of those three components, you know that you're dealing with an antichrist system, something that's going to be against what you believe, and that ultimately, the ultimate goal is that it's going to shut down. You know, it's like your dad used to say about sin it promises to please and serve, but in the end it only enslaves and dominates, and so the basis of the lie is that nobody would sign up for bondage. But it promises freedom. And so you have to look at the fruit of one's thinking. Wisdom is justified by her children, and so you look at. You know, we've been here before. We have experience with different philosophies and different ways of thinking, and what do they produce? You know, something that always produces bondage in the fruit is got to be messed up in the root. 04:53 - Speaker 1 And so it's, it's. It's the Pharisees saying we've never been in bondage. 05:00 - Speaker 2 Right, right right. 05:03 - Speaker 1 And they're under Roman rule. Right, right right when they said that when they said it yeah you know, I I looked up something the other day because I was talking about, uh, about john nine, the man that was healed, and they said to Jesus, you did it on the wrong day, right, and all these rules and regulations absolutely and I said, you know to us, we would look at that and we would say, man, these guys are in bondage. 05:28 man, how many rules and regulations did they have? Seven, eight hundred, right, twelve hundred, what was it? And then I said but, and we would look at them and say that but did you realize that nobody actually knows how many federal laws and rules and regulations there are? Like, if you look it up, there's over 300,000 rules, agency rules, presidential things, he does, laws that we've passed. There's over 300,000. 06:05 - Speaker 3 Wow. 06:07 - Speaker 1 And that doesn't include your state, your county, your city, your HOA. 06:13 - Speaker 3 Wow. 06:17 - Speaker 1 So here we are saying, hey, we're free, yeah, and we live under 500,000 rules and regulations and statutes, yeah. 06:24 - Speaker 3 Yeah, isn't that amazing. 06:25 - Speaker 1 And yet we say we're free 500,000 rules and regulations and statutes. Yeah, yeah, isn't that amazing? And yet we say we're free. So it's this yeah. We lose perspective and we're wanting hey, everybody should be fair, yeah, it should be fair, justice for all, right? We say, well, it should be fair, it should be justice. Right, we say well, it should be fair it should be justice, right, but it ends up birthing, something that ends up, you know, holding us in in bondage. 06:54 - Speaker 2 Yeah Well, see, the thing about it is is who's producing it? Who's, you know? Another thing today says everything is based on principle and done according to a pattern. And another thing today says everything is based on principle and done according to a pattern. And so if you give me a principle, you know what is the track record of that principle? What does it produce? And so there are certain things. They never produce anything good. 07:16 It's like one guy I was sitting in Red Lobster one day and this guy knew I was a pastor, and so he leaned over to me and showed me a text from his bishop and he was talking about alternate lifestyles and he said is the Bible really against this? You know, I just looked at him and I said well, you know, I said, if it's another people group, then we are guilty as a church of discriminating against them. You know, I said, but if it's a sin, it's contagious. Wow, it's by nature it's contagious. I said so if you open yourself up to it, you're not going to be able to contain it, you're not going to be able to keep it boxed in into a certain area. You know, by sin, by nature, it's contagious. Leaven, the whole concept of leaven, and so if you open yourself up to this, if you become soft to it that's why all this stuff started as tolerance, there you go. 08:20 Just tolerate it, you know. But it's unhealthy, and so you know, to me that's why I use that word a lot Healthy. What's this going to produce If this gets into my family? What is it going to produce, you know? 08:34 - Speaker 1 Yeah, that's exactly it, and so it's like when you begin to redefine things. 08:39 - Speaker 3 Yeah. 08:41 - Speaker 1 You begin to change the name in order to redefine them. So you redefine it. Usually it's to justify a lifestyle. So, as an example, nuclear family was not nobody called the family nuclear family Right Until 30 years ago roughly. 08:59 - Speaker 2 Really. 09:00 - Speaker 1 Okay, yeah. And then, all of a sudden, here comes nuclear family. Well, what's that? Well, that's just two people in love, right? They have children. So now we change the name in order to redefine it yeah it's like. It's like gender assignment at birth, right? Well, hang on. So when you begin to redefine all these change the names of things. Yeah right, you then are able to redefine it. 09:30 - Speaker 2 Yeah, you are your own God, and so rather than recognizing gender at birth. It was gender assignment at birth and so it's not. You know so, as if you had a choice, as if there was an option, you know Right. 09:47 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, there you go. So reconciling compassion and love right with security and safety, what we have to look at. I'll tell you a good one. I'll tell you this is a great one because I use this all the time and you taught this to me and it was. You were talking one time to a group of men and you said you know, I love you because it's the English word love. We say, hey, I love peanut butter, I love my wife we love everything you know like I've tried to stop using that in that way. 10:26 I really like peanut butter Right. 