Calling Out with Colossians

Jesus doesn’t share the throne, and Colossians refuses to let us pretend otherwise. Justin and Casey talk about why we chose Colossians as a foundational series for our church season, especially in a place where “Christian” can get blended with politics, tradition, or just being a good person. We keep coming back to one claim that keeps cutting through the noise: Christ is supreme, and Christ is sufficient, not as a slogan but as the center of real life. 

We dig into the background of Colossae, why Paul writes this letter from prison to people he has never met, and how pressure and hardship tend to invite a buffet of substitute beliefs. From there, we tackle the ideas that still show up today: “Jesus plus” spirituality, free grace theology that downplays repentance, and the old Gnostic instinct to search for God in every experience. Colossians answers with clarity: the fullness of deity dwells bodily in Jesus Christ, and everything we need for salvation and growth is found in him. 

We also get uncomfortably practical about modern discipleship: attention spans shaped by reels and constant dopamine, the struggle to read the Bible slowly, and the way church communities fracture over secondary issues when Christ is no longer the priority. We talk truth and empathy, why hiding God is not love, and why a faith that never offends anyone probably is not Christianity at all. 

If you want biblical theology that actually presses into daily obedience, this conversation will sharpen you. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review, then tell us what part of Colossians you most want to understand next.

Transcript

Family Life And Dark Humor

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hey guys, welcome back to Navigate Podcast. I'm here again with Justin. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Doing good, man. Doing good. Enjoying the season, getting after it. It has been a hectic season. Dude, like you know, I think I think the second you start having kids, you just embrace it. Oh well, it used to suck. Yeah. You you you dig your heels in, you get after it, you just embrace whatever the world's gonna throw at you. Life is drunk at the wheel. Yeah. So you need a a seat belt in the Bible.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Yeah, I I uh was talking to my wife late night, uh, I think last week. Yeah. She was trying to fall asleep, and she's in her third trimester now, and so she's just she's feels miserable.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

And I was trying to comfort her, and she's half asleep and frustrated, and all that. And I said, you know, um having kids is a few years of misery for decades of joy. Yeah. And she's like like immediately alert. She's like, write that down. That's really good.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Oh, that's that's better than what I do. I usually just put a little chloroform in a rag. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Well, after she said that, I'm like, thanks.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

And then I you know the chloroform's all. All right, I'm sorry for the horrible

Why Start With Colossians

SPEAKER_00 1:19

joke. Uh we're talking Colossians today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

So we're doing Colossians at on Sundays. Yep. Um, and I really am enjoying the series so far, and uh I really enjoyed last week specifically. I felt like it was one of the most convicting sermons you've ever preached. Oh man. Okay. Like uh like I've always enjoyed your sermons. It's one of the reasons I'm here. Yeah, uh, other more primary one is because God said, Hey, go we're doing this, but yeah. But it it made me want to ask the question, okay, clearly God is working through Colossians, but why did you pick that as your like lead in to you?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah, yeah. So originally when we were coming out here, I had a whole sermon calendar already painted out for the next year. Um, and it was totally different. And I got down here and I started meeting people and talking with people and figuring out a little bit more of uh how things are in East Texas, and I rewrote the entire year for what we were planning on doing, and I wanted to start with Colossians because I think it's um oh man, the book of Colossians is just planting a flag in the ground about the necessity, supremacy, and sufficiency of Christ in everything. Yeah. And I feel like, man, here in East Texas, it's like there's this soft Christianity that's just kind of wafting through the air. You know what I mean? It's like Christ, but it's mingled with um, it's kind of like the capitalistic sneezed out of it. Yeah, or like here, just being a conservative means Christian. It's the same thing. And it's like, it's not, it's not, and quit putting those two things together in this particular capacity. Like, there's not a it's not just a worldview that we're in discussion about here. We're talking about the gospel itself, yeah, who God truly is, why that matters before it touches anything else. And when you start just slopping things together and saying that they're the same thing, we have a problem.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

There's

Colossae Context And A Lost Letter

SPEAKER_00 3:31

also some like unique circumstances with the church at Colossa. Talk about the history of it because I think context of the book gives way to the the uh Colossa um was a Colossal or Colossae? You know, you could say colossae, you could say colossae, you could say colossa. There's um there's not necessarily a wrong answer here. Um some people might argue about it, but let me ask you, do you say Isaiah or Isaiah? Ice A. Ice Aya. Okay, cool. That that one might be closer to wrong.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

