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
#265 Throwback Episode: Jonathan Leonardo
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We trace Jonathan Leonardo’s journey from Adventist upbringing and party-driven identity to a sudden, undeniable encounter with the gospel that makes “God loves me” real. Along the way, we name how theology can mask bondage, how fear of being hurt shapes relationships, and how the Holy Spirit turns sonship into actual freedom.
• growing up between the Dominican Republic, New York, and Massachusetts with Adventism as a defining culture
• learning to speak and preach early while still feeling personally disconnected from God
• building identity around being cool, being wanted, and avoiding vulnerability
• the Red Cup college years, honest excuses, and the slow dulling of conviction
• a seed planted through a new reading of Moses and Scripture’s “failures”
• Micronesia, Ellen White, and the first real hope that God uses weak people
• switching to theology for curiosity while keeping a double life
• public confession while preaching and the weight of hypocrisy
• Australia bus tours and hundreds of short gospel talks that sharpen his voice
• grad school and PhD ambition feeding pride and masking insecurity about the gospel
• being confronted by the question “Do you know the gospel”
• the relationship conflict that forces the double-minded life into the open
• a YouTube message that breaks intellectual pride and reveals Holy Spirit power
• “God loves me” as revelation, freedom from lust, and new power to live clean
• reframing sin, flesh, and identity as beloved sons and daughters with an advocate
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Internet Church Invite And Banter
SPEAKER_03Before we jump into all the juicy details of today's death to life story, we want to talk to you about internet church. Rich, what is internet church?
SPEAKER_08Oh, it's only the best internet gathering this side of the Kailua River. Is the Kailua River a thing? Maybe we should start over. Let's do it again as we begin.
SPEAKER_03No, let's leave it in no no no let's talk about internet church.
SPEAKER_08Uh, internet church. Actually, it's a thing we do every other Friday night where we all gather together, uh, encourage the saints in truth. It's uplifting, it's edifying, it's just a time to gather for about an hour on a Friday night or day, depending what part of the world you're in, just to be encouraged by the saints. You you think you would like something like that? Is the Pope Catholic? Uh, you bet your sweet Bippy the Pope is Catholic. And uh just an internet church is all about gospel freedom.
SPEAKER_03It's good. I'm trying to think of the follow-up question.
SPEAKER_08Oh, I'm like, man, this thing is lagging.
SPEAKER_03Alright, if no, absolutely love it. So if you were to get a What are we going for?
SPEAKER_08Are we trying to be funny or are we trying to be serious? I don't know.
SPEAKER_03It's whatever. I we're trying to let people know that I'm not as gifted as you are in this department, my friend.
SPEAKER_08So join us every other Friday night, eight o'clock central, six o'clock Pacific, nine o'clock eastern.
SPEAKER_03If you are international and want to add that to your calendar so you don't have to do all the time conversions, head on over to lovereality.org slash circles and add the internet church circle to your calendar.
SPEAKER_06Are we starting the podcast now?
SPEAKER_08Oh, we've been on the podcast, my brother. All right, what's up, everybody? It's your boy Rich. We're doing a throwback episode today.
SPEAKER_07This might be my favorite one. I know I've got about 20 that I would say that about, but I love this episode. If you haven't heard it in a while, listen to it today. You'll be so encouraged. Um it's uh it's a blessing. So um, yeah, check it out. Don't don't skip this one. This is this is one of them ones. Love y'all, appreciate y'all.
SPEAKER_06Man, I am so jacked. I just found out who the podcast guest is. Uh, and it's actually Jonathan Leonardo, um, who is one of the founders of the Love Reality uh ministry. And uh, we've probably heard his name several times in a lot of these podcasts um just because of the way that the gospel works, um, and he's been preaching it for a while now. And I think it's gonna be really, really, really cool for us all to be able to hear his story of death to life. Uh, we've heard a lot of stories of the fruit of the ministry um that that he's been stewarding that God's given him um just in our lives. Like y'all heard the impact of one conversation I had with him several years ago in the first episode. Um, and it just what a privilege. And so, yeah, you're gonna get to interview him. Are you you know yeah, man?
SPEAKER_08I haven't even interviewed him yet. You're doing the promo. It's like usually I do the interview and then I'm uh like, man, there's so much life in this story. Uh I'm anticipating
Throwback Setup And Guest Tease
SPEAKER_08there's gonna be some there's gonna be some death from the beast. The little that I do know, there's gonna be some death. But then there's gonna be some life. So um that said, man, what do we do? Let's not keep them waiting. Yeah, buckle up, strap in.
SPEAKER_06They can't see my face, but I'm doing this one. The face that sounds like this.
SPEAKER_08All right, appreciate y'all. Please love y'all.
SPEAKER_02Yo, Richard, are you about to do the podcast?
SPEAKER_00Don't put the light no cloud, you know. Don't give me light no cloud, you know, just put a light note.
SPEAKER_02All right, what's up?
SPEAKER_08Jonathan Leonardo, bro. Um, man, give me just uh the background, like where where where did you grow up? Where where were you born? Where'd you grow up? Like, we'll just jump through this real quick.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was born in the Dominican Republic, and I spent my first couple of years in between Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. So my dad was a um uh minister at the time. And so he was one, a student in Antillian College, which is uh Seventh day Adventist College in Puerto Rico, and then he was also doing some ministry work in Dominican Republic. So my first few years went between that. Uh by the time I was four, um, I think my dad had a crisis of faith. Not I think, I know he had a crisis of faith. And at that same time, my grandma had been petitioning for my family to come over from Dominican Republic over to the States. And my auntie was already living in the States, um, and this was my mother's sister. And my father was in his crisis of faith, wanted to transition out of ministry work, I think it was. And yeah, by the time I was four, I think he saw an opportunity to move the family to kind of start fresh, maybe leave the old hangups of the faith behind. And so at four years old, came to the U.S. and spent the next few years in New York City, in uh Queens, uh New York City, and spent, you know, I was there until maybe I was about six or seven, I
Dominican Roots And Adventist Upbringing
SPEAKER_02think it was. And yeah, by the time I was seven, uh at this time my dad had actually fully left the faith. And my parents were splitting up. And me, my sister, and my mother moved from New York City to a small town outside of Boston, about 28, 30 miles, I think, outside of Boston. Um, little town called Clinton, Massachusetts. If you're from Clinton, you never say Clinton, you always say Clinton. So Clinton, Massachusetts. Um, and in Clinton, uh I spent there from what, seven, maybe seven years old to about 16. And Clinton is next to a small town, a smaller town called South Lancaster. And South Lancaster has an Adventist college, at least it did. That was Atlantic Union College. So I grew up going to uh the Adventist campus there, like all my.