10:28 - Speaker 3 Right, I love my wife. 10:31 - Speaker 1 But you said hey, I love you, I love my grandchildren, I love you brothers, I love every man in this room. But if you come mess with my grandchildren, yeah, you will find out what love means, because my love for my grandchildren is going to take you out. 10:48 - Speaker 2 Right, absolutely, yep, there's an aspect of love that's actually war, wow. And so when I'm called to what I love, I protect, okay. 11:01 - Speaker 1 Come on. 11:03 - Speaker 2 And it's like I was telling my church Sunday. I said, man, I love this country. Okay, this country has some issues and I've had some tough experiences in this country, but I love the freedom, man, that I can just worship, I can go to church, I can start a business, I can join something, I can do basically what I want to do in this country. And I said and we need to protect that, because, in the name of compassion and inclusion, we're inviting people in who do not share our values, who, if they get a chance, would not produce the same healthy environment that we have. 11:42 - Speaker 1 They would change the environment, they would change the culture. 11:45 - Speaker 2 Absolutely, absolutely. And so I said I think that has to be a factor is, if I'm looking for healthy, then I'm going to have to exclude certain things, and that looks like judgment, that looks like a lack of love. But all I'm doing is doing what Adam was assigned in the garden I'm keeping it, I'm keeping the environment. You know, I think we have to stand up and do that, man. We just do some crazy stuff, man. We allow people who are avowed enemies, we allow them access, we allow them to buy land, we allow them to create strongholds, build strongholds right in our country. You know, and as a pastor I'd never do that man. I wouldn't let some other guy come in my church and build a stronghold. If he does it, he's got to do it under radar. 12:33 - Speaker 1 I think about that. That's really fascinating to me. That is a brilliant illustration. Because the church is the body of Christ, absolutely yeah. Frustration because the church is the body of Christ, absolutely yeah. Family right, yeah, you would never allow somebody. Now let's just let's just say, China buying farmland in the US? Absolutely, yeah, okay, so they're buying up hundreds of thousands of acres, yeah, so would you allow somebody to come in and just take one room in your house? Let's say you got a three bedroom house, right? These guys go in and say, hey, you guys don't have that many people. 13:08 I take this one bedroom over here right and in that bedroom starts doing things that are immoral, illegal, whatever the case may be absolutely that's, that's unsafe for you. You would never do that, right, you know. Or you could just sit there and go. Well, you know they're they're. You know, if we just love them, if we just take our time with them, maybe they'll move out of the room. 13:34 - Speaker 2 Yeah, right, right, right. Or just embrace them, love them, and that's um, that's something I struggle with with our nation is that we just allow things in the name of inclusion. All these are pretty words, but are they healthy for us? You know, if my daughter comes to me and says, dad, I'm dating this new guy and I want you to meet him, my first question is well, who's this pastor? Where does he go to church? Well, he's not a Christian. As a matter of fact, he's an avowed atheist. You know, I'm like well, you can't date him. But, dad, we're supposed to love everybody. Yeah, but what are you going to catch from him? What's the virus? What are you going to catch by being? 14:14 Well you know that's not going to be healthy for us to have him part of our family. You know you can't marry that guy. That's not going to be healthy for us. It guy, that's not going to be healthy for us, it's not going to bring us to a good place. 14:35 And so wisdom is, by nature, concerned with outcomes. Okay, and so you talked a minute ago about process. Well, what determines the health of the process is the outcome of the process, you know. And so if it's wisdom from from God, then the outcome is going to be good. And and we, as Christians, are supposed to make all of our decisions based on outcomes, on what, how does, how, is this going to end? What is the end of this thing going to be? And we just make, as in our country, we're making some some unhealthy choices when it deals with outcomes. What is the purpose of a drag queen teaching reading children's stories to a kindergarten class? Okay, why? Okay, where is that going? What are you trying to soften them to? What's healthy about a person that's obviously unhealthy in their head having access to kids? 15:27 You know, where is that going. You know who thought of that. 15:34 - Speaker 1 You know who came up with that idea. The desire within us, as men, to not have a standard is built into the rebellion of mankind. 15:50 - Speaker 3 Right Right Right Baked in. 15:53 - Speaker 1 Yeah, part of what we get born with. We're born rebellious. 15:59 - Speaker 3 Yeah. 16:00 - Speaker 1 All right. So now, if I'm born rebellious and I've never been regenerated, if my mind has not been renewed, then my rebellion says I don't want a standard standard for sexuality, a standard for you know. And here's the deal because I don't want a standard, I'm not going to hold you to a standard. 16:24 - Speaker 3 Right Live and let live. 16:25 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah so, so because, and then there's the whole misguided. Well, it's kind of it opens our lives up to bigger things or whatever. Well, it's opening your child up, and I think this whole piece on outcomes is is massive, yeah yeah but Jesus came because Jesus, the Jesus, didn't lower the bar for masculinity no, he didn't he raised it. Yeah, so we would know. 16:54 - Speaker 2 The only way we get there is we need a savior yeah, right, right, the, um, the, you know it, how can I say it? Deception. The only way you know you're deceived is if you know the standard, is if you listen to somebody who knows the standard. And so the whole Satan's whole game is deception, is deception, and so that. And so you got to know the truth. There's got to be some truth to keep you, to keep you from being deceived, because he's crafty, you know. And so so we bought into a lot of, uh, a lot of unhealthy things through the promise of what was promised. 