It might be.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

There's um uh pronunciation of these things could be different. If uh um there's a uh place near Tyler called uh Palestine, you know what I mean? But um, you know, a thousand years from now, people might be saying Palestine and they know it's Palestine because there was a a bigger place called Palestine and it was probably named after it. Probably probably so you'd be okay. If you are the person who walks around saying croissant instead of croissant, uh, we probably can't be friends. So um chill out. Who said it? Your oldest daughter. Oh, that that makes that makes perfect sense. She's been uh doing uh Duolingo, uh she's been on the French, uh-huh hitting it hard, which is so this has got to be genetic. Because I've never told her I took French, you know what I mean? And then she just decided that that's what she was gonna do. I was like, Spanish, Italian, you know? No, she went for what dad did without knowing that that's what dad did. So if she said croissant, uh I'm I'm sorry, world. I'm sorry. I am I am raising that which I despise apparently. I didn't realize that we're gonna have to address that as soon as I get home. But um, okay, so it's uh Colossus this place that's a very old city. Uh, you have some new cities that come in around it. You have Hieropolis, you have Laodicea. If you read later on in the book of Colossians, you find out that Laodicea also got a letter, an epistle. It's a lost epistle. Huh. We don't know what happened to the epistle that went to Laodicea. It's gone. Which is kind of crazy. Like, I want so, like of all the things in the Bible that I'm like, all right, I would really be interested in. You got a whole epistle that we just didn't get to see. What did Paul have to say? Second to that only would be the lay the letters that Paul got because you see him answering all these questions and responding to all these different, you know, things that they were working through and thinking about. And we can surmise what most of those are through context, but some it would be really cool to hear some of the actual descriptions of what they were dealing with. But I think the average pastor could just go to his email or his text messages and figure out pretty quickly. Um, I it couldn't have been too different from what the average person is dealing with today. But these other cities get built in and colossa immediately start struggling financially. They they were famous for a particular type of dark wool cloth called Colossium, I think. Colossenum, something like that. Not colossum. That's different. Or not Colosseum. Or not and not Colosseum. Yeah, but they were they were famous for making this particular type of cloth, and these other um cities got built, and especially Laodicea just set up in a better area and started functionally choking the business out of Colossa. Like they were It's funny you say that literally, but they were choking the business out of those. They were choking the business out of those people. That's that's exactly right. Literally, that is what they were doing. So they were um it became what was once a very wealthy area, uh, started to deal with struggles in that area. And when we uh actually look here in Tyler, there was used to be a massive oil scene. Like oil was happening here, all the big names in oil were coming to this place that were getting business done. That kind of dried up. They're now they're still doing great, they're still growing and doing other things, but there was a massive financial hit that they took when that happened. It felt similar in some sense. And then you have a very Christian group of people who at the same time who have been championing this and have been all about Christ are also being invaded by a bunch of other ideologies and thoughts and um uh philosophies and all these different things start showing up. And this is generally the case with things. When things get hard, uh, I think Satan loves to provide options. You know, when when things get difficult, suddenly there's just other options at the table. Maybe it's not this, maybe Jesus isn't working out for you, or this wouldn't be the case. You know what I mean? Like this stuff just tends to happen.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Yeah, you hit on this a little bit in your last sermon, where you know people who convert to Christianity will sometimes find that life is harder and everything, and you look at your, you know, super sinful, you know, friend over there who's got like he's making bangs. He's doing fine. I'm doing all the right things. Why is he getting ahead of me? And and your point was, well, yeah, because he's living in sin. The devil devil's not messing with him because he's already because he's already on the road to death, man.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah, Satan's not gonna oppose somebody who is already on their own way to do all the wrong, uh do all the wrong things. That guy gets a free pass. Go ahead, walk it out. That's great. The the the way is wide that leads to destruction, right? And many are on it. Um, but yeah, so so the circumstances I I felt like were somewhat similar in um in the backbone of what's going on and that the the deep need to remind people about the supremacy, sufficiency of Christ, like who he is, and not to get caught up in a bunch of other nonsense in the midst of everything else that's going on and and how it's happening. So

A Prison Letter To Spiritual Grandkids

SPEAKER_00 9:27

the book of Colossians, Paul writes from prison to these people that he's never met, and as far as we know, he never sees them. This is a letter to his grandkids, and the grandkids never get to meet their grandpa. You know, as far as we know, Epiphras, um, who's brought up in this text, was a native of Colossa and had heard what Paul had preached and came back and brought the gospel, presumably back to his hometown, started a church here, it's working out, it's going great. And um, you know, Paul is writing to encourage them and to tell them to keep going, keep getting after it, keep doing the stuff that you're doing from prison, of course, because Paul's just a savage.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Well, but Justin, if Paul never went there, who ordained their pastors?