SPEAKER_08I think Ellen White has a crib there, right?
SPEAKER_02I think so. Yeah, I think I mean, you know, we have a famous chapel on campus called Miller Chapel, where I think she preached from, and like all the stories of early Adventist pioneers and being Adventists, you know, we grew up in this faith tradition called Seventh-day Adventism, and all the early believers, all the quote-unquote pioneers, those who started the denomination, uh had really deep ties to the New England area, which I grew up in. So I grew up super entrenched in Adventist um history and theology. I remember being in sixth grade and I was going to the Adventist school. My mom had transitioned us from public school to the Adventist school, and uh we were learning about early Adventist history, and in the book, it had it said something about the Miller Chapel. And I remember sitting in class, and my teacher's like, okay, now students, look out the window, and you can see the Miller Chapel right over there on this hill. And from the vantage point of my desk in the sixth grade classroom, we could see the Miller Chapel just, you know, maybe 300 yards away on a hill. And so uh Adventism uh was really much uh a part of not only like my life, but it was just everything I was in and around as a kid. So yeah, man, Dominican Republic, New York City, Boston, Adventism. Bam.
SPEAKER_08Mercy. Man, so uh God, what what was I mean, when was God starting to become a real thing? Because um I I met you when you were a long way away from uh Massachusetts. I met you when you were uh an academy or a high school academy student in Arkansas. Um talk to me about getting to Arkansas. Is this the time when God started becoming something, or was it before then? What what was God to you in this in these formative years?
SPEAKER_02So I think early on I had had a conception of the grand scheme of like God's plan in the world, and not that I understood any of it, but that that I had an appreciation for there being a cosmic scope to life. And I remember being 10 years old and just really sort of deciding that the fundamental question that I could answer for my life was what's the relationship uh of humanity to God, right? Like, how do people relate to God? And and I probably couldn't articulate it that way as a 10-year-old, but I just knew in the deepest part of me that the the one fundamental question you had to answer for your life is this question of God. How do I stand before God? Is there a God? And if there is a God, what is he like? And you know, what's his plan, not only for my life, but for like everybody else? Because I would remember, I remember I was a kid and I would sit around and think things like, is everybody else a robot? And this is just some huge video game, or am I real
Early Questions About God And Meaning
SPEAKER_02and they're real too? Because if they're real too, then there has to be a plan for their life. So thinking along those lines, I remember getting involved in not so much involved, maybe, but being really captivated by theology and the way people would explain um the plan of God. So by 10 years old, I'm already like attuned or bent towards that. Um by the time I'm I think maybe even my 10-year-old self was the first time I preached. Like, you know, they have like the youth day at church, and they're like, who can we get? And they get like four kids to go up there and give like 12 or 15-minute sermons. And I remember doing that. Um, by the time I was 12, I remember I preached my first sermon at at the college church itself. Um, at the college church of Atlanta Union College, they had one of those days, and again, I was selected, and I remember 12 years old, eighth grade, 12, 13, something like that. And I'm preaching at the college church and talking about believing God as creator, right? And so I was bent that way, I was geared that way. I was always class pastor growing up, and not because I was super spiritual, but more so just because my language, the way I thought about things, the way I would ask questions always lent itself to like theology. So by the time you and I meet in Arkansas, um I was in Arkansas because of four choices in my first two years of academy. And then my mom was like, We gotta get you out of here. Right? It was like a fresh, fresh print sort of dick. Yeah, yeah. My mom, she literally sent me to a school where my auntie was on the board. She's like, We're sending you to your auntie in Arkansas. And so that's where we met. But even there in Arkansas, man, I just had this sort of sense of there is this grand cosmic thing that's at play, and God is really trying to solve some issues. But I never saw my personal relationship to it in truth. I never saw how it got to the depths in the heart of me as a person, but I just knew that I was part of this tradition and this big old thing that was happening. So I was always open to theology, but never really like me personally. You know, you have those mountaintop experiences where you go to a prayer conference or you're at some week of prayer and you're like, oh my God, I feel it all, yeah, yeah, right. But if I'm honest now, at this vantage point in life, I never really felt something super deep as much as I got caught up in certain moments, and then you know, I would throw out all my rap CDs, and then a week later I would find them all.
SPEAKER_08Like it was never you think your pop had an influence on you deciding maybe I'll try this preaching thing, or was this just since he had his fallout with whatever, was this not having anything to do with him at all?
SPEAKER_02Nah, you know, it was never really on my radar because my pops was never really um somebody that I looked to for guidance. I'm a mama's boy, so everything went through mom. And by the time my pops left, you know, I was he was already out of the picture by the time I was like five or six. And so I've never looked to my dad for any sort of direction or any leading, you know. That's what I tell people as a grown man, I recognize that there's holes in my life that a masculine figure could have filled, and that masculine figure wasn't present, but I never looked at my pops for that. So my sense of theology, my sense of spiritual direction is always from my mom. My mom was having worship twice a day at um at the house in the morning and in the evening. My mama, I remember we lived in a two-story apartment. Um, and my mother's bedroom and my sister's bedroom was upstairs, and my bedroom was downstairs. And I remember I would, in the middle of the night, go from my bedroom up to the bathroom, which was upstairs. And on my way upstairs, I would peek into my mama's bedroom, 2-3 in the morning, and she would be on her knees with her hands raised, praying and interceding for me and my sister. So my mom was always the like the spiritual backbone. She was the one that was always sort of cultivating um spiritual things. So yeah, I never looked towards my pops, and it was never an absence of my pop. Um, I think I had a natural tendency towards speaking. Uh it came really, really natural to me. So by the time somebody asked me to, I was willing to. So yeah, it was my mom's, not my pops.