17:40 But but if you can't, how can I say it? Like I had one guy who was really mad at me. He didn't like my style of pastoring, you know, and I wouldn't do what he said, I wouldn't submit to his ideas. And I said man, go build something and show me the right way to do it. You know, don't come in here and you have no track record of building anything. You haven't built anything for me. You haven't built anything for me. You haven't built anything for yourself, you know. But go show me how to do it, give me some fruit, and then I'll listen to you, you know. 18:13 - Speaker 1 We are. You know, we live in a a world in which criticism has become an industry. 18:18 - Speaker 2 Right, oh yeah. 18:19 - Speaker 1 There's people on sports talk that have become famous. 18:23 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm being critical Just because they got an opinion. There's people on Sports Talk that have become famous. Yeah, by being critical Just because they got an opinion. Yep, it's funny man. 18:32 - Speaker 1 Go build something. I love that. I love that man. Hey, why don't you go build something? Then I'll come and you know, kind of take a look at it. 18:41 - Speaker 2 Right, right, I'll critique what you're doing, you know. 18:45 - Speaker 1 There was my friend Bill Shearer. You know, kind of, take a look at it Right. Right, I critique what you're doing you know there was my friend Bill Shearer. 18:50 - Speaker 2 You know Bill Pastor's Guts Church. 18:51 - Speaker 1 Oh yeah, I haven't seen him in a while. How's he doing? Yeah, he's doing great man. But he had a young church planter come into his office and Bill, you know he's like let's plant churches, let's do it. You know, I'll give you money, I'll help you out Come and meet me. 19:07 And so he sits down and the young man begins to show him all these like a 45 minute presentation and it's got slides and it's nice looking and he's got stuff and all these plans and strategies. And and Bill says, uh, hey, let me just ask you a question. You, the most recent man you led to Christ. 19:32 - Speaker 2 Right, there you go. 19:34 - Speaker 1 And the guy says man, I don't know, there's just a lot of people you know kind of in meetings and stuff. No, no, no, you know, like some of you were playing golf with or maybe pick a ball or whatever you know. 19:45 - Speaker 2 You're right. 19:45 - Speaker 1 Right, the name of some guy you know. Just kid, you know, maybe your kids play literally together or something. Yeah you know, maybe your kids plays literally together or something. Yeah, man says man, I. And all of a sudden he just dawned on him. He says I don't know. Yeah, and bill says when you got that guy's name, come back and see me right right, right. It's so easy to criticize right and not build. It's the spirit of this age right. 20:14 - Speaker 2 We place such a high value on concepts. You know we don't even check to see if they work. You know it's like if we got a good sounding concept we buy into it. You know it's just like the whole. I don't know you ever listen to Thomas Sowell. 20:33 - Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, brilliant. 20:34 - Speaker 2 It's like the whole concept of an intellectual. What's an intellectual? You know, a guy who can really express an idea. Well, but he hasn't necessarily built anything. You know, he doesn't know if his wisdom actually even works. Oh man. 20:52 - Speaker 1 And that's the problem in most of our schools. Yeah right, it's like uh, what was the guy, what's the man's name who he just passed away a while back? Uh, who started? It's a famous story. He started fedex and um and he it was a school paper and he got flunked on the paper oh really yeah, and he wrote uh I haven't heard paper. 21:16 Oh really, yeah. And he wrote I haven't heard the story, yeah. So he wrote a whole paper of how FedEx would work and how they had hubs and how they would ship things and all that. And when the professor got it, he says I asked you to write a business model based on something that would actually work. 21:37 - Speaker 2 Wow, oh man, that's funny. 21:43 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it was Fred Smith, Fred Smith. 21:45 - Speaker 3 Yeah. 21:45 - Speaker 1 That's funny. Yeah, he just passed away just a couple months ago, but he got a bad grade on the paper, yeah, and then went out and did it right and, uh, it's kind of like the man who cut what was his sophomore year. Michael jordan got cut right, right right from the basketball team. It's like how do you like to be? 22:09 - Speaker 2 that man and drafted third. Drafted third man. Think about the guy who drafted somebody ahead of him. 22:17 - Speaker 1 He's probably unemployed too yeah, well, you know, we've got that here in dallas where we traded lucas, so we'll see how that goes yeah yeah, lucas looks like he's getting in shape too oh, my goodness, bro, he's the force, he's a, he's a once-in-a-lifetime guy. 22:34 You know well, think about tom brady who, who never got to start right you know, and the only way he started his senior year of college, much less high school, was the guy got hurt. Right, he starts, then he gets to, finally barely hangs on. And it was a blood, so then blood, so gets hurt. Rady goes in and never gives up a position, wins seven super bowls yeah yeah, you know, uh, you think about that drafted in the seventh round. 23:05 - Speaker 2 I think that's crazy. 