Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#253 Jon: Goodbye Shiny Jon, Hello Real Grace
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We trace Jon’s journey from image management to resting in God’s love, and how that shift reshapes marriage, ministry, and daily life. Shame loses power, identity settles, and love starts doing the work fear never could.
• why behavior change without identity fails
• living from no condemnation in Christ
• how shame fuels both rebellion and pride
• moving from judging to observing in relationships
• marriage impacts of securing worth in God
• assurance that doesn’t breed apathy
• the Spirit’s role in real transformation
• serving the Samoan community with gospel clarity
• Jesus as the true picture of the Father
• unity formed by the Spirit, not mere doctrine
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The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can. And that's why we want you to hear these stories: stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is death to life.
SPEAKER_02:And those experiences began to resonate differently with me. And I got home that day and I hadn't slept a lot and it crushed me and it just bore on me. But again, my father can't show that about me to myself six months before that or a year before that, because I would have cracked. I would have denied it, right? Because I wasn't ready for it. But once I knew that he loved me right where I was, he began to reveal things to me. I lost 50 pounds, as you know. I I didn't spiral because the fact that he loved me. But that's really the foundation. If 2003 in Galaleo Drive Church was the sort of the foundation of the pivot point between where I was heading and where I was going, this was certainly the foundation, the wellspring of the gospel journey I'm on now is this understanding.
SPEAKER_00:Yo, welcome to the Death to Life Podcast. I'm your host, Richard Young, and today's episode is with my guy, John Laulongy. And John was on the podcast a few years ago. And man, I love just catching up with him, hearing about his life, and seeing what God is doing. Uh, John is one of my favorite people. Uh, and I think he's a bunch of people's one of the favorite people. Like his light shines so bright. Um, and it's such a blessing. And I know you're gonna be blessed by this testimony of what God is doing in John's life, where he's guiding him, and how he's ministering. Um, and so there's uh there was even more truth for John to grow in after receiving freedom. Uh, and as you know, that is what's going on with all of us. We're learning, we're growing, uh, but we're growing from within. So uh buckle up and strap in. This is John Laolongi. Love y'all, appreciate y'all. What are you a Giants fan? Are you uh yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I go back to the Bay Area in the 70s. My dad was going to PUC, so I, you know, the Niners, the Giants, all those guys.
SPEAKER_00:Do you remember 2014? Um, tell me what happened. Like Pedro? The Giants beat my royals in the World Series.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's right. I remember the yes. They're your royals. So you so I I've had victory over you and didn't even know it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you had victory over you. And then the next year we beat the Mets in the World Series. So, but we hadn't we hadn't been in the World Series since 1985. Since George Black in those days, yeah, but that game's game seven. I don't know if you were keeping up with the Giants back then. Uh the Royals lost game seven, and we should have sent Alex Gordon home on this double, and we didn't, and the Giants ended up winning the World Series. Anyway, all right. How are we gonna start the thing? So, John, I've known you uh how long has it been? Two and a half years now? Two and a half years.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe it feels like longer, feels like a lifetime, but maybe two and a half years.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And when we met, I think both of us were just growing in gospel 101, like the the real breakdown of the gospel. And I was just thinking about this before we got on. Sometimes I think people want to jump to some of these this doctrine. This reminds me of the milk dudes. They want to get deep on this doctrine, uh, and and you name it, but they don't have this basic understanding of what Jesus actually accomplished, and then because of that, they can't really make heads or tails of what's going on down the line, but then they're majoring in what's down the line, and they don't understand, you know, like the fundamentals. And when we met, I was a couple years in to like really kind of grounded in the fundamentals, and you were getting grounded in the fundamentals. And then since then, there's been like a whole lot. We talked a lot in the first episode. Um, and now down the line, like what would you say after the fundamentals, after like grabbing this thing back in, I don't know when it was two, two and a half, three years ago?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 2023, 22, something like that.
SPEAKER_00:Take us on the journey. What what what started becoming interesting to you as you're like you you're the the milk dude? You're you're grounded in like the fundamentals. What what happened after that? What what what started going on in your life?
SPEAKER_02:You know, I'm thinking about this, and when we met last time, I had told you my story from like pornography, organized crime to Elizabeth Talbot 2003, and that was a huge, you know, Teutonic sea change in my life, right? But I I would offer that from that point to now is just as just as big, just as revelatory, uh, which is kind of crazy, right? In fact, I hang out with Elizabeth sometimes, and some of the things that she used to say then that I would just mimic and repeat. Actually, now I understand, you know, and to your original point. That was me, bro. That's why I understand this this journey. You hear something, it's it's profound, and you repeat it. You don't really know what's underneath it, right? But you repeat it because it sounds kind of cool, right? And then you sort of grow into it, like a puppy with paws. You have paws, you declare it. And I had that journey where I would go and preach, and I would actually have to stick to my script because I really didn't know much beyond what I was saying, but it sounded really cool, right? And then over time, it backfills, right? And so so I wanted to just affirm that point because that's sort of my life to date.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but are you preaching more now than you were before um gospel stuff?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 100%. Probably double or triple now. And I feel good about that because now I actually have something to say, right? Um, that's valid. And you know, I was I was peddling some decent news, I guess. You know, if you live a good life and check all the boxes, you two can go to heaven. And now, you know, we have like you know, the gift, right?
SPEAKER_00:Remind me, man, what what was your like if people were calling John and they're like, hey man, we want to come, we want you to come to our church and do a weekend thing, what would what would you tell them that you were gonna preach about before all this?
SPEAKER_02:That's a great that's a great question. So before that, the the organization I was involved with was for youth, right? It was an organization that dealt with youth. And so the sort of the concept was what separates you from God? At the time I didn't realize that what separated me from God was my understanding of who God was. And so we would talk about music, we would talk about um uh the things that would sort of get between young people and God, not understanding and that like sort of the enthememe or the the the the driver in the background was if you change your habits, i.e. pornography, i.e. music listening, i.e. movie watching, then you'll have a clear connection to God, right? Uh over and against what I began to understand, which is that God doesn't change. And what what the real barrier is, is me not understanding who he is and who I am in that relationship. And once I have done that, then downstream, I don't watch those movies, I don't listen to that music, I don't do that porn type of thing, right? So we had sort of the cart before the horse. But I was out there preaching. Yeah, and it was it's so John. John is John, so he's never gonna be like judgmental, et cetera. But I didn't really understand, you know, the the what empowered this transformation.
SPEAKER_00:This guy from I think he's around your area, Southern California, somewhere, uh around two or three years ago, maybe three, he called me up and he's just like, man, what do I he's like, what do I do about all this music stuff? And I was like, listen to whatever you want to listen to. And he was like, What? I was like, Yeah, man, listen to whatever you want to listen to. He's like, but what about like all this terrible hip hop and all this? Like, I'm like, you want to listen to it? And he's like, no, and I was like, okay. I'm like, help me out, bro. And then he's it like, I think it kind of clicked in his mind right there, like, oh, I actually don't want to listen to this, it doesn't kind of line up with who I am. And yeah, I I don't think I've really run into people who grab onto this message and are just like, I love it, God has set me free. I just need to listen to more Eminem though. Can I keep can I keep listening? Like, I haven't had that conversation. Have you found that those conversations don't happen as much, or they're like not the same?
SPEAKER_02:They're no, and I don't think I'm the kind of guy that people probably aren't comfortable having those conversations with because the energy is very different, right? But I remember the one my one of my first vivid recollections of you, other than you uh saying something to me in the crowd and uh on one night was you approaching Arnold and Arnold giving you a hisspiel and you going, but do you really want to? And then you just took Arnold right aback, right? Same conversation, right? I'm having these issues with my thoughts and this and that and the other. And and you're like, Yeah, but do you really want to, right? So I don't really have, you know, we're the milk dudes for a reason. Arnold did it as sort of a little bit of a, you know, a plunge dart in eye to those around who were complaining after you came to our church that, okay, milk is fine, but man, we need to get to some meat, all this milk stuff. That's for the that's for the pedestrians, man. They want people want like eschatology. They want, they want law keeping, they want this stuff, right? And so one of the reasons we chose milk dudes was that Arnold wanted to poke their their eye in it. But the other reason is this, Richard, that's all I want to talk about. I want to talk about the love of God and and I recognize in my life that once I receive and behold the love of God for me, that whatever those things are that vex me, they fall off as a result of, as a fruit of, as a product of, right? And so I don't think people are really comfortable coming to me because I'll tell you right up front, I mean, people who who introduce me of this is a self-claim, one trick pony, the gospel, right? Yeah, and people know about him, him length, or or uh how to keep the Sabbath better or what meats to eat, he is not your guy, right? And so I think that's the sort of the energy that I have around me. And so I don't think I get a lot of those questions maybe for that reason, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, man. So, you know, we do this thing, um, you get you guys get out to Hawaii a little bit, um, you're really kind of sub like getting yourself in the gospel. Like we record a podcast, I think, later in the year. What was as you're going through this, what were things that were starting to emerge to you that you were grabbing onto or or like you started to look at a little bit differently?