SPEAKER_03Jesus said, and you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Now, there's a couple things that we want to point out. Truth sets you free insomuch that you know it. And this is why every single week we have multiple Bible study groups, we call them circles, so that people like you can come and be exposed to the good news that sets you free, so that you can walk in it and be able to live out the righteousness that is yours. If you've been hearing this podcast
Mom’s Prayers And A Split Home
SPEAKER_03for a couple of weeks or months up to this point, and you're thinking, how in the world do I have the same level of transformation? Well, one of the ways that you could explore more is by going over to lovereality.org slash circles to plug into one of our many Bible study offerings. That's loverality.org slash circles.
SPEAKER_08Did you want to be like a good dude? Did you want to like like did you even think of this?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's such a good question. I always tell people now, I'm like, I'm not a man with too many ambitions. Like I never had, I'm I'm not an ambitious dude. Like, I want to do this, I want to do that. And when it came to things with God, the only thing I ever prayed, I think, if I remember right, I was always praying, you know, God, give me a heart like yours. Because if the question that to be answered is what's my standing before God, and if you're gonna secure it, I just thought, well, I need to be like whatever God wants me to be. And if he wants me to be like him, at least that's the kind of what I picked up along the way, then I just want a heart like his. And you know, that story of David and that prayer of David gets thrown around, or maybe I shouldn't say thrown around, but it gets remarked on and prioritized and communicated also often that I thought to myself, yeah, that's good enough. I want to, I want that. So God give me a heart like yours. And then I thought that the more and more I learned about God in a theological sense, maybe I can catch a revelation or get closer. What I knew I didn't want was I didn't want to be a religious dude. I didn't want to do rote, like like rote acts. I didn't want to just go to church because I had to. I didn't want to dress this way because I had to. I didn't want to have this diet because I had to. I didn't want to abstain from pleasures because I had to. So I made that decision early on that I wasn't gonna deny myself, but I also wanted to have a heart after God. And that was my only ambition. My only thing I wanted was a heart like God, but at the same time, I also wanted to do my own thing. And so I came to this place where um I decided that if God wasn't gonna give me a heart like his, I was willing to keep praying for it, and maybe it would happen later in life, but until then I would do my thing. And if he came in the clouds, if he had like his appearing, his second coming, then we had an understanding. Like, hey man, I prayed for it and I didn't get it, and I instead pursued what I wanted to pursue. And if that means that I spent eternity apart from you, then so be it. Like I'm willing to, you know, uh endure the consequences of my actions. So I was really sort of logical about it, but um, yeah, man, all I wanted was to have right standing with God, but not because I had some deep sense of guilt or some deep sense of shame or I was hyper ambitious. I just thought it was not even practically expedient, I just thought it was the truth of things. If God exists, you want to be in agreement with him. But if my desires lead me otherwise, I'm not gonna not give myself permission. So I'll let him work it out, what I've so I just went about my life, man.
SPEAKER_08So it sounds like it was almost all on him. And if he didn't show up and give you the heart and you were wilding out, well, you asked him. Was that some kind of way to get out of it?
SPEAKER_02Um I I don't know if it was, man, because I'm trying to remember how I used to think back then, but I I know that I never felt bad about feeling bad. I I you know how you the shame, guilt, and like I'm such a wretched sinner. I never felt that. I was just like, I mean, we all sin, and I'm trying to, I'm trying to do this here thing, so I'm not gonna feel bad about it. I don't care. So I tell people like, after Arkansas and after high school, you know, you and I met, I I went to college because of the Red Cup parties. Like, yo, why'd you choose this college over the other one? Well, I chose the college I went to because one, I got a a scholarship to play baseball. And then two, it was the cheapest college, uh, Adventist college that um I could afford. And three, I heard there was crazy parties. So I was like, yeah, I'm I'm going because, you know, like, and I didn't feel bad about that. I'm going because I'm gonna have the American college experience within this Adventist context. I'm gonna do my thing, whatever life pans out, cool. Again, not too many ambitions. The only thing I thought was, at some point I'll figure this God thing out, probably. But until then, I'm gonna have a good time. And and and and and here's another thing, Rich, and this will sound crazy that I knew from jump, probably from the time I was nine, ten years old, like I had an inkling on the inside that my life was already accounted for and I would end up doing evangelism. Like, I knew that from the time I was 10. But I didn't know how it was gonna play out, what it was gonna play out, and I wasn't pursuing it. So when I got to college, it was Don, what are you gonna major in? And I was like, well, I want to travel, so and I want to travel internationally, so it has to be international, and I want to have enough money to travel and not worry about money. So maybe I should do some business or something. So I I chose international business as my major simply because of that idea. Like I had no, you know, I mean this podcast would be too long to talk about all the guidance and instruction that I received as a kid because I did. I had godly people in my church that instructed us to get education. I grew up in Massachusetts, like most colleges and universities
Red Cups Identity And Conscience
SPEAKER_02per capita in the US or something. Like I grew up reading tons of books, education was always prioritized. Like I was a fairly literate kid, like I love books, and I was all about, you know, but I never connected that to career or ambition, or like it just never crossed my mind. I I didn't connect the two. And I probably didn't connect the two because I was so already, I think, like somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I would end up doing evangelism ministry something. So I was like, man, until that thing manifests itself, I'll just you know go to these red cup parties and do my thing.
SPEAKER_08So it was really just man, our stories are so our stories are so different. Because like if I would have seen a red cup, guilt, condemnation, and shame, or they're oh, I'm at a party and they have a red cup. You were just doing your thing and kind of waiting. Um were there stops along the way where you're just like, ah man, I'm going a little far here, or was it just like whatever's clever? I'm gonna go where it takes me. I mean, there was the conscience thing. Like, did you ever feel like ah this is this is this is getting a little out of hand? Or because we've all heard the the Mexico story, like are any of these stories, like any of this stuff happened where you're just like I need to pump the brakes.