23:08 - Speaker 1 That just shows you, man, that talent sometimes is hidden right well, there you go, because there's something about faithfulness, and if you've ever heard him talk about his workout program, okay, absolutely Just you know, this is one I'll tell you. This is one thing where I have some respect for LeBron Is that his workout ethic Right, is stellar. 23:33 - Speaker 2 That's how he's able to stay around so long. 23:35 - Speaker 1 Yeah, he's 40 and 41. And there's people who have gone and said hey, I'd like to work out with you, and then later they go. Man, I would throw up after every time we were working out Wow, Isn't that something? And Brady's workout thing was just, you know, he just was so focused on it, and focused is about the cutting away that things don't belong. Let me. I want to hit a couple other things. 23:59 - Speaker 2 That's good though. 24:00 - Speaker 1 This is great stuff. So let me ask you about the Church of Jesus Christ. You're a pastor. You work with a number of key pastors. You've got friends like Bill Johnson who have global impact and reach. You've worked with Christian Men's Network for years. You've traveled, spoken. Let me ask you this, because there's a lot of people talking about man we got problems. We got this. Is the church in trouble or is it in transition? 24:29 - Speaker 2 Well, I think it's a bit of both. I'm sure that we're in transition. I'm hoping we're in transition and going to a better place. The church to me is like you took a bunch of guys, you know, and we learned how to dribble, we learned how to post up, we learned how to rebound, we learned how to shoot, we learned how to pass, we learned how to defend, and then we get to the game and it's a football game. Me, that's the way. That's the way the church is. 25:07 You know, we've, we've, um, we've mastered the wrong thing, you know, and um, the other, the other people, had agendas that they had. They had kingdom agendas, change the world agendas, and uh, and they didn't wait for everybody to get on board before they changed the world. You know, you, you, you've got, you got an announced socialist now running for mayor in New York, and I would never have guessed it. I thought socialism, to call yourself a socialist would be a suicide, political suicide, you know. But you've got a guy who's running and a lot of people are expecting him to win you know? 25:41 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it's interesting because he's running as a socialist and yet his family's wealthy. 25:45 - Speaker 2 Yeah, his family's wealthy yep, yep. 25:48 - Speaker 1 They've got all kinds of property in Uganda. 25:50 - Speaker 2 Yep, and you've got people on college campuses who are carrying Hamas flags, you know, and you're thinking, man, if you move over there, live with the Hamas, you know, and be gay or be, you know, oh no, you're going to get killed. 26:08 - Speaker 1 You're going to get killed. Rule of I mean, you can go back to whoever you know yeah chitesko or any dictator. Anybody who's lived under that, yeah will tell you it gets worse and worse and worse yeah, it does and so, uh, hamas, you know, you know it's so fascinating because you go back to 1964, I think it is, yeah, and gaza was actually part of egypt, right? 26:33 - Speaker 2 right, jericho was actually part of jordan west bank was actually part of Egypt. 26:35 - Speaker 1 Right Right Jericho was actually part of Jordan. West Bank was actually part of Jordan. 26:39 - Speaker 3 Yep. 26:40 - Speaker 1 Right and everything was okay until they created the PLO. 26:44 - Speaker 2 Right. 26:45 - Speaker 1 Right, well, anyway, that's a little sidebar. You and I can do that real easy. Yeah, so the church is in transition. 26:53 - Speaker 2 Yeah. And so I think what we need to do is actually get it you know, is actually understand that the contextual framework for Christianity is a covenant and that we are a kingdom covenant family, the governmental setup for a kingdom covenant family Okay. 27:15 The governmental setup for the kingdom is family, okay, and so we are family. We are you and I are brothers. You know what I'm saying. I could never. I trust you, Paul. I would never imagine you hurting me out of your own self-interest. You understand, right, because of covenant, I'd be scared to come against you, you know, and try to do something to harm you. You know, maybe try to start a movement and hone in on your guys that you've introduced me to and you've let me into your world and I try to take your world with an agenda of my own and hurt you. Man, I'm like the fear of the Lord would keep me from doing that, because he's a covenant-keeping God. He's a covenant-honoring God. Okay, we are saved by covenant. Everything we do prayer, worship, everything we do is a covenant activity. It's within the context of covenant. The priesthood is the priesthood of the new covenant. You know, the priesthood of the new covenant. 28:14 You know, the priesthood of the believer is a covenant priesthood, and so the word, the Bible, is a covenant book new, old Testament and so I think, if we understood that we're in covenant with God, we're saved by covenant and that everything he has is ours, everything God has is ours. Jesus said all that the father has is mine and the Holy Spirit is going to come and show it to you. Okay, and on the other hand, everything we have should be his and he's our Lord. That's how you get into this thing is by confessing him as Lord, and he should be able to ask me for anything. You know, does God deserve his own people? Does he deserve a people who are committed to expanding his kingdom, are committed to establishing his values? 