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Oh man, I mean, it's a mess. It's all a mess. We'll pray for them. Yeah, I mean, they don't even have a uh a new lady bishop like the Episcopal Church or whatever to oversee the Church of England, whatever it is. I don't know. Is it isn't it the the Archbishop of Canterbury is a lady now? Augustine is rolling over in his grave, you know, what happened, anyways. Um so so the book I felt like was precisely what we needed to talk about, given the uh elevation of other types of thinking, the specific relevance with the town and way maybe kind of how things were there, how they are here, and uh a call back to no, Christ is all that you need. And you don't need this, you don't need that. Uh you need Jesus. You need a heck of a lot of Jesus, and you don't just need uh an injection of Jesus, you need Jesus Christ being at the center of your universe and learning how to walk these things out functionally. So when we call it under the banner, the idea is like, how are we actually supposed to live like Christ is supreme, not just say Christ is Lord and then live like hell? Because we have a bunch of people who go by the name of Christian that if we're being honest, don't think like Christians, don't act like Christians. They've been taught that that their religion is something separate from the rest of their life. You know what I mean? I'm in, everything's fine. Now, if I need help or I gotta solve other problems, I can find that in other places. And it's like, I don't think you understand what Christian means. And if you follow most of Paul's epistles, he has this pattern in all of them, or he's like, hey guys, how are you? Um listen, there's some there's some problems. I'm hearing about all the things that you're doing wrong, and then he says, Because you're thinking about it wrong. Here's how you should be thinking, and this is what it looks like when you're thinking right. So if you want to think about it this way, Paul's Paul's like writing is generally right thinking leads to right doing, wrong thinking leads to wrongdoing. And he's always trying to show them how everything, if you line it up with who Christ is and what he has done, should produce a different kind of thinking and a different kind of living. But when we have Jesus and then closed doors all over our house that he isn't allowed into, then you're still gonna live like hell and be unchanged and think that you know Christianity is just not working out for you. I guess I need something else because you're not actually inviting the Lordship of Christ into everything that you're doing.

When Jesus Is Not Actually Lord

SPEAKER_00 12:57

And there's a there's a whole um group of thinkers on this right now. It's called free grace theology. Are you familiar with this? I've heard of this, but free grace theology is kind of this idea that um faith in Jesus um in any capacity and I'm trying to be uh trying to still be more manual. Yeah, to steel man, it should be something along the lines of having faith in Jesus Christ is enough for salvation. And I would say, yes, but if there isn't repentance, if Jesus isn't Lord of your life, if he's not actually directing what you're doing, how you're living, is it a real salvation in the first place?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Is it real faith and is it real Jesus?

SPEAKER_00 13:44

The old term for this was antinomianism. Anti-namas, so namos means law, anti means against means literally like there is no law, there's no rules. This is anarchy. This is drunk at the wheel Christianity. Okay? This is like um, it's you're saved, it's fine, whatever happens, as long as you placed your faith in the name Jesus. Literally, that is enough. You're good. And I would say, no, you need to understand the fallenness of man, who God functionally is. Like if you place your faith in Jesus, but you don't believe in the Trinity, you're not saved because you don't even know who Jesus is. Like there's some necessary components to this. You have to define your terms. Like, yeah. So But there's a this is a very um very prevalent type of teaching that's very attractive, I think, for a lot of people. I got the I got the Jesus stamp on my head card. And uh now I'm gonna live however I want, but I'm saved. It's sure. And I'm I'm I believe for sure in eternal security. You know what I mean? I know once saved, always saved, right? Like that's the kind of uh nonsense mentality people fall into. And I I again I'm a grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone. That's that is the the method means of salvation. It's all about what Christ has accomplished, transforming hearts, regenerating us, placing a spirit inside of us, giving us a new spirit. It's a resurrection at some level that we're experiencing. We're a new creation, we're living out that way. But that new creation means certain things about the way that we live. And uh Jesus said we'd know them by their fruit. So we kind of, you know, need to pay attention to fruit and ask some questions once in a while, like in 1 Corinthians where he says, check to see if you're in the faith.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Are you serious, bud? Like, is this actually happening, or are you just uh you just enjoying the name Jesus for a little while because it makes you feel better about your sin? You know, not the way that you want to approach it. Anyways, but I say all this to say the book of Colossians is taking us into a conversation about the supremacy of Christ and addressing all of the nonsense that gets in the way. And