SPEAKER_02Uh I only felt I only felt that when it hurt other people. Right? So if in my pursuing my own deal, it hurt other people, then I was like, oh man, I don't want to hurt other people. So it's very much you know the hedonistic sort of idea where like I could pursue pleasure and I could pursue my own desires as long as I don't hurt other people. I don't want to hurt other people. And that was that was the the the the the line. If it began to take advantage and hurt other people, I couldn't do that. And so I'll give you an example. Like I had friends in college that would just lie to females, they would lie to females in order to, you know, get what they wanted. And I remember thinking to myself, like, I can't lie, like I cannot lie to a female in order to you know satisfy some sort of desire because it's just disingenuous, it feels icky and gross. I cannot do that. So I would tell the truth, and I would just tell the unvarnished naked truth of things. But then in saying the unvarnished naked truth, it was the way of deceiving myself away from responsibility, right? So in that way, I would shield myself from feeling bad because I'd be like, oh no, well, I'm telling the truth, I'm telling them what's up, I'm telling them like I'm not trying to be your man or nothing. Like, we can kick it, have a good time. Um so because of that, I had like, I think probably built up strategies and different ways to not allow myself to feel bad. But I'll tell you this, every single night, I think even in college, every single night, and I tell people this uh in the in that spot where you're almost asleep, but you're still kind of awake, like I would sense the Lord speak to me every single night. And I would say my prayers before I went to bed, and I would sense him there and sense him speaking to me, either instruction or like, hey man, you really need to be thinking about what you're doing. And I would have that moment of reflection of like, oh man, I shouldn't be doing this or I shouldn't be doing that. Not because I felt bad, like I hear people like feeling bad. Um, but more so for me, it was because I knew that it probably wasn't the best thing to be doing, but I didn't know any other way. And so I wanted to do better, maybe, but I liked what I was doing. I knew it probably wasn't the best, but I didn't see a way out. So I was really kind of heady about it. I was in my head about it. It wasn't probably till later that I started going down the road of despair, but that's a little later in the story. But yeah, at the college, the college, this is where my head was at, man. I just I didn't want to hurt people, but I wanted to gratify my own will and pleasure and desire, and I just didn't feel bad. I felt bad about not feeling bad.
SPEAKER_08So I'm not asking you if you had a good self-esteem. I think we're establishing you had you felt pretty solidly about yourself. But where did your value come from? Was it baseball? Was it what was where was your value coming from at this point in your life in college where you're figuring some stuff out about yourself?
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, man, I always talk about um the way I grew up, it was you can identify through three things. You could be uh a thug, you could be like that dude from the streets, you could be the uh a sports, you know, you could be the sports guy, you could be the ball player, you could be a ladies' man. Like the neighborhood I grew up in, that's what it was about. I remember I was like 15 years old and I saw some guys around me, they were starting to get a little money, and I found out that they were selling weed. And I remember I had a friend of mine who had just moved from um out of state. I want to say I I don't want to give any identify identifying markers, but he had moved out of state and uh moved from out of state to Massachusetts, him and some siblings, and they had a connection to get some weed and sell it in the neighborhood or sell it around town. I was listening man, I I really, I really want to do this. And I remember he looked at me and he was like, Jonathan, like you're not like you're not cut out for that. I'm 15, 16 years old, and he's he's older, but you know, late, late teens or maybe early 20s. And he's like, listen, man, you're a church boy, you're not cut up for this, right? And uh he was absolutely right. I did not have any sort of I wasn't cut from that cloth, right? I saw uh I saw people fighting in my neighborhood, and I was like, oh no, I want no, no, no, no, no. Like getting really aggressive. Oh no, no, no. So I was a church boy, couldn't do that. Um ball playing, I was a fairly okay ball player, right? By Adventist standards, right? And then I got around some real ball players, and I was like, oh no, I'm not good at ball. Not in comparison to these real ball players, right? Like even the school I went to in Southwestern, Southwestern, we had some really good ball players, man. There were some guys that were tremendous ball players, man. And um, I'd play with them and they were just so much better. I was like, Yeah, I'm not good at ball, but I was good with I could run my mouth, and I was uh, you know, I wasn't ugly. And so being a ladies man then became the alternative. And by ladies' man, you know, it's just having a good time and how they say, you know, the notches on the bedpost type deal. So I was like, oh yeah, I guess I could do that. So my identity started to get built around that, and my identity was built um around being part of the cool kids. Like, I want to be part of the cool kids. Whoever the cool kids were on campus, I wanted to be in that. I wanted um to satisfy my desires, and if um people caught notice of me, then let it be for me being the sort of dude that's just, you know, he's cool, he's good with the ladies. Like Johnson's a cool dude, man. Let's invite Jonathan, like that sort of deal, right? Like I wasn't looking for too much. Um I certainly didn't want to be outside of the in crowd, but I wasn't trying to be like the coolest dude in the in crowd. I was just trying to be in the in crowd and just, you know, have a good time, man.
SPEAKER_08So when uh I have a feeling you didn't graduate with international business. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. What happened with that?