29:02 I was asking God the other day. I said man, david messed up about as bad as you could mess up. So how is he a guy after your own heart when he messed up that bad? And what I basically sensed God saying was that he established my house. He did what I wanted him to do. 29:21 You know God has an agenda and will you do what God wants you to do? You know, and God has used some questionable people, you know, to do what he wanted to do, and so I think the church, church, we need to get it. This is, you know, our agenda is to him, is to, is to to minister the father to an orphan world, you know, and a world that really needs him really bad. And to and to represent him and not ourselves, if that makes sense, and to expand this thing. I believe we're supposed to affect every system and I know we're in the end times and everybody says things are going to be worse and worse and worse and worse. But he also said your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and he said that we would be one, that at some point, the body, there will be a remnant of the church that will be united. Okay, and so when are we going to take that as a priority and not do anything that would divide us? 30:27 - Speaker 3 Yeah. 30:28 - Speaker 2 Politically, racially. You know it's, I believe, 2 Chronicles 714,. You know that if, if the church would get on board, humble itself, begin to seek God, we would get okay, that we would actually trigger God healing our land, our land can be healed, and that the church is the key. But I think, like I said, we've mastered it in the wrong thing. I have a nephew. 31:13 He's playing football over at Duke now, but when he was three years old, his mom, they came up to see us and I took him out for pizza. He was a handful. I said let me take him off his mom's hands for a minute. I took him to Chuck E Cheese, right, and so we're sitting there and she told me she gave me this rule. She said he'll be good, but he only drinks out of his cup. So he won't drink out of any cup but his own. Okay, I said okay, I just kind of blew that off. You know, if he's thirsty he'll drink, you know, in a regular cup. And he just looked at me, man, he refused to drink it. So then I remembered oh, he only drinks out of his cup. So I took his cup over and while I was putting the fruit punch in and Lord spoke to me, says he'll drink anything as long as it's out of this cup wow and he says when you're immature, you're cup conscious wow you know, says but when mature, you're substance conscious, you are conscious of what's in you. 32:19 And so we've majored in cups, we've majored in giving people what we give them a certain way. So we know how to do church, but we don't know how to be the church If that makes sense, and so we've mastered church services. 32:34 I don't know how to be the church, if that makes sense, yeah, and so we've mastered church services. You know, um, I don't know if we can get any better with church services. I mean, when you look at somebody like you know, like willow creek, or you look at elevation, you look at some of these churches, man, they've mastered church services no, we've mastered. 32:51 - Speaker 1 We've mastered the art of that yes, we have, but it hasn't changed the culture. 32:57 - Speaker 2 Yeah, we haven't affected culture. And it's like when you affect the culture is when you get the pushback, and it's because people are more committed to their political party, to their race, to their—they're more committed to their group than they are to God and to the church and to those values. You know, because I'm having church, so I must be okay. You know we had a good service and so we must be. You know God must like us. You know, rather than let the schools go to hell, you know, let, uh, let let them teach anything in know. 33:35 - Speaker 1 Yeah, so we've become myopic and we're just looking at our deal. We're looking at the cup. You know, the church is an easy target, though. This is the thing that my biggest concern, though, out of what you're saying, is that we're also not careful. We begin within our little world, if you will. Talking about man, the church, I saw a very prominent guy the other day doing a thing on his podcast or his social media. Hey, man, the church is sick. 34:04 - Speaker 2 There's a sickness. 34:05 - Speaker 1 It's unhealthy. You know the guy and that was the headline, and I don't know where he went from there. He went a couple more minutes and I thought, well, he's probably not not totally wrong, but he's not totally right either right, yeah you know, because I'm looking at it, saying, okay, yeah, there's elements that that we need to change and and if you're you know, even really healthy people can catch illnesses. Oh, oh yeah. But the Bible says in Acts 2.17, it says In the last days I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh. 34:39 - Speaker 2 Absolutely man. 34:40 - Speaker 1 And so now here we have United Kingdom, which most people would do the same thing this guy did. I saw another friend of mine, a man I know get on and talk about. Well, they don't tell you this stuff in church. Well, there are some things you don't necessarily preach on a Sunday morning, absolutely. 35:00 - Speaker 2 Now you do. Yeah, I've taken some hits too for that. 35:10 - Speaker 1 But my point is there are some things that you don't sit in your family meeting and talk about with the whole family. You take your 13-year-old young son off to the side and you go talk to him about some things. 35:16 - Speaker 2 Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, I think you know most of us who are born again happen within the context of church, you know, and so we do good with that. As far as getting people into the kingdom, you know, getting people born again, I think we do a pretty good job of changing lives. You know, I know a bunch of people whose lives have been changed because of God, through what the church does, and so we got to remember it's his bride, you know, that's it man. 35:49 You don't want to talk about it too bad. 35:52 - Speaker 1 Well, that's the thing You're talking about somebody's wife. Yeah, bought it too bad. Well, that's the thing you're talking about, somebody's wife, yeah, so so the thing that hits me is, uh, even when we look at something and say, oh well, this is sick or this is a problem, or that's a problem, right, usually what we're looking at is the cup okay, yeah that makes sense. 