Coexist Thinking And Hard Truth

SPEAKER_00 15:49

there was a particular heresy going around at the time, um, docetism or early Gnosticism, which basically had this idea that there were many emanations of God to be found in all kinds of different places. So the mountain field idea. Yeah, yeah. Like we uh, if you weren't there for that Sunday service, we we talked about the coexist sign. Yeah, yeah. It was on everybody's bumper sticker for like 15 straight years, or everybody's bumper for like 15 straight years. You know, it's like you have this and you have this and you have this and you have this, and they're all at the same table. They're all the same thing to the peak of the mountain. Yeah, it's like no, no, no. The rest of those are led by demons. Literally, like we're like, why are we even placing the cross on something like it's disgusting? But that kind of mentality has permeated people's thinking for the longest time. Like, secularism is this idea that all these different religions um can all functionally get along and work together, and and we'll just we'll just not bring it up. Everything will be fine. You stay in your camp, I'll stay in mine, and this is gonna work out. And it's like, I don't think you realize that all of these things have fundamentally different beliefs, different worldviews with a desire for different outcomes. And I don't know about you, but that wouldn't last two seconds in a household. No, I don't know why people think that's gonna work on a national level. And the problem with Christians is that they're too darn good natured to just call it like it is sometimes. It drives me absolutely insane. Look, I'm not saying I'm not saying to like be belligerent and outright rude to people. I am saying that we can call things what they are. Sin is sin, demons are demons, Jesus is God. That's where we're gonna camp. And don't try to put Jesus in a panoply of uh other gods and say they're the same thing. That is absolutely wicked and atrocious. And the Old Testament prophets would have some serious words for you, especially.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Perhaps uh an old adage that we've spoken before is uh the problem with Christians nowadays is no one wants to kill them.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah. Well, uh, you know, you find out quickly um in a lot of other countries, especially where you know they're run by uh Islamic, you know what I mean, yeah, tribalism and everything else, that man, uh Christians realize right away, oh yeah, we we're not sitting at the same table. Yeah. They don't agree on the same things. We're we don't have the same outcomes. Um it's that quote I always bring up, right? Evil preaches tolerance, which is the other one. It was coexist, and then there was tolerance, right? Evil preaches tolerance until it has a seat at the table, and then it just turns and silence is good. Then it kicks Jesus out of the conversation. Yeah. Which is why you can make fun of basically Christianity in any form you want, but any other religion, those are off limits. You can't mess with those ones, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Well, you you hit on this too with one of your recent sermons where um Christianity in places like England and Canada is fine as long as you know you don't actually preach Christianity, you don't say anything, which I would say then Christianity's not allowed. Right. Because Christianity necessitates sharing your faith.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yeah, totally fine for you to believe something as long as you don't tell anybody else about it or try to get them to believe something about it. Yeah. Just just shut up. Yeah. Christianity's fine as as long as you're not serious about your faith. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

You know, they they harp against conversion therapy so long that they're gonna start harping against conversion religion.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

I know it, man. And and again, it's it's um it's crazy how long we've gone along with these things and just acted like it's fine. And yeah, that makes sense. Like you just get indoctrinated in this world of world of being passive and um nurturing to the point of being toxic, and we're no longer defending the things that God has clearly told us to defend. And the sad thing is, man, is all the ground that was gained is now being looted by the enemy. You know, everything that people fought for and died for eventually like ends up in the hands of wicked people to do whatever they want with it. And that happens on a large scale. Like when you look at the crusades, you know, it's crazy. Like people like Istanbul, no, Constantinople, okay? Constantin, these places that used to be Christian nations, yeah, slowly overtaken by all these other things. And uh the ground. They were willing to fight for it. Yeah, yeah, they they lost. And and I just think about even on a family level, it's the same thing, which you won't fight for, you know what I mean, eventually is gonna be is gonna be looted by the enemy and all the good things that God gave you in those areas, the victories he gave you, you will lose if you refuse to fight for those things. And um, we say it all the time, but in a world where people are constantly dragging the flag of Christ through the mud in the name of making everyone else more comfortable, we have got to pull it up out of the mud, hold it high, and remind people the truth of what the Bible says and take it seriously. And ultimately, that that is what the book of Colossians is trying to do. That's what I'm trying to communicate through it.