SPEAKER_02So my first two years in college, I was partying hard and just hanging out with my boys. Uh by the end of my sophomore year, I think I had like a I want to say a 1.9 GPA. Not great. Not great, not great. And uh there were some events that transpired where the school was not keen on having me on campus, right? Uh there were some incidents with very big parties that either I hosted or was a key part of that the school caught wind of, and they're like, nah, this kid should not be on our campus, or he should have a respite. And so I was coming to the end of that sort of you know, Red Cup life. I was about 20 years old. I was like, I'm not sure that this is the path to success. I need to really think about this. So um I went back to Massachusetts for summer and try to get uh a job at summer camp, and summer camp was full. The summer camp that I had previously worked at was full. They had enough staff, so I couldn't return there. I couldn't return back to school because probably wasn't the best place for me. So I ended up set selling cutcoat knives for a little bit, and I was selling cutcoat knives. I absolutely hated it because I don't know people who can afford uh a case of knives for $2,000, right? Like that's not the sort of people I grew up around. Right. And I actually went on a cutcoat knife call with somebody, with like they pair you up, and I went on a call with somebody, and they went to this the local funeral homeowner in our town. Uh, this girl knew him, and we went on a call and she like presents the cut coach spiel. And he's like, Yeah, yeah,
Broke Summer Knives And A Seed
SPEAKER_02I'll take two sets, right? And the two sets that he took were worth 2,000 bucks a pop. And she was at that place where I think she could she could have 50% of her earnings because you know it's like pyramid. And so, like in 10 minutes of presenting, he's like, Yeah, I'll take both of these, and she made $2,000. And I'm standing there like, I don't know people like this. Like, people I'm around, they got colored money. You know, back in the 90s, early 2000s, before EBT cards, you know, food stamps was on like that purple or the colored money. Like, that's the sort of people I know. They don't buy any knives off of me. So I started getting frustrated. And that's when I started crying out to God, like, listen, if you got a plan for my life, you need to make it clear. Because right now, I can't be selling these knives. All I know is broke people, and I cannot be having a 1.9 GPA. This is not this is not the path for success. I was like, um, I need something. And through a series of events, I ended up uh spending a week at camp. Like I was able to go to my summer camp, and during that week, I met this guy who was talking gospel in a way I'd never heard. I remember he mentioned um Moses, and he said Moses had an ego problem because Moses was always concerned with himself. His first 40 years, he was concerned with him being a prince of Egypt, and then the next 40 years, he was concerned with how little he could actually trust his abilities, right? So that by the time God calls him, uh Moses is all about himself, right? He's like, oh no, I'm not good enough at this point. And the point of the story is that it's not about Moses, whether when he was a prince or whether when he was a shepherd, it was always about God, the God that Moses uh served, and the God that actually saw Moses as worthy of stewarding God's revelation. Now I remember I'm sitting there with this dude's talking about it. I'm like, what in the world? Like I've never heard these stories in this way, because the way I had heard them growing up is like, be a Moses who who rebuffed and turned his back on Egypt, right? Be a Daniel, who dared greatly be Joseph, who ran from sexual uh uh temptation. And you know, in my life, I was like, nope, can never be Joseph, because I'm yo if if I'm in Joseph's situation, I'm asking for forgiveness. I ain't running, right? You know what I'm saying? It's after the fact. Like Moses, nah, dog, if you got a bucket full of riches, I'ma spend the cash and then I'm gonna ask for forgiveness and tell Jesus I'm sorry afterwards. And if it's Daniel, I ain't really trying to, I'm not trying to be up in no den with no lion. So everybody's telling you, be Daniel, be Moses, be this, be that. And I'm like, and I'm constantly seeing my life falling short, but I'm still believing that God has a plan. So that's why I'm like, well, God, if you have a plan, then do your thing. But as I'm hearing this guy talk about Moses, I'm like, I've never heard somebody talk about the gospel, the Bible characters is abject failures. Right? And so as I'm listening to him, I'm like, what? And that planted a seed. That one week then at 20 years old planting planted a seed, and through some events, you know, it's too long to go into, but through some through some things that happened, I ended up um as a student missionary in Micronesia that following year. I didn't go.
SPEAKER_08You know, this a little this happened, a little that happened. I'm in Micronesia.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because I couldn't go back to school. I certainly didn't want to sell knives. I was like, yo, what can I do? They were like, yo, you could be a student missionary. And I was like, bet that. I'm gonna go be a student missionary somewhere I could go learn how to surf. And that's what I did. I ended up in Madro in Micronesia, and um I I was I bought a surfboard in Hawaii, got out the Micronesia, and while I was out in Micronesia at the school in Madro, uh the apartment I was staying in, uh, somebody had left a book behind. And the book they had left behind was this book called Patriarchs and Prophets by this woman named Ellen White. Ellen White is one of it. Ellen White is one of the uh main kind of pioneers of our church. We believe that she had um the gift of the spirit of prophecy, not that everything she says went, but that she received revelations through the spirit for the sake of uh a community. And this book she had written called Patriarchs and Prophets, uh, I picked it up, and it's the first time that I'm reading the story of these Bible characters in the same way that that dude back at camp had been talking about. Like, they're a bunch of failures. Like Abraham's a liar, uh Adam was weak, right? Um David is yeah, he does the music thing and he has a valiant heart, but this dude cannot say he he got a thing for the ladies, and he cannot stop being a warmonger, like warlord. Um and you know, Noah got himself a little drunk. Uh so all these stories are in these sort of really raw lies, like just raw. And I'm reading this, I'm like, hold the phone, you telling me these are the dudes we've been reading about my whole life? Why ain't nobody telling me these were a bunch of punks? Like these dudes are a bunch of punks. Because as I'm reading this book, and it's like, you know, it's it's it's uh patriarchs and prophets is all about the old testament, so it's just telling the story of the about the patriarchs and the prophets, hence the title, right? And um as I'm reading this, it's the first time that I'm seeing these dudes is just like me. I'm like, you telling me that this dude loved the red cups? You telling me this dude loved the ladies? You telling me this other dude was like ambivalent and didn't really
Micronesia And Seeing Bible Failures
SPEAKER_02have ambitions in life? Like, yo, that's me. And then as I'm reading this book, I'm seeing that, yo, God could do something with these guys. And I started going in confidence. I'm like, yo, if God could do something with these guys, then for sure he could do something with me. And um, there was a a man named, I think his name was Saul, which is really fitting. His name's Saul. He was uh an Egyptian, if I remember right, he was Egyptian and he was a Bible teacher. Well, he was just a like a leader at the church there where I was, and I would go to Sabbath school with him. And Sabbath school is like Sunday school, but for Adventists, since we go to church on Saturday, Sabbath, right? We call it Sabbath school. So instead of being at Sunday school, I was at Sabbath school. And being at Sabbath school, this guy would start breaking down God as this God who loves the weak, who loves those who can do nothing for themselves. And I'm listening to this dude, and I'm like, what? You telling me God doesn't require something from us, but he empowers us wherever we're at? And he's like, Yeah, man. He's like breaking it down. I'm like, nah, dog, what Bible are you reading? Because I grew up, like I grew up in a really loving community. Like I grew up in the best sort of church looking back. Like my church was the best. But I grew up with that notion that God wanted something from me. And my heart posture was always like, well, if you want this, like you have to make it happen. Because I can't. So I'm gonna be over here with these red cups. But this is the first time I'm hearing that it's not that God wants something from me. It's like he wants to do something through me and with me and requires nothing from me, just like the willingness. I remember this is hitting, and you know, I'm growing out my hair and I'm losing weight because I'm in the water every day surfing, and like, you know, I'm just having like this transformative experience, right? I went I went there dressed in baggy jeans. I came back from that experience with like a shell necklace and tight t-shirts, right? And so I got back to Southwestern, my my university, and my friends are like, yo, what the heck happened to you? And I'm like, yo, God, like, God. Now I didn't have like a transformation, but more of that seed, that seed had been watered. And I remember I walked into like my academic advisor's um office, and I was like, yo, I'm switching my major, doing theology, right? It was, and you know that story, Rich, where you have like that that big time experience, like I'm changing my whole life. And so I left international business behind and started doing theology. But I did theology not because I wanted to be a pastor or be a minister, because I still didn't want any of that, but I just wanted to know more about this God that I had first started encountering back in Micronesia. So I did it out of sheer curiosity. I did not do it because I was trying to get a career, right? Because for some reason I never ever worried about my career. I've never been career-minded ever. Like people talk about career, even now, almost 40 years old, and people are like, oh yeah, my career. That's a foreign word to me. Like, I just don't think that way.