36:13 I think the substance like hey, you know, these guys have this jacked up, this is messed up. Maybe they've got something to put in the cup that's not right. Right, right right. But we've not looked at—and here's why Because I think you talked about it a minute ago God can use—God has used questionable people to increase the kingdom Right, Acts 2.17,. In the last days, I'll pour out my flesh, pour out my spirit on all flesh. Now here's the study that just came out In the last six years in the United Kingdom, which a lot of people would be talking about. Oh man, they're messed up, they've gone soft. 36:51 - Speaker 3 Right. 36:52 - Speaker 1 It's not a strong church. It's this, that, it's this. That's gone liberal, yeah, blah, blah. Yet attendance according to the bible side of the united kingdom, attendance of church in the last six years in the united kingdom has gone up 50 that's awesome wow, and the number one group that's gone up over 20 is 18 to 24 year old young men wow that, that's awesome man. 37:14 - Speaker 2 That's a good, that's a good demographic, that's great. 37:17 - Speaker 1 So think about that for a second. What does that mean? That means God, God will the whole end result. We have to look at what's. What's the end game here. What's the outcome? The outcome is the establishment of the kingdom of heaven. Right, the outcome is redemption of the earth. 37:32 Yeah, the outcome is redemption of the earth. So God uses David to give Solomon the money to build a temple. And David and you've got some of the best teaching on David ever, you know, which is like I do this and you got me doing this years ago and I do this in meetings all the time and I'll say I'll turn to a guy and say hey, in front of a group of men. I say help the man with this. Would you want to be a good friend of King David's and have a really hot-looking wife? Right? 38:10 - Speaker 2 He's a good guy, but you got to hide your wife man, you got to go. 38:12 - Speaker 1 No, no, no, no. You got to go, yeah, because he killed his best friend to get his wife. Now here's a funny one. I don't think I've told you this. I do this every so often, depending on what I'm teaching, right? Right, I'm teaching about David and I'm teaching about Goliath. But I said would you want to be a good friend of king david's, have a hot looking wife? Everybody starts yelling no, no. He just looked at me, thinks for a second. He says well, how long would I be married to her? He's willing to trade, you know right, right, right like am I married to her for 10 years. 38:54 I might trade 10 years for the guy killing me yeah, right, right, right, right wow but here's, here's my point. My point is david messed up over and over, yeah right, and yet he keeps coming back. What is that repentance? Yeah you know he's laying on the ground. Psalm 51, repenting. 39:15 - Speaker 3 Right. 39:15 - Speaker 1 And gives God the final thing in his life. You know, in sin I was conceived because of the way he was born. 39:21 - Speaker 3 Mm-hmm. 39:25 - Speaker 1 The context of it, right. And then he gets to the end of his life and he gives Solomon the money for the temple, right. And then, if you read the last words to Solomon because everybody only reads the one part says hey, act like a man, be a man, be strong Right. But the actual last word is and remember that guy that messed me over, don't let that guy live longer than I live. Wow, right, isn't that what he says? He says to him he says don't let me die before he dies, wow. And then he says to Solomon he says and you'll know what to do. 40:08 - Speaker 2 Wow. 40:09 - Speaker 1 You know what to do? Right, right, right, wow. And yet God used that man. 40:16 - Speaker 3 Yeah. 40:18 - Speaker 1 Right, yeah, to write some of the greatest songs. Right To lead a nation in worship. Right To establish the actual physical temple. 40:29 - Speaker 3 Right. 40:32 - Speaker 1 God can use some remarkable people. 40:34 - Speaker 2 Yeah, basically called the tabernacle, tabernacle of david, throne of david, the key of david. 40:41 - Speaker 1 right, he gives him a lot of props yeah, speaking of speaking of which, you um your musician, your background's music. Yeah, you played. You played music as a young man, keyboard player. 40:55 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I was an organist keyboard player when everything went fusion. I did a lot of jazz, fusion, electronic stuff and I was on the road with R&B group Junior Walker and the All-Stars Junior. 41:10 - Speaker 1 Walker and the All-Stars. That dates me a little bit. 41:13 - Speaker 2 Yeah, that was Shotgun. Yep, me a little bit. Yeah, Da, da da, that was the shotgun. Yeah, there you go, shotgun. 41:20 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't know the rest of the words, I know that one. 41:24 - Speaker 2 Yeah, the words are not. The words never made sense. But it had a great beat Before you know, you know yeah, but that would have been. 41:33 - Speaker 1 You were contemporary playing music back then the Isley Brothers. 41:38 - Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, no, all the time. 41:41 - Speaker 2 They stand a long range too. They've been around a long time. 41:45 - Speaker 1 Yeah, no kidding, yeah, that's amazing, wasn't? What's the guy, the great guitarist, left-handed guitarist, who am I? 41:54 - Speaker 2 thinking of, yeah, jimi Hendrixrix, didn't he play with the eisley brothers? Yeah, as a kid. Yeah, that's why the guy ernie eisley sounds so much like jimmy hendrix because he was. He was a big influence with the eisley brothers. Really, yeah, ernie eisley, the guitar player of the eisley brothers, sound a lot like jimmy and that's how that wild rock sound. Yeah, jimmy was. He was a creative. I consider jimmy a minstrel. 