SPEAKER_02:That's a great question. I I sort of mold that over. I think the this concept we it's almost cliche in our in our community, I wouldn't say faith community, but in our community that we that we live in and love in and and worship in, and that is to live from an identity and not to an identity, right? Easy thing to say, but when your head has been so steeped for 64 years in in sort of you know check checkbox Christianity, it's a hard thing to dissolve yourself from. And so I think the biggest thing is I begin to believe that. I I began to actually believe that that um in Christ there was no condemnation over and against the fact that I stepped in doo-doo here or there, right? I begin to believe that I was actually living from, even though my preaching at the time would have told you I believe that, even though what I was saying to you, et cetera, because I did at some intellectual level believe that, right? That was sort of the pivot. But I began to live like it was true in ways I never had before. And I think that's really been the discovery. That's the rabbit hole that all of a sudden opened up who Jesus is, who the Trinity is, who what the sanctuary is all about, what Sabbath is actually all about. All these doctrines, all these understandings opened up because I believed Roman 8:1, right? I believed Romans 8, you know, four through eight. We talked about last night on the Milk Leeds Bible study, right? That I no longer live in the flesh. Like that operating system that I used to have, that I thought I flipped back and forth from when I did good things, had good thoughts, or had bad thoughts, and did bad things, I began to understand that I actually live in the spirit, right? And that's and so that has really changed everything and it's supercharged uh, you know, the way I understand, you know, stuff. And if I could, and we can go wherever you want to go, Richard. But I was thinking today is uh contemplating this, first of all, so good to hang out with you. I we could do this for like six hours, yeah. It's like Richard and John talk, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but one of the things that does it is it positions you in a way where you're getting all your love and acceptance and your identity and your value and your worth from Jesus. See, I'm the sort of fellow that got his value and his identity from those around me. And so I'll give you an example. My marriage has been incredibly impacted, and it sort of put stereo speakers on my experience of who God is because I used to look at my wife and her acceptance and her love for me became my identity. And so the phrase that we're so used to is hearing, as he goes, so we go. I had, as she goes, as we go, so I go, right? And so I was a mess. I was up and I was down, I was all over the place. And as I began to, you know, understand that in Christ, you know, all these things are true about me today, um, my identity and my value began to be placed where he is, and all of a sudden it freed this up. And all of a sudden I wasn't looking at her, it wasn't transactional. Like I could just love her freely because I was receiving all my love, all my acceptance from elsewhere. And so the gospel began to sort of be played in stereo in my life. It wasn't just theological anymore. It was literally personal. It was literally relational as my marriage began to be benefited by a man who no longer put the weight of his value and identity on his wife. Like, who would want that kind of pressure, right? And all of a sudden they become lightness and they became joy, and there became um, you know, the judgment goes away. And now there's just observations about what is real and what is not real. What, you know, as opposed to, well, you did this, it must mean this, because my meaning now is drawn from someplace else. So I know it's why answer in three words, but you can answer in in three pages, but you know, that's that's really where the gospel begins to get exponential for me. It becomes experiential, leaps off the page, right?
SPEAKER_00:Interpersonal relationships, man, that's where the rubber meets the road. And like if you think of you know, the book of Romans, there's this pretty popular book called uh Reading Romans Backwards, and the whole idea is that the first 12 chapters are there so that he can actually preach the last four chapters. And the last four chapters are where he's like admonishing them to love one another, to take care of each other, to like to put each other to put each other uh to put somebody higher than yourself, you know, kind of like Philippians 2, like this mindset. Don't judge somebody, like don't judge them uh worse than yourself or something like and I think about that is that I needed to understand how good I had it so that it didn't have to be about me anymore. Like if you understand like Maslow's hierarchy, like this is an educational thing, like you have to be okay before you can love somebody. You you actually have to be loved so that you can love. And before it's kind of like I wanted, I wanted to be loved, but I thought like everything was just like some theory, everything was just like, oh, and then when I think for me, and maybe this is different for you, like because of what I had understood before that was just wrong, the gospel was such a huge revelation. Um, where someone that maybe didn't have the baggage that I had, and I had some traditional, I'll just say it, traditional Adventist baggage that I couldn't like didn't know if I was, you know, we're not supposed to say that we're in Christ or that we we have assurance of salvation. And so because of that, it was such a huge revelation that just like you, man, like stuff with my marriage, like I began to change. And then my wife saw that. And you know, since then there's been ups and downs, but the difference is like when I'm going back to an old pattern, I know it. And sometimes if I am emotionally like in it, like I know it and I know I don't like what's happening, and then maybe like afterwards, after I calm down, I could be like, you know what, Richard, you're you're getting your worth and value, and you're you're getting offended and you're having your feelings hurt because you're putting on them something that doesn't belong to them, and they're like you're putting pressure on them. Yeah, you you might you might just love them, and so and I know that you've encouraged me, like you and I've had talks in the background where I'm like, Ja man, you know, this thing's going on, and you've encouraged me. And yeah, man, like this is like we get up and preach, we can get up and do a Bible study, but with our kids and our spouse, like that's where like the real where we can check like how am I living this thing? Am I walking in freedom? Am I loving my family? You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02:No, I love that. And I I I know I know the format you have is changed lives, it's changed my life, but that's how I first sort of ran into this community is listening to some of the podcasts, and you know, um, our friend Eddie, you know, and so just to get sort of in granular, so the gospel, so you and I had met. I be so what happened was at my church, I I was sort of feeling a little restless. I was feeling a little bit like um I was puncing. I didn't know the good news. The good news wasn't feeling so good when I was preaching it. And in my life, it wasn't really manifesting itself. But my father was a pastor, this is what good men do is better than making pornography, is better than you know, robbing people. And so I was doing the thing, but it wasn't satisfying at all. And all of a sudden, my buddy Byron Rivera texted me this link. And so I watched Jonathan Leonardo and he's doing his thing, and he references you and no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, it's you. I'm listening to a podcast of a woman we talked about before. She's from Ohio, I think. I think her name is Ruth. And it like I knew her story, right? And so in there it talked about Jonathan Leonardo. So I wrote this down. So I began a rabbit hole journey, which ended up with you coming to our church in Pasadena, right? So that was that whole thing started, right? And so I'm going through that. And um, so when you come there, I'm sort of um it's beginning to make sense to me. And my point is that my marriage is at an all-time low, like in that moment. So it's sort of weird how on one side, theologically, I was sort of blossoming, and and this side here is just getting worse and worse and worse. And of course, as good Adventist men, it's like, well, if she understood the gospel, if she understood how righteousness really works, she would love a guy like me, right? So so we go down that road, and then but once my heart becomes to be full with my identity as who he is, my father, Jesus, my God, my father, begins to reveal things about me, about myself that before I understood the gospel, I would not have under, I could not have handled. Um, things about myself that you know came from childhood trauma, things about myself, my father, and you growing up. And I realized that I had told myself this lie that if you really knew me, you couldn't love me. Right. That was sort of the lie that I lived under. And so I would wear fancy clothes and I would say fancy words, and and I had this persona, and I and I adopted a name for him. His name was Shiny John, right? And one day I'm talking to my wife, we're driving back from Mexico, and again, this is all buttressed by the fact that I finally know that my father loves me right where I am, that I'm fully known and fully loved. That's the foundation. And from that springs this conversation where we're stuck in traffic coming back from taking her father to Tijuana, and it's five hours, and we're talking, and she begins to recount some of the stories of our life together that have vexed her, things that have done huge explosions in our life, where heretofore I had defended myself because I was just doing the right thing. And in that stability of my father's love, I began to be able to, my father opened my eyes up to me realizing that I had honored shiny John over and above my wife and my family. Better to be shiny John to John's son and lend him$10,000 than to mine my wife, right? And those experiences began to resonate differently with me. And I got home that day and I hadn't slept a lot, and it crushed me and it just bore on me. But again, my father can't show that about me to myself six months before that or a year before that, because I would have cracked. I would have denied it, right? Because I wasn't ready for it. But once I knew that he loved me right where I was, he began to reveal things to me. I lost 50 pounds, as you know. I I didn't spiral because the fact I knew he loved me, but that's really the foundation. If 2003 in Valeo Drive Church was the sort of the foundation of the pivot point between where I was heading and where I was going, this was certainly the foundation, the wellspring of the gospel journey I'm on now is this understanding, you know?