SPEAKER_08And so um I that's hilarious.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I get my I get I transfer, and they're like, well, Jonathan, you're gonna have to be here another like year on top of the two you have left. And that would make me a super, super senior because I had a year of service in Micronesia, and then I got two years left, my junior and senior year. And since I've switched majors, then it's gonna add another year. So that means college is gonna be the best six years of my life. And I'm like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Can't have that, because my pride and my sense of self would not allow me to spend six years in college. Like, it's one thing to have a 1.9 GPA, yeah, whatever. But six years in college, no, I will not abide that, right? Like that struck of my sense of pride. Um, because you know, and aside, I never saw my GPA as a mark of intelligence. Like, I was never
Switching To Theology Without Surrender
SPEAKER_02worried about no GPA, right? Like, because if I ever wanted to study for something, I could ace an exam real quick if I just studied for a couple hours. I just never wanted to study because I'd rather go to a party. So I knew I was capable. I was just like indifferent. It wasn't even lazy. It was just I had other things to do. It's not that I was a lazy dude, it's just that I'd rather do other things with my time. I don't want to study about no Western Civ when I love Western Civ, and I'll read a history book and I'll watch documentaries and like, but I don't want to read this textbook for this test because this is dumb. Of course, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and uh Brutus murdered him on the Ides of March. Like of course Romulus and Remus began the Roman Empire. Like, of course, you know, the Archduke Ferdinand was murdered in uh uh what is it, 1914, and it precipitated the the initiation of the first world war. Like all of these things, right? Of course the Great Schism happened in 1014, and like, yeah, man, like you know what I'm saying? Like, like, yeah, I got that. You know? Um and not 1014, excuse me, 1054, right? You see, I catch myself. I'm doing the work. Like, I mean, okay, yeah, but like, all right, John, to take this test. I was like, A, B, C, D, E, E, F, you know, like back and forth, acrostics, right? Christmas tree. Christmas tree, dog. And like, well, if I got a C, I was happy, but most of the times it was D's and F's. I didn't care, whatever. So, um, but I could- But now you're now you're a theology student. Now I'm a theology student. And here was the thing. They said the reason you have to stay an extra year is because you have to split, you gotta do the languages. You gotta do Hebrew and Greek in different years. And I was like, nah, I ain't doing that. I'm gonna do them both in the same year. So I took Hebrew and Greek the same year against everybody's advice, so that I could graduate on time because it hit my pride. And this is where me and Will Murphy became really close and really good friends because we went to college together and we were like part-time roommates because I lived about 25 minutes from the college, and sometimes I wouldn't want to go to uh home at night, so I would stay in Will's room, and Will would always make fun of me because I was always working on my Gree Brew, that's what he called it, the Gree Brew. He's like, Yo, Jonathan's always on that Gree Brew because I was doing Greek and Hebrew at the same time. He's like, My man Jonathan on that grew. So I I hit it hard, bro. Came back from Micronesia, changed my um major, uh, hit Greek and Hebrew hard the first year, um, started getting real deep into theology, and I went from a 1.9 GPA uh my first two years to being able to ace uh well, I think I got a B in Hebrew and an A in Greek for the whole year, and then uh yeah, just going hard. And uh yeah, that was like the last two years of college doing a lot of theology.
SPEAKER_08Did you leave the Red Cups behind?
SPEAKER_02No, no, I was that theology major that was like doing Greek and Hebrew all week, and then I was at the parties on the weekend.
SPEAKER_08So when someone's like, you know, the classic, why are you even here? You were a theology major. How would you roll with that?
SPEAKER_02I was really honest. I was like, I'm here for the ladies. Just like you, homeboy.
SPEAKER_08And they're feeling salty.
SPEAKER_02And they're like, yo, but you shouldn't be here. And I'm like, yeah, I know, but I am, so you know, go kick a rock. But most of my homeboys were super cool, man. Like, most of my homeboys were they weren't vibe, they weren't pressing me up on it. Because I rolled with some dudes that like, yeah, it was just not, it was just not what nobody was worried about that. Like the dudes I I hung out with, nobody's worried about that. All the dudes I hung out with just really cool. Like, I was thankful for the the friends I had in college because they were just cool. They never pressed me hard on that stuff. And may and maybe they should have, but I'm glad they didn't.
SPEAKER_08So what it but and it what did it do to you? Did you ever go home and be like, why am I at this party?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I absolutely had those moments, you know, but they were few and not few and far between, but they were just never it was they're getting duller in your mind as you're going through, right? Um no, I think it was just a clear understanding that I can't do better. Like I personally can't do better. So why not that why try? Right? It wasn't defeatists, it was just a recognition that I can't do better. Like everybody else around me is trying to do better. And I'm like, y'all, all that trying is gonna lead you back to this party, or y'all. Going to become these funny legalists on campus that are like, I'm trying to get victory over sin and I'm I'm dressing different and I have this tie, and we're gonna proclaim and we're gonna work hard, we're gonna pray hard, and then I'm gonna catch you at a party in six months because the weight of it is gonna get too much. So again, it was really practical in my head. Like, I'm not doing that, yo. And plus, my again, this is me lying to myself, but thinking I'm telling the truth, right? I am not in theology school to be a pastor. I'm in theology school because I'm curious. Like it's very, it's very intellectual for me. I'm not here because I'm trying to be a Seventh-day Adventist pastor. Like, I have no interest in being Seventh day Adventist pastor. I have every interest in pursuing like God and understanding him at a theological level. So, like, yo, Jonathan, why are you at this party? I ain't trying to be a pastor. Or why aren't you in theology? Because I'm curious, you know, like it's an area of study.
SPEAKER_08What a cop-out and what a perfect excuse.