42:21 That never, that I don't know, if he ever got saved or not, but but his picture is up in my, uh, on my wall, just as a really somebody who just had it, man, somebody who could change the atmosphere with a few notes. You know, to me that's yeah, playing the guitar up, upside down and backwards in backwards. 42:40 Yeah, yeah, he would. He would go pawn it and they'd have to go and get it out of uh, out of the pawn shop, because that was that. That was the only one strung like that he had. They had to get his guitar for him. 42:51 - Speaker 1 So amazing yeah, it's amazing, you, you know it's and how powerful music is in our culture. 43:00 - Speaker 2 It is. Music is very powerful man, and it's interesting where you know where that whole thing is going now too, I believe. I believe with the whole praise and worship thing. I think some things are going to break there too. 43:18 - Speaker 1 You know. Well, let's think about it, and we can kind of end on this note. I know you're going to spend some time with your grandchildren and so forth, but I look at music and it's something you and I have discussed over the years and I've learned from you the power of it. Hang on, I've got a sidebar here. There's a little sidebar to our sidebar, yeah, and that is. But you had a keyboard back in the day of the big pulpits yeah right, the big star trek pulpits yeah yeah, didn't you have a keyboard in your pulpit? 43:47 - Speaker 2 yeah, I had one in my pulpit. I could just pull it out and uh and start playing. Yeah, yeah should be it dude, that's just awesome. 43:55 - Speaker 1 And tell, tell everybody. I don't know if everybody knows this story, but some of my friends are listening. Some of our brothers tell them you had a couple keys that were sampled, is that right? 44:04 - Speaker 2 yeah, I had. I had my amens and my crowd noise sampled into my keyboard and so, and so it got to the point where, if I wasn't getting any amens, I would hit it, you know, and it would be amen, preach it, brother, preach it, that's book, that's nothing but book, you know, then I'd have crowd noise cheering. 44:25 - Speaker 1 I'd say so the tape is going to stop even if I'm not doing good. 44:28 - Speaker 2 You know it's going to sound like I was cooking, so your church knew. 44:36 - Speaker 1 If pastor pulls out the keyboard and hits the amen, they're sitting on their hands too much. 44:38 - Speaker 2 It was kind of like Pavlov's dog man. As soon as I reach for the keyboard, they start giving me all these amens. They did not want me to get my own amens, man, that's what you call self-contained preaching. 44:51 - Speaker 1 Music for me. I look at it and the way way I study it. The power of it is the oil. 44:57 - Speaker 2 It's the oil for the soul wow, that's a good way to put it it is because music doesn't bring the presence of God. 45:07 - Speaker 1 Music, openness, opens us up to the presence of God. That was there. Yeah, absolutely. It's the oil that, if you will, the bomb of gilead that begins to dissolve the harshness that may be around our core yeah, opens you up, yeah and now right, because that's part of what you do when you. It opens you up, yeah, and the power of it, the power of it, the power of music, if you will, the revolution that you were in the 60s and 70s, that whole revolution, the change of culture in America. 45:43 - Speaker 3 Yeah. 45:44 - Speaker 1 Music was one of the driving forces of that. 45:47 - Speaker 2 Yeah, you know, try watching a movie without a score. 45:52 - Speaker 1 Isn't that something? 45:53 - Speaker 2 It's really boring, you know it's really boring, you know it's really flat, you know. But then we can hear certain sounds, like the theme from jaws, you know we can hear certain sounds and it'll take us right back to that moment. And so music is framed. Uh, what was that movie? Uh, forrest gump. Yeah, I don't know if you remember that one. They really used music, like when they went to the 60s scenes. 46:18 - Speaker 1 It all changed. 46:19 - Speaker 2 Vietnam. They brought in the Crosby, stills, nash stuff, man, you know it was such. It just takes you back and it gives you the feeling from that time. You know, music is kind of timeless that way. It can take you back to a moment and you remember something that happened. 46:37 - Speaker 1 Yeah, the power of music, and I think that's why See, here's my thing, and, by the way you talk about it can take you back to something I remember one time driving in the car and a song came on this has been a few years ago and Judy goes change the radio. I go what's up? She goes that's one of those old songs that you know when you were being a jerk when we were dating, I go yeah, but no, we've been married 30 years. Right, right, right I don't care, you were a jerk. 47:08 - Speaker 2 That's funny man, that's great. 47:11 - Speaker 1 You know, you remember things and things all connect. Yeah, that's good you know, you remember things and things are connected. Yeah, that's good, but I I do believe that what one of the principal things that's happening with music right now is. Uh, I'll give you a real simple, linear example. My dad did not really appreciate the music I listened to, right. I asked him one day said did your dad like your music? He goes oh no. 47:37 Right, so if you can look at it generation to generation, you can go back and find where people didn't appreciate it. I mean the type, the music. So the music we're doing now, this is interesting because the power of agreement, agreement is the place of power Right, absolutely. So what music does for us right now, in the body of Christ, and I believe, for the first time in my lifetime, uh, is it brings generations into agreement. 