Attention Spans And Bible Reading

SPEAKER_00 21:09

I mean, and it's got just a Mount Everest of you know passages on the deity of Christ in here. And what's so hard, man, is that we just walk right by some of the most powerful passages in scripture because we've just heard it so many times that it doesn't punch us in the face the way that it should anymore.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

And so just trying to take people back to these places where they actually can see it and stop pretending that they get it, but actually work hard at understanding and grasping this with our tiny insignificant brain, something cosmic and insane. And look, every Marvel movie and everything now is trying to uh blow people's minds with CGI. And I almost feel like we're worse off for it because we think we understand, but we don't. Yeah. We feel like we See big things and understand big things. I'm like, no, dude, you just have ADD and you need explosions and fireworks because your brain isn't capable of understanding things anymore. I was talking to some friends today. We were talking about um some of the stuff that people wrote in the past. Yeah. And people's cognitive ability in the past, like we were talking about Jonathan Edwards' Freedom of the Will, is one of the hardest books to read. It's an incredibly difficult book. And I found out that he wrote it while he was like translating the Bible into the tongue of some Native Americans over a three-month period. Three months. Knocked out one of the most difficult, like insanely well done book ever. And he was like, I'm just doing this on the side while I'm translating the Bible. You know, like what we share reels. Yeah, what are we doing with our I've seen a lot of movies and um, you know, I listened to this podcast, you know, and these guys are like translating the Bible into other languages and writing writing books like this. And I get it, not everyone's Jonathan Edwards, but it does seem like our capacity for thinking and processing and understanding and going there has been just the word I want to use is emasculated by the amount of just stimulation we're constantly giving. Uh we're all becoming, you know, ADD because we're programming our brains to be ADD because we only can pay attention now if it's um if it's entertaining.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

You know?

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Well, yeah, you're you're killing your entire brain. Brain. You're you're rewiring those. Like we have a dopamine response to things. Yeah. And the entire point of reels and shorts and all these things is to condition that dopamine response to be a matter of seconds. Yeah. Rather than the ability to read through like a book and have that slow burn.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Instead, get that serotonin. Yeah. You know what I mean? That slow burning high, what you get from working out and accomplishing something rather than just eating a bag of Oreos and feeling glorious for a moment. You know, it's a it's a different thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Don't knock my Oreos.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

It makes, I'm not gonna lie, man, it makes preaching difficult. Because you're writing this line of like, I'm trying to keep people awake and invested. And also, I'm not here to entertain you. Yeah, I'm here to show you Jesus. And it's it's tough, man. It's a tough thing to do. Like I said, in our ADD world, people are just like, yeah, whatever, you know, and it's like, oh, I'll choose my Oreos, you know, over reading the Bible. Why? Well, because the Oreos gives me what I need, but the Bible's hard. Yeah. You know, it's it it it's uh it's a problem. Listen, if you're listening to this, like rewire your brain, okay? If you're having a hard time reading the Bible, just get off the internet for like a solid month and quit eating junk food, do some exercise and then start start reading the Bible. And I I bet yeah, I bet it starts waking up for you a little bit. I bet your old brain, old old Bessie is what I'm naming your brain, yeah, is uh is actually gonna start doing some some new and fresh things. Turns out it it it needs some exercise too.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Yeah. No, I I think I've said this before on here, but I I truly believe that the way to fix problems like your attention, like all of these, is to stop trying to work on it and to just do it. Just do it. Like Nike. If Nike had one thing right, it's just do it. Like don't talk about it, don't be about it. Don't go into a committee and don't don't pray, oh Lord, help me work on this. Yeah, do it. Like pray, Lord, I'm changing this, hold me accountable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Speak speaking of Nike too. If you're athletic and working out but still can't read the Bible, you represent a large portion of the population that is physically fit but spiritually can't get off the couch. You're so overweight. Um, that's another area that you need exercise to. So just throwing it out there because your six-pack will not save you if you did not know.

Fully God Fully Man In Christ

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Anyways, you um mentioned a lot of these passages within Colossians that we glaze past so easily. And I think one of them you're going, I think you're going to hit in this coming sermon is Colossians 2, 9. The wholeness of deity dwell in Jesus in the form of a man.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Like the fullness of not just he was God, the fullness of being God was within him as a man. Like I I'm honestly I'm really excited to see how well you get that in the room.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