SPEAKER_00:So help me help me understand that a little more. Okay. Because you have you had this conversation and you were protecting an image that you like previously you'd been protecting an image that you had of yourself. And in this conversation, what's what's realized is oh, I haven't done what I've what I wanted to do, but I haven't been able to understand it because I've been protecting myself.
SPEAKER_02:Is that what a hundred percent? I know this story like the back of my hand because I live the story and she's repeated to me many times. And what it I'll give one example. There's several of them, but God, uh, I remember sitting on my couch one day and feel feeling the weight of a life lived towards a woman who I loved, I said I loved, and yet I knew I had oppressed her with this behavior, right? One of the things was we came back from um Oregon 2011 or 12, and uh we had saved some money. I've I'm in the mortgage business, and so things had gone, you know, had gone bad. And so we uh came here to LA and we had 20 grand. Right, we're gonna start a new life together and looking for a place to live here and build a business here. And then my son from a previous marriage had called and he is buying a house and he wanted to borrow$10,000. And now I have sort of value issues with my son because I had left them when they were young. And so to me, being a good father, making up for all that lost time, it seemed reasonable at that time to take half of the money that my wife and I had saved to move down here and build a new life for ourselves and gift it to my son, right? And and and there, so this is there's many instances like this. This is the one that comes to my mind. And so we fought and we almost broke up over it. It was a big deal. We healed it, got that together, and we we we figured it out. But the entire time I felt that's what men do. I got to sacrifice this with my son, and et cetera. And I was not there for him back in the day. And then in the light of my father's love for me, in the light of him being able to say, John, let me show you who you really are, let me show you a mirror. I realized that that was just shiny John. Shiny John wanted to show Frank, my son, that I'm a wonderful dad and that this is what I that this is my heart for him. And that was more important than loving my wife and taking care of her security and her needs, which is what my professed intention was. So all this time I just I just said, John's a good guy. John's making those tough decisions because that's what men do, right? And then in a moment, I was like, no, you're honoring shiny John, right? And now John, and now God can eradicate you, God can free you from the bondage of Shiny John because I know that my father loves me right where I am. And in doing so, I now can love my wife. So I did a funeral service in my mind for Shiny John, and for many, my wife said, Stop calling him that because that was the way he's done. He's dead. This identity that I had that had just raped, pillaged, and plundered my marriage, you know, and probably other relationships in my life, trying to project this image that I no longer need to reject because my value is not in that image, it's in my father, something like that.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. Man, I was I was doing a coaching class today, and I was looking at different feelings we're talking about. I mean, one of them was shame. And shame is is the definition here is the fear of having undesirable traits exposed. So we we shame creates hiding, false selves, nice guy behavior, addictions, and then loss of president, presence and leadership. And then in reading into this and said, What is the antidote to shame? And it's bringing it into the light, naming it, owning it, sharing it, stop defending against it. Shame dies in exposure, not perfection. And I think so many people grab on to love reality or what you're doing, is because there's no shame in it. And I remember a buddy told me this when I was preaching the gospel to him. He was like, Richard, you know how I know what you're saying is right. I was like, why is that? And he's like, Because there's no shame attached to it whatsoever. He's like, and I'm a shame expert, I can see shame from a mile away. And and I think maybe this is what the podcast has done because people not only like they're so open on here. I have to go and edit some of the stuff out because it's like it's wild because they're like, there's no shame anymore. They're just like, Yeah, I did this thing. And I think that you know, you telling your story, even telling your story even after the revelation of the gospel is like the shame was gone. So I could realize that I did do some things and I thought my motive was right, but it wasn't completely right. Like you naming that your motive wasn't completely right, you naming that you wanted to love your wife, but by action, it fell short because there was some shame, there was some fear, there was some whatever. I think that's the kind of thing that people hear and they're like, oh, this is different because how can he tell us about his wife? Or how can he tell us about his, you know, and all of these different stories, you know, people that we know that have literally aired their dirty laundry and said, Yeah, I I hurt some people, man. Like I said some things, or you know, that's the powerful thing about the gospel, it removes the shame.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I love that. I said that I actually uh did a youth conference for the Kaleo Church uh last Friday, and we we rolled into Genesis three, where all this comes from. And we're not going to preach today, but just you know, one of the most profound questions, maybe the most profound question in the Bible is Genesis three, where God says, you know, God comes down and Adam's running. And hey, Adam, where are you? I'm I'm running. Why are you running? Uh I'm hiding because I'm naked, right? I'm afraid. And so I hid. And then God asked the question, like, who told you you were naked? You know? And so I feel like that's sort of sort of my life, right? I I've confronted a God and I thought I was hiding from him. I was hiding from him and all around me because I had to cover myself up because I was ashamed. And turns out the shame didn't come from my father. Turns out the shame came from the enemy telling me things that were not true about who he was. And once once I begin to see him, John 17, to know him is eternal life. Once I understood that, the shame dissipates, right? Because my father loves me right where I am. So I love the conversation about shame because I think shame, it's funny, shame is what has probably driven me to some of the successes I've had in my life. You know, shame drives you, right, to dance. Shame drives you to be shiny, shame drives you to take extraordinary actions to present something about you so that no one can see beneath the skirts, right?
SPEAKER_00:Um and yet But but yeah, what if it it doesn't really do the trick, right? Like if you let let's say you're going to a church and the church is pretty traditional, and that means that it's just, hey, happy Sabbath, hey, how you doing? And you don't let you don't really let anybody know you can't actually expose anything because you you have good standing in this church and you don't want anybody to look down on you because there's shame there. And so then you you you play church for years, but you're still you're still hurting. Like you're still like you get up and preach and you can sing the special music, but there's something missing if the reason that you're doing that is is shame induced.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I'll tell you something. The shame actually has two so pornography, um uh uh drug addiction, alcoholism, we look at those things as being, okay, we want to go from those areas of our life into this narrative journey, into spiritual disciplines, prayer, church going, et cetera, et cetera. What we don't realize is what you just said, if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, they are literally two sides of the same coin. They are just both coping mechanisms. One man's confronted, it's the Pharisee and the tax collector, right? They're the same guy. One guy's going, God, look at that dude. Thank God I'm not like him. I pay my tithe, I do all these wonderful things. And then you cut to the tax collector who's done all the terrible things. They're the same guy. They're masking their shame. They're coping with their shame, one by doing good things and one by not doing good things. But they're the same, they're the human beings' response to the same stimulus, which is shame, unless your response is from a God who loves you right where you are. So the motivation behind that, like you said earlier, is so, so pivotal and so, so key. Because I know a lot of that's what I was doing when I first sort of came back to church, was I still had shame. I still didn't know my father right where he was. And so I was putting on the suits and doing all those wonderful things. And he probably looked just as glorious, right? But in my heart, I was hiding because I that's just how I cope with that particular thing, right? So I don't think our young people know that sometimes the narrative is not from um coping mechanisms like numbing yourself, pornography, alcohol use, drug abuse, to spiritual disciplines. You're just bouncing from two sides of the same coin. What the trick is is to make sure you know your father loves you right where you are, and that that eradicates the shame. And I, Richard, I think we owe our youth an apology, right? Because all this time we have trafficked and used shame and guilt for behavior modification, right? And we've turned and we've discovered that sometimes the cure is worse than cancer. And we have generations of children, of young people that we have placed on the razor's edge of shame. And there's only one or two ways to break. You break into drug, you know what I did, you run and you find hedonism, or or you do what Arnold did. You put a student's high on, you make some rules, and you try, but it's the same shame. We've not given them Jesus, the antidote for shame.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, when I work with these guys, and one of their reasons for quitting, you know, this, you know, if they're I I work with guys with a porn habit, and if it's a shame reason, and I can tell, like, I'll say you got to have a better reason for quitting. Like the shame reason isn't gonna work. Your reason can't be because like I want my wife to look at me differently. Like, that's like you feel the shame in that. I'll ask them. You feel a little shamey, it feels shamey, right? And they're like, Yeah, that that does kind of feel. I'm like, what if what if the reason is because you want to live and walk in freedom? Like, what if what if what about freedom? What if like God has given you this gift and it's yours and you just wanna you want to walk in it? How how about that for quitting this habit? Like, I always think of Romans 6 12, where he says, Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for uh unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who've been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness, for sin will have no dominion over you since you've already gone from death, or since you're not under note of the law, but under grace. And I think like that's the perfect reason. Like it's not shame-inducing. It's like, yeah, this thing isn't proper to you anymore, and you want to walk in freedom, so you're not gonna give yourself over to it anymore. You're gonna give yourself over to God because God has done this thing. I love that. You see any shame in there? Like, there's no shame in that. No, and if that's your motive, if that's your like your greatest intent to walk in freedom because like, well, he gave it to me and it's better than this, then then now we got a reason to to move and operate differently, right?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I love that. And I love I'm so proud's the wrong word, but I'm just so impressed. Is that the good word? And moved by your ministry to that side because uh, you know, it wasn't my you know, sort of uh uh set of choice per se. But I grew up.