48:08 - Speaker 2 Okay, yeah, that's interesting. 48:10 - Speaker 1 Because you can be seven or 70 and you're singing the same songs. 48:15 - Speaker 2 Right, yeah, that's true. 48:18 - Speaker 1 So now. 48:20 - Speaker 2 I've heard you say that before. That's a really interesting observation. 48:24 - Speaker 1 I think it's a really powerful thing and I think it's part of what we have to be cognizant of when you talk about the fish in the environment. Right about the fish in the environment right you know, uh, it's really interesting because you don't, you don't ask a fish how the water is right, how's the water? Yeah, yeah, right, right, because it's just the environment. 48:49 It knows it's where it lives yeah right, and one of the things that I think we, the reason I love what's happening with music right now, Joel, is that there is a there's a, there's a defining spirit behind music that has been written by followers of Christ okay versus even. You know, it's like. It's like, uh, Jordan Peterson, who I appreciate very much, but when he starts talking about some of these things without having an incarnation, right it's an observation rather than yeah rather than an experience right right. 49:31 - Speaker 2 Right right. 49:33 - Speaker 1 So you can have people that write gospel or music that haven't had the experience with Christ and they can write about the same thing. It doesn't have the same feel. 49:44 - Speaker 2 Right, absolutely yeah. 49:48 - Speaker 1 And I think we have to understand that we're building environments in our churches with our children, and it's why I would urge every single dad right now to set the environment in your house. 50:02 - Speaker 3 Right. 50:03 - Speaker 1 If your children are listening to music, that's ungodly. That comes from a bad spirit, wrong spirit. Don't allow it in your house. 50:10 - Speaker 2 Right, absolutely, it's not going to be healthy. I remember my son when he was in an interesting season in his life. I heard this rap music playing real loud, cussing and everything, and I went up to his room I said what? 50:24 - Speaker 3 are you? 50:24 - Speaker 2 doing. He said well, that's my music, that's. You know, I'm just expressing myself. I said not in here, man, you know, I took the CD, broke it in half. I'm like you don't play that mess here, you know, because it's not healthy for you and it wasn't healthy for him and it sent him through some changes a couple interesting seasons. You know, just listening to that stuff Because it motivates you. You can how can I say this? You can, through music, you can, um, transmit a feeling that you've never experienced in real life. 51:01 - Speaker 3 If that, makes sense, like when I was when I was young. 51:03 - Speaker 2 I grew up, I played the blues okay yeah so I had the blues before I ever had a girlfriend. I had the blues before I ever had my heart broken, you know, because of the power of music. And so people who've had the experience with God can put that experience in music and pull people in, you know. But it's important that you've tasted. You have to have tasted and seen how he is, and so I think we need to really build up the whole idea of having had an experience with God, as opposed to writing something based on words. 51:50 - Speaker 1 So what do we do now? What do we do, Pastor Joel? So what do we do now? What do we do, Pastor Joel? And I've been talking with Joel Brooks, my friend, pastors Stone's Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan and Grand Rapids, his wife Yvonne, Great pastors, great thought leader and philosopher, Like I said, Jesus practitioner. But how do we? 52:18 - Speaker 2 actually now, as the church, make this mark on culture that shifts and changes things, I think by being powerful, by being free, by being creative and being loving. I think we have to return to a place where we realize we are each a unique expression of God, every believer, and that we have an assignment to respond to our assignment in a creative, loving, powerful way, you know, and that everything, like Adam was assigned to cultivate, everything we touch should be different after we touch it. 53:02 - Speaker 3 Wow. 53:03 - Speaker 2 And so the place where I work should be blessed, because I'm there not only because I pray for it, but because I bring creativity, I bring the wisdom of God to the place, I bring the love of God, I bring the selflessness you know to my neighborhood, to my place of work to my place of play, to my church, and that I allow God through me, through my unique expression, to make the world a better place. 53:32 - Speaker 3 Your host has been Paul Louis Cole, president of Christian Men's Network, and if you haven't yet, please make sure you subscribe to the BraveMen Podcast, wherever you find podcasts or download them. Thanks for hanging with us today. 53:43 - Speaker 1 We'll see you next time on BraveMen, you know movies being lawyers, being professors in the Ivy League, right, I mean, come on right, yeah, absolutely. 53:54 - Speaker 2 I mean, come on right. Yeah, absolutely. I remember one guy saying if you don't know what you're called to do, either be a college professor or make movies. That's the guys. 54:05 - Speaker 1 Who's setting the pace for society, you know the men and women who are leading governments in the world have been in a university, and just a handful, if you will that change and pivot the way culture thinks, whether it's Stanford or Yale or whatever it may be. Hey, Joel, thank you for taking the time man to be on BraveMen Podcast. I love talking to you, man, I love sharing with you. 54:38 - Speaker 2 It's been fun.