SPEAKER_02No, dog, it worked all the time until then, you know, I won like uh I was selected by my classmates to be the preacher for um, so you have a year-long homiletics class, and homiletics is like the art of preaching. And I was selected by my peers to be the guy who preached at um an annual Vespers that we had. And it was a pretty big honor to be the one selected, right? And so I was selected, and I remember I went up there and I preached my little heart out, dude. I think I preached on Judges uh four, if I think right, like uh Barrick and Deborah. And I preached my little heart out, bro. And I'm up there just going, and I remember feeling coming under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and I apologized from the front to the university church or the college, no, the university, the university church packed with students on a Friday night. I apologized for being a hypocrite because they too many of them knew I y'all have seen me at parties, and here I am preaching. I apologize from up front for being a hypocrite. But then I said, But if God could use me, he can use all of us. And I just went in. And I remember after I got done preaching, I made an altar call, people came up, the music was playing, the whole thing. And I remember I walked off the stage at um Keen, Keen, it's in Keene, Texas, um, the university, the university church there. I remember I walked off the stage into this hallway that's like for the people on the platform when you're on there on the stage, you know, I exited. And I remember, yo, I fell under the power and conviction of the Holy Spirit, and I just started weeping and weeping and weeping and weeping, and just like this release and tension in my body, and I did not know what was happening, but it was just coming out of me, bro, just weeping, weeping, weeping,
Preaching Hypocrisy And Unexpected Conviction
SPEAKER_02weeping, weeping crying, crying, crying. But it was like these tears of relief and like this heart that was, I couldn't quite call it thankful, but it was just release. But it was also release and recognizing that I had named something that was true, that I had been living in this hypocrisy, right? And not not willfully, I guess willfully, yeah, but from deception. Like I didn't know better. And so I remember my professor um came up to me afterwards.
SPEAKER_08Hold on, did you plan on confessing that? No, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_02Extemporaneous, I think. I think extemporaneous. I can't remember. I'm pretty sure it was extra, I think maybe I wanted to acknowledge the fact that, like, I know some of y'all see me running around partying, but you know, I got chosen to preach, so I'm gonna preach. I was I was gonna do that same thing where I was gonna be really matter-of-fact about everything.
SPEAKER_05Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02But it came out as an honest confession, and I remember looking at certain guys that I had partied with and apologizing to them from the front. I was like, I'm sorry for not like being a person of integrity. I was like, I don't know how. Like I was just straight up, I was like, I don't know how. Yeah, but I was straight up honest, and I remember my professor came up to me afterwards, he put his hand on me and he just said this. He's like, Jonathan, you have the mantle. It's obvious you have the mantle. And I was like, I didn't really know what that word meant right there. I think I looked it up. I was like, what does it mean? I have the mantle. Like it sounds like, and I then I understood it was like a reference to Elijah and Elisha when uh, you know, the authority or the the prophet is transferred over.
SPEAKER_08So did you get a job? Did a conference pick you up?
SPEAKER_02Oh no, bro. So conferences come to conferences are like the state employers for pastors within the Adventist denomination, and they recruit at different schools, so it's kind of you know, it's just employment recruiting. And so um when some of the state conferences, which again are the administrative bodies for state um communities of Adventist churches, when they came, uh I skipped that day on purpose. I skipped class. I was like, I'm out. Was it because you were scared? Yeah, man. I did not want to end up at some little podunk church taking care of old people. I thought that was the worst fate. And I heard that from so many young pastors, like, oh, where they got you. I'm in this district up in like you know, Timbuktu. I'm over up out here in BFE with I got five churches. I got five churches, and all of them got six members and they're all over 55. I'm like, oh no.
SPEAKER_08So you're like, plus I didn't want to be me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, plus I didn't want to give up what I was doing. Like, I was like, you know, I'm I I love I love um being able to do my thing.
SPEAKER_08So then what you graduate?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I graduate. Um I go back to that summer camp. While I'm at that summer camp, um my homeboy, that same guy that I I met that two years prior. Like now he and I are friends, and he tells me, like, hey man, you should really consider um going to Australia. I was like, for what? He's like, I got this ministry and they need somebody. Little did I know that what they needed somebody for was to drive the bus. And so when he told me it was to drive the bus, I was like, How dare you? I have a college degree. Like, how dare you tell me to drive the bus? Uh my plan was to go um and pursue some work in the music business with me and Will Murphy. Will's a crazy musician, he's a great producer. And this is another story for another time, but we used to be in a rap group back then. And you laughed.
SPEAKER_08We will have to get that. We'll we'll we will need to get that story.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you laughed, but we we were actually really good. Um and it's funny because we coined we coincided. That's when Lecrae first started doing rap shows. Now I remember we did uh shows that uh we shared the stage, like he had gone on and jagged edge, or were you like hardcore rap? Oh no, we were like mace slash Jay-Z Christianized, right? Like that sort of vibe. Uh you remember back in the early 2000s, like, Welcome back, welcome back. Like that whole thing, like that whole mace sort of feel, right?
SPEAKER_08I'm gonna need to hear that.
SPEAKER_02Some a little like Nelly vibes throwing in their little Jay-Z vibes like that, that thing, right? Where you know, listening to it 20 years later, it sounds terrible, but for the time it was dope.
SPEAKER_08Um, it's probably lit.
SPEAKER_02So we were gonna do a music endeavor and try to pursue that a little bit, and I was gonna go to Florida and try to make it happen with Will. But that was a pipe dream. And um by December uh of that
Australia Bus Tours And Learning To Preach
SPEAKER_02year, of it was 2005, I think it was, I had finished my degree. Um, my homeboy, this dude with the Australia Connect, which is the same guy that preached that stuff about Moses earlier in the story, he calls me, he's like, hey man, this thing is still wide open, you should come. Uh, you know, yada yada yada. I end up in Australia. While in Australia, I learned how to drive a huge tour bus, like stick. And so I had like I had the equivalent of my CDL in Australia. I went to classes and everything for it. And um, I'm driving this huge tour bus. It's like a legit tour bus on the wrong side of the road, uh, going all over the country. You're 24? Yeah, 23, 24 at the time.
SPEAKER_05Wow.