SPEAKER_00:That's so interesting that you were working in the porn industry and it wasn't your thing. That blows my mind. Like the only thing that was in me, I was doing hard drugs. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:I was in the closet doing some other stuff, right? But uh, but it's but I but I know how prevalent it is. I speak to people, right? And so I love that you're that it's grace-based, it's not shame-based, right?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it won't work, it wouldn't work, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So go ahead. No, just to end that little piece off there, I often say this, and it has to do with pornography, like if you don't know if you get to your computer and you don't resist the temptation, if you don't know that when you close your computer after not resisting the temptation that your father loves you right where you are, then you have not understood the gospel and you have not let in the very light that will actually cure you uh uh of the situation that made you open your computer in the first place. It's very counterintuitive, right? But um that's the shame thing, right? So absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:So you you brought up the youth and it got me thinking about this thing, and I I'm on the internet a little bit and I see sometimes where people are discussing uh once saved, always saved. And in our background, um, once saved, always saved is like the scarlet letter. Like if you get accused of once saved, always saved, that's like being on the Epstein files. Like you're you're toast. Okay, like you're in trouble. And I'm just saying that if you're listening to this later, like they just dropped dropped a bunch more Epstein files. So if yeah, he's once saved, always saved. You're on the island, you're toast. Uh, and I see these people, and their their argument, like while I don't while I don't believe in once saved, always saved in the sense like like my buddy Matt McMillan, he really believes in once saved, always saved. I don't, I I do believe that you can leave. Um there the the arguments are if you have so much assurance, then you're gonna become complacent, and you are going to let all of this licentiousness in your life, and we have to have, and they use the fear of God, which they mean it's like they're they're actually afraid of God, it's not a fear or healthy reverence and respect, it's a like they're scared of God, and being scared of Him will get them to behave correctly, and so when we say like use these verses, they like that remove all fear, like that is a scary thing to them. And you were talking about the kids, the youth. This is kind of how we operate with them. We say all this gospel stuff, and then we say all of this scary stuff, and we try to make it all like work together, and the kids they see it a mile away, and maybe if they can't even put their finger on it, like it doesn't feel all the way right. There does feel like a little shamey or a little fear in fear-based. Um, talk to me about how you've navigated that and how you do it differently and what you were doing before. Like, I just want your your thoughts on that.
SPEAKER_02:Uh I sort of come to a place where I first of all I vociferously pushed against it, right? And I would I would specifically and consistently use terms like free from sin because I was preaching to the other side of the road, right? And I I almost welcomed the the pushback, right? Because it created a conversation. You know me, Richard, so it wasn't contentious, but I is intentionally, you know, trying to gin up, you know, some c some some outrage so we could have a real conversation. I have shock therapy. You gotta shock them a little bit. Exactly. I've kind of shifted gears a little bit, and and and like Paul says, you know, I'm uh you know, you're this to this audience here. And I'm thinking to myself, I try to align myself with we want the same thing. Like they're they're thinking that behavior and modification, because they're thinking of sin exclusively as behavior. Okay, I give them that, right? And so obviously, if you stop sinning, that's then then you've you you've remediated the problem, right? Of course, you and I both know that sin is an expression of something that's inside of us, this lie about the goodness of God. And so what I try to do with them is say, listen, we you we both um are positing an uh a journey towards a place where people are free, right? And that's probably giving them more grace than they deserve, but let's just say that, right? It's just that we have two different ways of going about it. And I try to break down, because I think once we once we position ourselves as a common goal or common outcome, I shouldn't say goal, common outcome, then all of a sudden there's an openness to understand it. Plus, they can look at my life, your life, Arnold's life, the dude F's life, and you can they can see some sort of in the background, some lives that have been changed by this, Dr. Chan, et cetera. So I try to sort of roll them through this, right? If you continue to look at the addiction, look at the sin, and that never cured anybody of that. What the Bible teaches is that we pivot and look at Jesus and accept the identity that's been gifted to us in his completed work. And when we live, and this is the language I try to use from that identity, we live as if that is true. All of a sudden, my and this is so important, I live in a shameless world because my father loves me right where I am, right? And I have a clear understanding of who he is, that generates by necessity, because my father's spirit lives inside of me, all those attributes that those people are trying to uh achieve by white knuckling and by reading more scripture and by getting upset with their kids, right? And so I try to sort of come at it from that perspective because I think it opens their mind up a little bit if they think we're heading in the same direction. I think some of them are disingenuous and they really don't like the idea that salvation is so democratic, and I've been going to church for 20 years and my suits are uptight and out of sight, and I do these things with my diet, and how dare you think that you could also possibly have God's favor without it? I think there's a lot of that in there. But for those that are open-minded enough and really um aren't jumping to conclusions or don't need to jump to conclusions and are or are sort of have an open mind, I try to I try to go down that route with them as opposed to um uh you know shock therapy per se. Uh does it work? I don't know. Um, you know, I live in my little John La Wangi sphere and I speak to the people I speak to, and I give them love, the love that I've been given from my father. And um, but that's that's sort of how I've repositioned myself in the last probably six or eight months as I begin to understand and recognize the transformation in my life and where it's come from. That's kind of how I share it to that crowd. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00:Or is that no, that that does make sense. And man, praise the Lord, you know, as I'm thinking about Pasadena, you know, the people, the the friends of mine that were at that church, um, it seems like you are like you're kind of like a rolling stone, gather no moss. Like, like I'm sure you could walk back into Pasadena tomorrow and everything's cool. Um, but you did see, you know, what was going on there. Did it affect you? Did it hurt you, or did you just like, yeah, this is the like this is what it is, and love all those people? Like, how did it affect you personally?