I think um we hammered it almost the week before as well, where we're talking about who Christ is. And it's like he's the image, you know, of the invisible God, he's all these things. And uh, did we talk about this last week? We were talking about John when he was talking about the Lagos, yes, right? Yeah, like in the the picture of what people were looking for for a thousand years, yeah, you know, and he's like, This is that. And he just mic drops for all of them, their their heads just got blown off. They're like, wait, what are you talking about? You're saying this cosmic, um just infinite thing. Put on a body, you know what I mean? Like a skin suit, you know, he's wearing this around. Like, how's that no, no, no? It's more than that. He became truly human, and he still has not lost any of div his divinity, is truly divine. The council of Chalcedon, they said, Vera homo, veradeus, truly man, truly God, not a 70-30 split like uh you know old Greg or whatever. That's a that's a throwback. Some of you need to go watch Old Greg after this, and um uh I just told you not to do brain rot. So don't do that. Don't look up old Greg. Okay, go on with your life, read the Bible. But um bec he's he's touching on this because people thought that there was all these different emanations of God. Yeah, they thought that there was all these, like, oh, there's a there's God in this, and there's God in that, and there's God in this, and there's God in that, and he's saying, No, no, no, no. The literally the fullness of God is found in Jesus Christ alone. That is how we know the Father. That is how we know God is all in him in its entirety. He is supreme, he is sufficient, there is no other um nonsense that you're gonna be able to find somewhere else. There are no other emanations of God in other places. There are demons, and there is Jesus Christ. Um, and he draws these hard lines, and it's uh one other theme uh throughout the book of Colossians, it's pretty heavy as well, is this focus on the spiritual and him him trying to show people that man, his victory over the principalities and powers and elemental forces of this world, he wants them to know at the same time that they're looking for emanations of God and these other things. Uh, those aren't God. You're flirting with demons, you're flirting with um lies from the enemy himself. And when you're trying to find God in these other places, you're not you're not finding God. And it makes me think of our obsession today with drugs, with with DMT and ayahuasca and psilocybin and um all the trips that people are taking, you know. Um anybody who's watching Joe Rogan or you know, Russell Brand or any of these guys, I mean, for the longest time everybody was talking about doing trips on ayahuasca and meeting God. It's like we're going back to the 70s where we're trying to like reconnect with the divine through hallucinogens. It's weird, man. Like, well, it makes sense that it's cyclical. Sure. History is cyclical. But if you don't insert Jesus into that mess, you just stay in the cycle. Yeah, he talks about this in um I think it's 2 Timothy chapter 3. People who are always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Yeah, you know, like I'm I always am finding out a new way to not have to believe in Jesus. I'm always finding great new information that is gonna take me everywhere but Christ. Yeah. And I just think um it's harping on this because he wants people to know that everything that you need is in Christ.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Everything that you could hope for is found in him. Yeah.

Church Fragmentation And Consumer Faith

SPEAKER_01 30:50

So talking about some of those early uh some of those early passages where it it it identifies crisis supremacy, crisis efficiency, um, it kind of feels like what you're trying to do is define your terms in the beginning of a church like this church plant. Like making it so that you've got like all right, if we're going to cover harder topics later on, yeah, we're going to have foundational views as a church. So it uh is that one of the primary goals that's so another element of what has been I'm trying to think of the best way to say this.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

One of the things that I've noticed also about East Texas, because there is there does seem to be a church on every corner, is fragmentation for secondary issues has become just a way of life for people. I have no problem cutting somebody out of my life who has a different opinion about something that's secondary or tertiary. Um, in fact, we we do that down here. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's our thing. I mean, people draw lines in all the wrong areas. Yeah. And look, I grew up in the church, I get it. Like all it takes is a hot conversation about the color of the carpet that people want. And we'll have the elder board splitting in half, you know, over these kinds of things. We have people who are like, I don't want to, you know, my my granddaddy was married in this church and buried out there, and we're not changing a darn thing to honor his memory. It's like, I didn't realize that your grandfather was God and the whole church was about him.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

He had a heart attack and slumped over in that view. We can't change it exactly.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