SPEAKER_02:I'm I'm gonna put um Dr. Chan and Arnold to the side because I love those brothers, but of course, their pain is my pain. So but you you've asked me a question about the passing community, right? Yeah. Um and so I'll tell you two things. Number one, it didn't change my opinion of them at all, per se. Because I believe what Timothy what Paul writes to Timothy. Listen, those who lead godly lives will uh suffer persecution. And he didn't write that to folks that are being, you know, chased by pagans for preaching the gospel. He wrote that to people that were upsetting Paul because Paul was preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? So it's kind of like that's the frame that we live in, and it just sort of affirmed that a little bit. Um, but second of all, should I say that? This this is sort of me just I just I don't have language for this, but I'm gonna say this to you. God works in crazy ways, right? God is works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, and he and he can speak through a donkey, right? And so what I don't want to do is I don't want to decide in my head what's wheat and what's tares, what's truth and what's not truth, what's what's God's will to be preached and what God's not will is not to be preached, even though I believe with all my heart that there's that that those sermons are dry as the hills of Gilbea, right? I believe that. And so I was praying into Father, you be you and you use those folks, how you use those folks, use me, how you use me, armor us up. It's so it was more of a um, it's kind of like my wife's prayer. I used to pray for my for God to change my wife so she could serve me better. Now I just pray for God to love on her and to love on me so that whatever comes out of that be is is a result of their experience, she experiencing his love and me experiencing love. And then I'll just, you know, my father knows what's best for me, right? So that was sort of an and probably sounds Pollyanna, it probably sounds very rose-colored, glasses-y, right? But that's sort of how I'm positioned. Like I love those people over there. I had a brother a couple days ago whose wife died, and I saw it on Facebook, and he's then, you know, hey, that doesn't. If I post something, he might post something back, right? I took him down. Hey, bro, sorry to hear that. We went back and forth, warm exchange. He asked me how my family was doing. So I took the opportunity to tell him, man, ever since the gospel, this has happened, that's happened. Dude, that's so good to hear. I feel that's more advantageous, that's more, that's more wheat, that's more salt, that's more light to that community than to try to be theologically logical because that's not where they live, right? And so that's sort of just, and it's not my tactic, Richard. You know me. So you know that's just how I'm built. That's the only way that I engage life. That's the only way I know how. So, but that's I hope that answers your question.
SPEAKER_00:No, I I love that, man. And one of these ideas that you just mentioned, like wishing that our wife, our kids, our community would change, that's just called that's called suffering. Like they're not like you're you're like, be comfortable with everybody staying the exact same way. What you ought to do is grow. Like you ought to feel that and grow and love. And like when when we're wishing for people to change, like so much of the time we missed it because we didn't know, like, like I was a part of the problem. Like, oh, I wish my wife would da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And yet, the way you're acting is is contributing because of the way you're thinking, like, it's self centered or whatever. And so, like, that's this is just an example. Like, got I mean, Paul always uses marriage. If if you're wishing for something to change so your life could be easier, like they're gonna know it, they're gonna feel it, and the motive is that's like that's a shamey motive. It's not it, it's a whack motive and it won't work. But then when you just realize, hey, life is what it is and love these people, um, then and you and you can't do it so they do change. Right. That's the only possibility that they would be able to, even if if they ever would, that would you would have to not be wishing them to change.
SPEAKER_02:You have to untie yourself of the outcome. 100%. You know, just the 100%. One of the one of the constructs in my mind as I think about my wife and my kids and those around me that came from this gospel um planted in my heart and blossoming, is in a sentence it goes like this Like I no longer judge my wife, I observe what she does, right? I used to have this sort of neural synapses fire, which is uh note behavior, judge behavior, punish behavior, but it was all one thing. It just all fired together. She would say something in a moment, I noted it, in a moment I judged it, and a moment I was, how do I, you know, and even in a polished way, punish, but somehow respond to it, right? And now I've realized from the gospel that that's no, they're actually three separate moves. I observe it, I I then can choose to judge it, I then can choose to punish it. So I've intentionally taken that out now. Now my wife says something or does something, and I know it in my heart, Richard, because you know that if you're rising up or if you're not even rising up, it's just I knowed it. I observe it. That's what she did, that's how she feels, right? I used to conflate her feeling that way with being wrong. Like, how could you feel that way about me, right? And then I I need to respond to that, right? As if they're all three things. And so to take me just that apart in a very practical sense in my life, I no longer, this is Roman, this is 2 Corinthians 5, right? Do you no longer judge others in the flesh, right? I just know I observe. That's what my daughter said, that's what my wife did. All right. I observe it and I and I live around it. And and I think that's that was Paul's advice there. It's very healthy advice.
SPEAKER_00:I've I've been observing myself. Yeah. Um, and I I noticed that you know, your energy can change from word to word. Like I think I mentioned this to you the other day. Uh like if you could say something to me right now, John, and my energy would change. If you like sincerely are like, Richard, I hate you, and I knew you meant it, my energy would just, I'd be like, whoa, like, and so I have to observe myself in conversations that like, oh man, I feel threatened. Why do I feel threatened? What's going on? And and when I get to the root of like some lie that I'm believing, then I can I can act accordingly. And so this is obviously done very well in marriage. Like, don't forsake any opportunity to see how you're reacting and then relax yourself and behave in the way that you actually want to in righteousness and in love. But so, yeah, I try to observe myself and see because I want to love, man. Like, that's what I'm going after. I'm going after just laying my life down and keeping no record of wrongs. I want to ask you this, man. Sure. It didn't seem like it was much time before you started getting invited to do like ministry with the your Samoan community. Tell me about that and how you've grown through that and and like your heart for these beautiful people. I want to hear about that.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, Richard, I didn't expect this, but I'd be so happy to have this conversation. So some of you may or may not know, my father is full-blooded, was full-blooded Samoan, and he has an amazing story, which I won't go into today. But my father was a missionary and an evangelist and a pastor, and he passed with the Samoan Seventh day Adventist Church. Anyone who knew him knew that he was had one goal in life, that was to bring the gospel as he knew it to the Samoan people. That was his stated intention. He divorced my mother to marry a Samoan woman later in life to do so. So that's just what he was about. Everybody has a why, right, Richard. Some people's whys are obfuscated or you can't see it. My father was loud and clear. My job, Samoan people, gospel, right? So hold that in abeyance. And I was not, I was, I had ran, you know, you guys know my story. And so when I came back again, um, I began to be frustrated, like probably right around the time that you and I were hanging out, Richard, 2023. Yeah, 2023. Yeah, 2023. Um, I get an opportunity to go speak at the at the church there. And I go down to speak there, and I have a I have a wild spiritual hair at my butt. I'm frustrated that my brethren won't hear the gospel. I'm getting pushback in my faith community, and I'm just frustrated. So go down, I go down there and I lay a heavy one on them. I get up there and I bring What did you preach about? I preach about religion versus relationship. And I just blasted uh religion and talked about all the things that we had talked about, right? And said some things. You are you're want to do this too, Richard. That shook them up a little bit, right? And so it was all said and done. They had the the Koanai, which is the feast at the end of it, and uh a couple, the worship leader, another woman who had a side ministry team and said, Hey, that was like wow, I don't never heard it like that before. We have uh a charity, her this woman, who's her name, beautiful Salmon woman, her brother had been killed in a drive-by. They were both gang members, and she has this uh community um which was uh met two or three times online and is a charity for people in that area. We have open night mic on Thursdays. Can you come on Thursday? It's fine. So went on Thursday and um it was Thanksgiving Day. And I I thought they'd call it off, but they didn't. So I told my wife who was very upset with me, I had to leave the dinner table, and I did an hour, and they were like, man, we need some more. So the next week we did another hour, and they said to me, Hey, would you just give us a night? And so starting two years and three months ago, every Tuesday night, Tuesday night Bible study was born, where this core group of Samoans from the Compton Church plus this ministry, and it's branched out to New Zealand and to uh Germany. We have people from uh Australia, all over the place that are that are listening to this. And it, Richard, it's it's the gospel. And just like they're five years old, we just lead them with just every first it was sort of a gospel journey, and now it's become whatever John's studying, right? Um then of course I love it. Yeah, so it's like fresh manna from heaven, right? And then and then like when Charlie the Charlie Kirk thing happened, like I feel like they're in my flock, they're my community. So we pivoted, we stopped what we were doing, and we talked about what was going on in the Charlie Kirk situation, right? Just last week, with all that's happened in Minneapolis, I was gonna go, we we did a three-part series on what is hell, and then we were gonna pivot into shame. This I love what you're talking about. That's my jam right now, shame and guilt and where it comes from and how the gospel eradicates that in ways that both numbing and piety doesn't do, right? And I stopped and said, no, no, we gotta talk about it. So we had a really cool conversation last week, and we used Matthew 13, the wheat and the tares, um, as this idea that the world is not divided the way we think it is. Like that the society is very divided. They would have you think that it's Republican versus Democrat, that it's um liberal Christians versus conservative Christians, that it's secularism versus Christianity, that it's left versus right, and we boil it down, it's actually separated into people who love others and people who don't. Right? That's really the separation, and that one is wheat, sustains life, nourishes life, and one is weeds, which take away from life, right? At the end of time, that's gonna be this the divide, the the the division. And so forget the t-shirts, stop looking at the labels. That's what you're looking for. And then we pivoted to if you're wheat, act like it. You can't act like weeds. So when you when when a wheat is engaging weeds, wheat loves, wheat has grace. You know what wheat is because it tastes like wheat, salt, life. So we had that conversation because I really feel like like if you're a spiritual leader in today's society, you can't ignore that. If you're if you're out there preaching about whatever it is and ignoring the elephant in the room where people's lives are being reached, so I felt a responsibility. And then next week we're gonna go back into the shame. So it's an amazing privilege. And the reason I started with my father's story, I'll bookend it here, is I was preaching there on Christmas this last week, and I got up and I realized, oh my gosh, I'm completing, sorry, I'm having a small part in participating in my father's life's work. Who would have thought this? When my father was doing his thing, I want to know part of him. I wanted to be nothing like him. And yet God is playing multi-generational chess, pulling things up here and there, and I find myself in his pulpit preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ that set me free to his audience. And one day him and I are gonna just we're gonna have an incredible conversation about this. So anyway.
SPEAKER_00:Man, so would you say that God has given you some level of influence in this Samoan community? Is that weird for you to say, or do you feel comfortable saying that?
SPEAKER_02:As long as you say some level, yes. The one thing I will tell you as well, though, is and I'll name some names. There's Mishaq Soli, who you may or may not know from Hawaii, right? There is a brother named Nehemiah Famatonglo, there's Paul Siope. God has raised up gospel preachers in the Samoan community. I'm just a small voice in that uh in that in that chorus.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I see like these things like John Lilong is going to be preaching here, John Long on Facebook, and I'm always like, let's go, man. Um when as you've been going through like in your your Tuesday Bible studies, what has been the theme or the thing that you see that makes people the most uncomfortable when breaking down the gospel? Or you're just so nice and you teach it so sweetly that everyone just like falls in line. They're like, I just like the way you say it, John.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, the questions I get aren't uh necessarily uh hand grenades, if you if that's what you're asking me. But um I think too good to be true. I think what happens is, and you know this, because we have this thing called chocolate milk, where you know, when when you begin to understand the gospel, and like you, I've been raised in this faith community, and these Samoans are very cultural Samoans, which means they they resonate with hierarchy, right? So the church is so it's it's right and wrong. They're very much into rules and checkbook Christianity. That's just the way they've been raised, right? And so this gospel quarrels with everything about that, just like it quarrels with you and I, right? So they accept it, but there's some part of that that hell that holds it in abeyance and goes, but how can that be true when my father said this and my church says this? And like everything mitigates and militates against it, right? That's the resistance. It's too good to be true. And that's why they come back every week and then we we see the gospel through different prisms, through the Sabbath doctrine, through the sanctuary doctrine, through the second coming, through the hell, right? And and the reason why I think that this particular group of people have resonates with the gospel is that we've always lensed it from uh from the very beginning, Richard. Our stated intention was that you might know God better. John 17 was our core text. The Bible says that you want eternal life, it's to know God. So everything we do has that flavor. So I thought you can layer like that. So everything you talk about, this is what God's like. This is what God's like. There's a theme to it. I'm not trying to impart knowledge to you, I'm not trying to impart doctrine to you so you can get it all down. Every brick just gives you a new, sorry, every pixel fills in something about God that you didn't know before. And so it just gets brighter and brighter and brighter, right? So that didn't answer your question. The question is too good to be true, but I think coming from the knowing God perspective gives it some texture, some theme that really is helpful. Um, because we're so used to hearing religion as um as theology, as doctrines to be believed, right? And it's actually a God to be known.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I think the not all cultures are created equal. And we got to be careful. Like you're thinking about, you know, you brought up Minneapolis and what's going on in Minneapolis, and there's uh Somali culture out there. There's when I lived there, my my basketball team was all South Sudanese guys, and they had a completely different culture. I had a dorm and it was half maybe I'd say a third South Sudanese, a third like some place in Africa, like Kenyan or Nairobi, like like and Uganda, and then there was like some Hispanic and white kids like over here, and there were different cultures, man, and like there's strengths to cultures and then there's weaknesses. What you're describing in the Samoan culture, from what I have seen, one of the greatest strengths of the Samoan culture is it seems like family is a big deal in the Samoan culture, right? So that's like it's beautiful, and I'm glad and I think this is the same thing for Hispanic, Hispanics. Like we we're big on family. Um, but then there's some other aspects, like you were saying, this hierarchy. Uh describe like how does that make it like so the rules feel comfortable, the rules feel safe, and when when it's just like a spiritual thing that makes it feel a little scary? Is that what you've noticed?
SPEAKER_02:Wow, they're gonna go, that's right. I think my brain is noodled out here before. So, yes, very similar to the Hispanic culture, because my wife's from a beautiful woman from Mexico, um, they have been we're very clear in the Samoan culture about what is right and what is wrong. And what is right is what I tell you. And if you don't give up what if you don't provide the performance required, you will get punished. It's a it's very it's a very clear thing, right? There are stories of of Samoan men in Utah at a bar, and 10 police officers can't bring them down, but they bring mom in, and mom walks in that bar and she grabs that guy's ear, and she's 5'2, and he's 6'3, and he's just held off 10 officers, and she grabs by the ear and he pulls them in because there's that much respect for elders, right? And so when, you know, the way I saw my father, Richard, is the way I saw God. And so my that community there sees God like they see their father. He's exacting, he probably loves them. No, he does love them, but boy, you gotta bring it or there's gonna be hell to pay, right? And so here comes this good-speaking dude with one of our last names telling me that no, no, no, no, no. Your father loves you right where you are. It it it's nails on the chalkboard in some sense. It it it it's upstream, it's antithetical to everything they understand about hierarchy, about about um authority, right? And so I think that's what I was sort of coming in at is is that God is love to them as a concept, right? Yeah, my father loves me too, but I have bruises on my body from when I didn't obey my father, right? And so we're trying to uh, and that was that was the God that I ran away from. That was the God that I imagined as a kid. I I ran. Um, I'm trying to reintroduce them. I love what my my partner Arnold said the other day, he goes, We're not, we're we're matchmakers. That's what we are as as evangelists. We're hey, hey, Richard, that's God. God, that's Richard, right? And let me show you, right? And so I'm trying to be a matchmaker to my someone people who have have grown up on this idea that their father in heaven looks like their father on earth. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00:That's what I think. No, that does make sense. So you go like when you're describing God, where do you go to when you're like, no, it's different? Like what like what parables do you share a lot of the time?
SPEAKER_02:So that's so one of my favorite moves is to go into Jesus, because because again, the construct usually is, and we have this in Christianity writ large, not just the Solomon culture, but there's God and then there's mom. And mom's there, like with the vasteling to rub down your wounds and stuff, and mom's there to plead, but dad, dad, don't beat him that hard or whatever. So we have Jesus, right? Jesus is wonderful. So God's pissed. He's hugely super upset. Thank God for Jesus, who died, so that God could take out his wrath on Jesus. And now God, out of breath, like a Solomon father just beat his kids, turns over to John and goes, Come here and give me a hug. I'm good, right? Type of thing, right? And so what I do is I we we go into Jesus and say, That's what God looks like, right? God was in Christ, reconciled the world to himself. When sometimes when I'm finishing and I and I say, that's why John 3.16 says, For God so loved the world, I see the lights going like they never saw God that way before. Like God was the was the Father, and right, and so typically speaking, when we um when I'm trying to show them the face of the Father, I I show them Jesus because they they know Jesus loves them in ways that they didn't think that God the Father loved them too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Jesus isn't the cool version of God. He's he's God. God is like Jesus, and Jesus is like God. Um we don't when when we're like, well, look at the God of the Old Testament, yeah, that's an aspect of God, but it isn't the full, like we didn't really know who He was. And then Jesus, like He is the full revelation. Yeah, like when you s we when you have both of those. And so if you don't see that, if you're missing the Jesus part, you're then you're you're we're missing out, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. No, for sure.