No, the the the stain from his drool is still there, never washed to the glory of God. Right. Like, I look, I'm all about heritage. Yeah, I'm all about like blessing, I'm all about honoring what God has done and having roots and who we are. Those are good things. But when you start to prioritize or emphasize other things and it gets louder than our love and fealty to Christ, things fail. I mean, he tells us, and I I think it's Jose. He says, My people fail for a lack of vision. You know, like we we do if you lose sight of what we're actually trying to accomplish and what we're working to get done, people start arguing and fighting over the stupidest crap, man. People like, do you do communion weekly or not? This is worth leaving a church over. I had somebody recently, I found out, um, left our church because we don't do an altar call every Sunday. That was it for them. That's all they needed to know is that we don't do an altar call every Sunday. And so they're gonna find a church that does an altar call every Sunday. I'm gonna bring this up this Sunday, actually. Did you did you ever go to uh Bad Daddy's in Colorado? The burger place? I did. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it's like one of my favorite places to go. It was you can take a sheet of paper, and there's just a list of all of these ingredients, dude. And you can put jalapenos, pimento cheese, you can see. I see where you can put it with this, dude. Like buffalo chicken on your burger. You can have buttermilk fried bacon. Anything. I mean, it's glorious. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Okay. But there is a mentality down here of like a build your own Jesus. Yeah. You know? Like, I want this and I want this and I want this and I want this and I want this. But all of it's obviously for God. Yeah, obviously. Right. And people who have pineapple on their pizza clearly. Amen. Amen. Hey, this isn't just someone. I was being sarcastic, is it? But but for real, people have this kind of consumer uh I it's almost an entitled consumer mentality as well. Yeah. That's not about my life being laid down, giving my life to Christ, honoring him, raising my kids in a family, in a covenant community where we love Jesus and we're getting after it together and working out our differences. Um it's this thing where it's like I'm almost looking for reasons to not get along with people.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

So I can go somewhere else and feel more righteous about it. It's this weird false piety. And look, I will I will say this: you never compromise truth in the name of unity, but I would say some truths get back burnered in the name of the priorities of truth that we should be fighting for. Okay. Do I care about um some Aboriginal who is struggling in his marriage, if they even have that, in Australia somewhere? Sure. Do I care about that as more than my children right now? No, sure don't. No. And the Bible says, correct. Yeah. That is how that should be. There's an order of loves. We're supposed to love God, then we love our wife, then we love our kids, our family, our church family, our immediate community. It grows in in circles that we're working outwards toward, giving the majority of our emphasis to the right things. And the book of Colossians is like, it's all about Jesus. And one of my favorite lines in here is in him, all things hold together. All things hold together. And we live in this world. Good night. We want to separate over everything. Yeah. You know what I mean? We're we're looking to draw lines. And I would say I brought this up one of our sermons, but people are like, could you not talk religion or politics? You know what I mean? People bring these things up. When you bring Jesus to a family dinner at Thanksgiving and you got some unbelievers, you know, it's like, oh, it's awkward. Don't do this. You're really, you're really creating tension and making things difficult. And I want you to know as a Christian, if uh if you're actually inviting Jesus into things, you're the only one trying to hold it together. Why? Because in Christ, all things hold together. And when you won't invite Christ into those things, what you're saying is I'm fine with this falling apart. Yeah. You know, but in the same way in churches, when you have this many schisms and fragmented thinking and people breaking up and starting new denominations over silly stuff, all that tells me is Christ is not center. No. Christ is not in the middle of this, and making his name known is not at the center of what is going on. Your preference has become the priority, and you think you're doing it in the name of God. And I will tell you right now, uh, you are a wolf and you don't know you're a wolf. You are splitting up the bride of Christ and you don't know that that is what you're doing. That's a that's a problem. Yeah, that's an issue. Yeah.

Empathy Without Truth Fails People

SPEAKER_01 37:50

No, and um it's funny. One of the things, so I went to a a conference recently about um some some leadership stuff in the church. Yeah. Um, and uh uh I went there, my my trip there was dual purpose. One of them was work-related, but also I was curious was some of the things that would be said in the conference for the sake of church plant and building all that. Yep. Um but the one of the opening um like keynote speakers, his whole thrust of the message he gave was that the thing that is missing in church leadership was empathy.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

And I'm like, Yep.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Thanks. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

No.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

And now we're a counseling firm. It just it became counseling and not Christ.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

My brothers in Christ, I give you the feminization of the American church. Yeah. You know, if we were just more caring, more people would come to Jesus. I'm like, I actually think the truth is what sets people free. Yeah. Look, that doesn't mean be a jerk. Like I said, I'm not saying you shouldn't, but hiding the thing.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Hiding the truth is the opposite of caring.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Yeah, yeah. Hiding the truth from somebody, and that's exactly right. I mean, we brought this up in one of the earlier messages in Colossians as well. But like if you are one person with somebody else, because you don't want to bring Jesus into that conversation, all you're trying to do is hide God. Yeah, you're not helping that person. Yeah, you're just trying to make that person feel more comfortable in their own sin and ignorance towards these things. You're you you are high-fiving that person on the way to hell, not inviting them into the kingdom.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

And I would go a step further and saying you're prioritizing your own comfort in peace. Yeah. Over. Yeah, I don't I don't want to be uncomfortable. Yeah, I don't want to be uncomfortable in conflict. So I am going to let somebody else um effectively, yeah, high-five them on their way to hell because it's it's going to be easier for the colours. It's more convenient.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Yeah, it's more convenient. Yeah. So I just feel like um this whole book, man, is bringing together some themes that I think are incredibly important for the time, place, culture that we're in here in East Texas.