SPEAKER_00:So um, as you've been, you know, kept on going, what else has been jumping out at you that you've been grabbing onto that you're that like has been like you're going more into the veggie meat? You're you're like the milk was such a good, like I'm foundational now. Now let me try these uh prime steak, you know, and not real steak. That's like a that's a vegetarian meat. Well, what what is it what has been something else that you've been like, okay, this is this is blowing me away.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so it's my sense from where I sit now. I'm on sort of the edge of the shore. I got my feet wet, and this thing we're gonna talk about, and I see this huge pond out in front of me. So I'm just getting wet in it, right? But last Sunday I began to read the book of John, right? And first John 1 says in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, the word was God. And so I mainly stopped because I want to be very I want to go through John now to have these gospel lenses and really suck at all the marrow. Um, Manny Artiega, my pastor, and Elizabeth Talbot, the woman who baptized me, just did a series on John, John 101, so sort of companion series. So as I'm looking through that, I'm trying to contemplate on what it is that how can somebody be something and be with something simultaneously, right? And so as I've been a noodle on that, I go to John 17, 3, so I'm 17, the high priestly prayer. And the high priestly prayer is Jesus at the end of his ministry, getting ready to go to the cross, and he's saying a prayer on behalf of his disciples. And of course, as you know, he says, and not just for these that are with me, but for those who will come after them and believe in my word, which is Richard and John, right? So he's John Jesus is actually praying for us, and here's what he prays he prays that they may be one as we are one, and that I, they and me, and I and you, and all of us are one. And so I thought to myself, and this is where I'm going with this, and I'm I literally to the right here, there's a little space in my office here where if I get really geeked out on something, I'll stop, play some music, and just start like dancing. And I started to cry last week when I began began to understand this. So, what Jesus is saying, I think, is that the Trinity, in the same way that the Trinity is one, three individual uh persons, God the Father, very distinct personality, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, but they're one. That because mankind, humanity was made in his image, we are also one. You're Richard, you wear the San Diego hat, I'm John, I love the Niners, right? We're different, and yet we are one in the same way that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit are distinct and one, right? And sin becomes this thing that separates us, that that lies to us and tells me that I'm not Richard, so that I can steal from you, that I can lie to you, that I can kill you because you're not me. If I ever really believed, if I had a sinless life, that you and me were one, I couldn't kill you because you're me. And so the object of the exercise isn't necessarily behavior modification. The object of the exercise, Colossians 1, says, is to bring everything together in Christ and so that we're all one. And now I'm realizing, I'm thinking to myself, that every gospel tidbit, every conversation I've had, every understanding the Holy Spirit's laid upon me is leading me to try to begin to understand this oneness, this oneness, right? This this this other-centered love oneness. So that's what I'm embarking upon. It's that's the pool that I'm I literally just took my shoes off and I just put my toes in it, and it's freaking me out. And I can't wait to share more with you as I journey.
SPEAKER_00:You're getting dangerous, man. Now you're talking about a spiritual life. And you know what? I I think that's where I've been growing is that we live on a spiritual plane. Everything is spiritual. Like the our enemies are not flesh and blood, our enemies are, you know, it's a spiritual world. And understanding all of this, just meditating on God, like living a spiritual life, doing I I think that the gospel being so plain and me feeling so safe has allowed me to actually grow and release all of these lies that I've lived in before and understand like, oh, I I I was I I've been living by my wants and desires and fears rather than just loving people.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:A sp that's a spiritual thing, like this whole thing is a spiritual thing. Like doctrines are cool, but they're here to describe something that's spiritual. They're not the end and of themselves, right? They're they're here to describe a spiritual world that we live in. And I think in the past I've been afraid of spiritual things. Like it's it's been like, no, I like the black and white, like tell me what I can and can't do, yeah, but then you know it doesn't bring fulfillment.
SPEAKER_02:No. I I think it's so important that I think that we have the the cart and the horse in the right position, Richard. I I know that myself, just because how I'm built wanting to be right, wanting to have the right answers, that my identity and value being in that, that theology and doctrines used to be theologies and doctrines so that I could be right. And so I encountered them from a um, you know, is it right? Is it not right? You know, I think if we come in through the gospel, to come in through, like you said, this is spiritual, and these doctrines help me to understand the spiritual nature better, that's different. Now also I look at the Sabbath, the Sabbath's not right day, wrong day. The Sabbath is actually an expression of the rest that I have because the gospel is true. See, that I think is how now you see all the prism. Before you just saw the right day, wrong day argument or whatever, but I just picked out one of our doctrines, but I love what you just said there. I think this is, and we have a so backwards, we don't baptize you until you know all the doctrines. And yet you can't know all the doctrines until you've uh experienced the journey of knowing who God is, and then he's expressed in those doctrines. We have a so backwards, right? And so I that's why I just wanted to be redundant and repeat what you said, because that's been my experience. I have understood doctrines until they were blue in the face as a young man, and they didn't do me any good. Now that I understand who my father is, he's being expressed to me. The spirituality of it is being expressed in those doctrines, and all of a sudden now they resonate. Now they're granular, now they're real, now they're organic, now they're dynamic, now they grow and they live inside of me in ways that they never did before. So anyway, sorry.
SPEAKER_00:I just Yeah, no, man, you you can't know God unless you are a spiritual person.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:This is uh 1 Corinthians 2, which breaks down, you know, I love I love everybody, okay? But sometimes the way they talk like drives me like I'm gonna start drinking, um, not drinking Kool-Aid. But like they'll they'll talk about the ministry of the Holy Spirit sometimes, and I'm like, bruh. Because they're like, yeah, the Holy Spirit told me to get this salad instead of this salad. And I'm like, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to reveal God's heart to his people. And this is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2 that who can understand the mind of Christ um but the spirit, and this is the spirit that has been given to us. And so the whole purpose of the Holy Spirit, one of my favorite authors, Watchman Nee, said, like, God could have done this thing through Jesus Christ, and yet we would not know it or understand it if it were not for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is here so that we can understand what God has done through Jesus. Yes, and so you if you don't know God, but just know a bunch of doctrines, you just don't know God. And then when you know God, like you can't know him unless you've been given the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit ministers to your spirit the work of the cross, like what Jesus has accomplished, how your like that your sons, this is Romans 8, what you guys are doing in the milk dews, like I think it's verse 16 that the the Holy Spirit ministers to your spirit, right? That's my jam. How and we're expecting to do it without the Holy Spirit, or we're like, we're not spiritual people, we're just like we're just theologians that just read a bunch of stuff and then like try to figure it out that way. And and and so, unless you have the Holy Spirit, man, what are we doing? You're not doing it, you're just you're just being puffed up with a bunch of knowledge, right?
SPEAKER_02:No, and I'll fold back on what what I was saying earlier about my new pond that I'm entering into. The Holy Spirit is the mechanism by which we are made one. Like his spirit lives in all of us, right? And so if you think about that as a construct, over and against, well, I know some stuff you don't know, Richard, and if you knew some stuff that I knew, then you could also be. There's this distinction I'm making, as if doctrine um purity or doctrinal understanding creates some sort of unity, like we're going someplace with that. But we we actually we live from that space. The Holy Spirit and Richard and John make us one. And in and and making it about doctrine will separate us. It's exactly antithetical to what the Holy Spirit's trying to accomplish. We are thinking that that by understanding this doctrine perfectly, I am saved. If you understood it perfectly, you too could be saved. And so instead of lifting up Jesus, we lift up these doctrines. And I love what you're saying. You're saying, no, no, no. It's Jesus. These doctrines are an expression of uh a way that we grasp this spiritual reality. And when you come in the door of doctrine without that, you by def by definition, you separate us and and and you actually um over and against the oneness that actually the Holy Spirit brings to all of our lives.
SPEAKER_00:So doesn't Jesus mention that? Doesn't he say you you search the scriptures because in them you think you'll find life, but they're the ones that testify of me? Yeah, and so man, let me uh I got a few more and then I'll I'll let you go. But as I was um thinking about you and Arnold and how you do this thing, your relationship with Arnold before this is like you guys were good, like sparring partners, like you're friends, but you like like to argue and throw stuff off each other. Is what's the vibe now? Is it the same? Is it different? Is it like what is the vibe with like how you guys do how you minister to people and what you argue or don't don't argue about?
SPEAKER_02:It's so good. First of all, I I love Arnold and I praise God that God put him in my path. I I think of that every day. So Arnold, I have two dogs. I have a bernadoodle who's kind of cool and aloof and walks around the house. Then I have a uh uh another dog, I'm trying to think what his name is, but anyway, he's very sparky, and he's always biting and nipping. And and so this guy is like, my bernadoodle is like this, and the other dog's nipping. He's like, hey, what are you doing? Right. That was I was the bernadoodle, Arnold was the other guy, right? I would preach at church there, and he wasn't digging what I was saying, and he wouldn't even let me get home before he called me. Did you use that text? And what's up with this? And so we had that kind of relationship. And then a guy named Richard Young came to town, and next thing you know, we're on the same page, right? And we begin, and and Arnold is nothing if not passionate. Arnold is nothing if not understanding of the journey that leads to futility and anxiety and shame and disgust when you right. So he's so um geeked up about the gospel. So that's who we were today. We're the perfect couple. We call ourselves the odd couple, right? Like remember Felix Unger and uh and the other guy. Um but surprisingly, so that was us before. And now, surprisingly, and I and I warn Arnold about this because he's beginning to think like me, and I'm beginning to think like him. Um, and so surprisingly, we are more and more aligned with not just what we believe in how we might want to practice it. Um, I'll be honest, Arnold's a little bit more bombastic. You're if you ever go to one of our studies, you might hear me say something in the John La Longi fashion, and Arnold goes, okay, that was PC. Let me just give it to you in English, and Arnold will come in behind me and just hammer because that's Arnold's comfort zone, right? Sure. Um, but I think sometimes people, there's people that like it that way and people that like it the other way, and so we make a great team together. But but the last thing I'll say about myself and Arnold is we are only we're still journeying. Like you, Richard. I love that you asked me a question like, what are you studying? Here's what I'm studying. Every time I talk to Arnold and I talk to him seven, eight, nine times a week, there's something new he's texted me. He and I there's always some, hey, Arnold, what do you think about this? Here we're always sharing new notes, new vistas. We're not we're not resting on whatever gospel laurels that we knew from last week. And he's he's getting his masters to fuller, as you know. And so um this is the journey of a lifetime that I'm taking, uh, this intimate walk with a man who I know um cares about truth more than he cares about what it looks to the outside. And so I can um together with him, no holes barred. Um I can share my deepest thoughts with him. We can journey together. Everyone should have an Arnold in their life.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I call him once a week, and I don't ever have like it's I just say, What do you hear? What do you know, man? Tell me about it. And he's got something. He's got something. Here, here's the cool thing. I think about Paul, and there's this I think it's either Philippians three, it's probably three or four, where he starts giving his stats about Hebrew of the Hebrews and you know, under the law, blameless. Paul certainly, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. That is true about Paul, but in another sense, I don't think Paul changed because he was zealous, right? That's one of the things he said. Zealous, uh, I forget what it what if it's zealous for law keeping or it's something in there that he's like in that section, it's either Philippians 3 or 4. Um, it's probably three, where he says, zealous. What do you have it right in front of you?
SPEAKER_02:I do. It says uh circumcised as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
SPEAKER_00:So zeal persecuted the church. What he's saying is, I was so about it that I'm I'm going after them. All right. Uh yeah. And and in Christ, Paul didn't become less zealous. Yeah. But his zeal, like what is it in Romans? Um, they have a zeal, but it's out of ignorance when he's talking about these people that don't believe. Yeah. Now Paul's zeal is for Christ and him crucified.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's like he's like, this is it. And so I think of you and I think of Arnold, and in some sense, like, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come. Like what you are has never been seen before. And also, you're very similar to John, who was before, who like had this sweet heart for people, who's this big teddy bear, who like, even the way you speak, I don't think it's necessarily changed a whole bunch, but the motive of your heart, yeah, and like what you're about is now directed, it's Christ and Him crucified. Arnold, the same way. Like, for me to tell Arnold, like, tranquilo, Arnold, like, chill, like, like Paul didn't chill. Paul was going a hundred miles an hour to persecute the church, and now he's going a hundred miles an hour to lift up Christ and him crucified. And the same thing with me, like, like I'm different, but in many ways, I'm just the same. But now my the motive and intent of my heart is is the gospel. And so I think that's what's beautiful about how God works is like he's made us all in these different ways, and he doesn't change certain things about us, like who we were intended to be from the foundation of the world. He just gives us a new heart and our intention of our new heart. And so I see that in you. I see that in Arnold. Uh, and I think that's so beautiful. You've always wanted to love your wife, you're you get to love your wife. You always wanted to love your kids, you get to love your kids. You always wanted to serve people with your your mortgage company. You get to do that from sincerity and integrity. Like that's that's who you are. And so, yeah, you're never gonna be like Arnold. You're never gonna be like me, and I'm never gonna and praise God, if it we were the same, one of us wouldn't be needed, right? You just get rid of us.
SPEAKER_02:We don't I I would not want to live in a world where everybody was John La Longie. So praise God for a different for viva la difference or whatever they say.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, man. So I I just want to encourage you with that, man.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. I love that you said that, that Arnold, too, because I the the more uh the more I journey down this road, the more I realize is that the way that I think that life should be, or the way that I engage life, is not the only um that should not be the only tool in God's tool belt. Right. Right, God, God needs a wider bandwidth to reach the 9.5 billion people and praise God for Arnold and praise God for Richard Young and praise God for Jonathan Leonardo and Justin Ku. All of us bring gifts to the party, but I love what you just said. They're all um uh empowered by, animated by the spirit of the Holy Spirit with the intention of bringing Jesus and lifting up some.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. All right, let me ask you this and I'll let you go, man. Okay, what is it that you're like either you're reading in scriptures? Um, I know you were talking about this earlier thing from John, but what is the thing that you want the people of God to know? Like you've been walking in this for two and a half, three years. What is it like someone who's just getting into this thing, and you're like, man, my my brother, my sister in Christ, like this is what you need to know on your journey. This is what like has helped me and matured me.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. This is not gonna sound very much different than what I would have said uh two years ago or whatever. Um, but what's changed my life and what changes lives is that you are fully known and fully loved. Right? Everything else is just filling in the blanks behind who it is doing the loving and who, right? But at the end of the day, I believe that um salvation and transformation comes from when you begin to believe that your father fully knows you, sees everything about you, and loves you right where you are. That's the germ, that's the seed that actually blossoms up. So that's what I want them to know. And I'm and I and I and I hope, I think, that if you were to call me in three years and ask me, I'd say the same thing. Like that's that's that's the that's the journey. Um that is the the foundation of a Christian's experience is to is to feel fully known, fully seen, and fully loved by their father.
SPEAKER_00:John, you have one sermon and I really like it. You know, like my sis, like my kids, they'll listen to the music that I listen to and they're like, Daddy, all these songs sound the same. Like it's this one band or something. I'm like, yeah, but I like that song. So we're gonna be listening to it. You've got one sermon, and I really love that sermon. And I've heard it like you preach it in different ways and different styles, but it's it's like you just said it. That's your one sermon, and I'm I'm here for it. And I think in the next, however, however, we God gives us to preach this message, uh, it's gonna be the same sermon, and it's gonna be dope. And I want to hear the different variations of it, man. And and you're a blessing to all of us, you're a blessing to us in the love reality community through what you're doing with the milk dudes, and then just going out and blessing God's people. You're a testimony to me, man. And I thank you because you've you've been a phone call away and and you've encouraged me in times where I've needed it. So, man, I see your good works and I glorify your father in heaven, man. Thank you for uh for for being salt and light, man.
SPEAKER_02:I love you, Richard Young. You're you're my man.
SPEAKER_00:Appreciate you, Doc. Love you, man.
SPEAKER_02:You too, brother. I'll see you soon.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, sir. Yes, sir.