Fighting For Faith In East Texas

SPEAKER_00 40:11

I mean, it's got some of the highest suicide rates in the country. They need hope. Yeah. They need Jesus. I mean, it's got um real issues. Like in the next five to eight years, they're looking at it being totally post-Christian. And uh I just gotta say this. Like I've watched that happen in Colorado, and everything in my heart is not here. We are not allowing all yes, we're not allowing all of this stuff to sneak in. We're not allowing our Christianity to become so tolerant and so sleepy that eventually you lose all of the ground that you have gained for the kingdom because you just weren't willing to fight for it and you prioritize people's personal comfort over the glory of Christ. It's not it cannot happen because ultimately what happens when that starts happening? Will babies start getting murdered, families start breaking up, kids start getting trans, like it it goes south in a hurry. Yeah. The I brought it before, but the church that was across the street from us back in Denver had a, you know, a female pastor and her lesbian wife, you know what I mean? And they're doing um classes on the sacrament of abortion and why it's a good thing. You know, like you don't realize how fast things can turn when you stop prioritizing Christ and what he's called us to and how he's called us to live. And I would say if you have the kind of Christianity that never offends anybody, you don't have Christianity. That's not what it is. You're doing something else, and more than likely you're hiding Christ in the name of personal comfort. And you were, I promise you, you are going to give all the ground that could have been gained, all the good things that God has given to you. You are handing it back to the enemy and saying it's fine, go ahead and take it because ultimately I don't care. It's the it's the Hezekiah mentality, you know. God says, get your house together, and all this stuff happens, and then God basically tells him, Hey, you screwed up again. Yeah, your whole kingdom's gonna be taken from you. And he says, Well, at least it won't happen in my lifetime. Yeah. And I feel like that's so many of the attitudes and mentalities of people today is I know it's all getting bad, I know it's going this direction, but I just don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. And ultimately, when it when it all goes south, I probably won't be here anymore, so it's fine. Yeah. And it's like, that is the least Christian thing you could possibly say to me. I don't care if future generations aren't Christian, I don't care if we aren't raising Christian families, I don't care about the assaults on marriage and family and church and community and our nation. Uh I'm just not that interested. Yeah. And um it's fine for me. That is not the heart of Christ. The heart of Christ was I'm here to save the world.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

And that should be our heart as well.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Yeah. Yeah.

Sneak Peek Topics And Invitation

SPEAKER_01 42:50

All right. Final thing on the topic of Colossians. We're about a third of the way through chapter two.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

Um, it's four, four chapters long.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

What big ticket items, like sneak peek things, it give us a sneak peek of some of the big things you're gonna hit on in the in the coming weeks. Because I like what are what are the high level, like, all right, here's a really cool thing for three, here's a really cool thing.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

So we're we're gonna talk about mysticism, asceticism, uh, angel worship, which is gonna be kind of a fun one. Okay. Um, but when you when you see that, you're like, asceticism, we don't have any of that. That's like flagellation and stuff, you know, where people are beating themselves. Yeah. But I'm like, look at David Goggins right now and tell me we're we don't have a worship culture for David Goggins. Oh, well, yeah, you're on your you're gonna have to you're gonna have to find out. Um we're also gonna be touching on marriage because central to the church is marriages and raising up godly kiddos. Uh, we're gonna be touching on all kinds of stuff as we come from the supremacy of Christ and who he is and what he has accomplished. Everything that comes next is, like I said, with Paul, right thinking about these things should lead to Right doing. So it's going to be a combination of knocking down things that let's say it this way, cool ideas that don't work that the world wants to throw at you, and applying real things to your actual life so that change actually takes place. It's not just in your head, but actual steps of faith that actually produce fruit. So awesome. That'll be the direction we're going. It's going to be a ton of fun. And if you guys have not yet come and checked out King's Banner Church, you gotta come check us out. We're having a blast. God's doing some cool stuff, already getting people baptized, already seeing some uh lives get changed. It's been freaking awesome. But um, man, really looking forward to it and enjoyed the podcast today, man. Yeah, good. Yeah, you guys have an amazing week. We'll talk to you soon.