SPEAKER_02And so my homeboy, um, when I get there, like within the first week of getting there, I do the trucking school. I fly from Sydney to Melbourne because the team's in Melbourne, and that's south of Sydney. And I get in the bus in Melbourne, get familiar with it. I start driving it, and it's but like the second or third show with the team. Um, the leader says, Hey Jonathan, didn't you graduate with a theology degree? I'm like, Yeah. He's like, Why don't you get up there and do like a short little 10, 12 minute gospel presentation? And I was like, Yeah, all right, cool. So, you know, I had, you know, I did homiletics, I've been speaking, I can speak. So I get up there, I do 10, 12 minutes. The next night he asked me to do it again. Then the next night, and then he stopped asking, but I kept doing it. So for the next two years, I drove around um this group with Australia in Australia, and we would do something between like, I don't know, 260 to 310 shows a year. So over the course of two years, I probably got up on stage conservatively 400 times to give 10, 12 minutes of a gospel presentation. And that's where I really got my like 10,000 hours. That's that 10,000 hours in my speaking chops, right? And the whole time, I never prepared anything because the first time he asked me, it was 10, 12 minutes. You know, I could do 10, 12 minutes no problem. But since I'm driving this bus all the time, um, and this is the days before smartphones, you know, I had an iPod, and on my iPod, I got sermons, I could put audiobooks, um, like really rudimentary audiobooks, which is was back then people actually literally just recording a book that they liked and uploading an MP3 somewhere. And I'm listening to sermons, I'm listening to these religious audiobooks, I'm reading my Bible a lot, because again, no smartphones. Um and I start developing theological ideas as I'm just thinking about this stuff, as I'm driving six, eight, ten, twelve-hour stretches. And so the ideas that I'm formulating and the way God is revealing things to me, that's what's showing up as I'm preaching. And this begins to cultivate this relationship between like my inner theological monologue or dialogue and then being able to transfer it. And so after two years of that, I um transitioned back to the States and I didn't want to do ministry. Like I didn't want to be a pastor, like again, like I'm not trying to do this thing, right? Even though I know I'm gonna end up doing this thing, right? And uh I spent a year, close to a year, working in Nashville for a Christian music artist, um, doing bookings and trying to do some road managing, and uh, I was terrible at it. I was absolutely terrible at it. I'm not good at that sort of thing. Just like I was terrible at selling knives. And people would think, like, Jonathan, you'd be really good at selling knives. You're like, you're good, you're charismatic, you're good with your words. It's like, no, I'm terrible. Because I didn't care about selling knives, right? Like, you should be good at doing this road managing thing and booking for an artist, because you know, you you're charismatic, you're good with your words. No, I was terrible, right? And so after a year of doing that, I did two years Australia, a year of the Christian music trying to do that thing. Um, I felt all my heart that I should do more of this theology game. So I, you know, again, a series of things that happened, yada yada yada. I signed up to do a master's in divinity at Andrews University in Southwest Michigan, which is like the theological seminary for the Adventist World Church.
SPEAKER_08I'm trying to think, did I see you before you had gone for your master's?
SPEAKER_02You saw me after.
SPEAKER_08Okay.
SPEAKER_02I think we saw each other when I was doing my doctorate, which were not there in the story.
SPEAKER_08Oh, okay. So keep going.
SPEAKER_02Keep going. No, yeah. So I did, I went, I did my master's, and I did my master's for about six months. I did one semester of my MDiv, and I hated it because I did not want to be a pastor. And they're like teaching you how to be a good pastor. I'm like, this is whack. And one of my buddies who I knew back from college, we actually ended up doing our master's at the same time together. He's like, yo, you should do a degree in theology. Like, you're really theological-minded. That's what you like. You should do an MA in theology, which is the academic um degree. And I was like, all right. So I figured out the money, right? Which was looking back in hindsight, terrible decision, student loans, but it is what it is. God knows, right? So anybody out there want to, you know, give six figures to Jonathan Leonardo to clear his student loans, please do so. Uh right. Um, so I'm doing the uh theology thing, and bro, from the first class, I'm home. This is it. Like, what academic theology without the pressures of pastoral ministry, I could do my thing while doing just like academic theology. Bro, I'm game. So this is the guy who had a 1.9 GPA in
Grad School Pride And Gospel Blindness
SPEAKER_02um in college. I graduated with a 2.6 or like a 2.8, something like that. Yeah, I had a come up. And then um my master's, like I killed my masters. I graduate with a 397, maybe like a four. I don't think I hit a four.
SPEAKER_08I got like cared about it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. I might have got one A minus, like in my master's. And I remember um I did my master's. This is fast-forwarding in the story, but I remember I came back to do my PhD, and before I could get into the PhD program, I had to sit in this committee, and they pulled out my college transcripts and my master's transcripts, and they're like, this doesn't seem like the same person. Like, how you got a 3-9 and your master's and a 2-6 in college? And I was like, uh, you know, subject matter. I was like, I was interested. So it was that sort of vibe. But yeah, I did my two years of my master's, was super, super stoked about theology. Um, after my two years of master's, I get a call from that same dude who talked about Moses, the same dude who got me in Australia. I get a call from him. Same dude. He's like, yo, so you're done with your master's. What are you doing? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what's next. He's like, why don't you come down to this church and help pastor it? I'm like, ugh, no. That's the last thing I want to do. But the way he framed it, he's like, nah, come down, you live with me. And I was really close with his family at this point. He's like, you live with me. And it's really like an associate pastor position, plus it's a local hire. Like, you're not gonna go through the institution. It's the church who wants to hire you. You can come do this. I'm like, I bet that I can do that. And he's like, and just stay here until you figure out what your next move is. I'm like, all right, cool. I'm 20.
SPEAKER_08Wait, hold on. Before before you go into this, yeah. Maybe it's not the Red Cups, but maybe it's just now you liking to kick it um with ladies through Australia, through your masters, yeah. Cognitive dissonance still, or still kind of like I can't do better or and I don't want to do better.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's the same thing, man. Like, it's the same thing. I was the guy where I could go for stretches with not misbehaving, but I would give myself permission um later on. So I was the guy who would never try to mess around with girls in my proximity if I was doing like when I was at Andrews, I didn't try to really mess around with girls in my proximity, but I would go out of state, right? I would I was still very much because doing my masters freed me from the responsibility of doing pastoral ministry. So I didn't have like that hyper moral weight of like you have to behave a certain way. I it was still there, but not as much because I was, you know, pursuing it academically. So it fed into this lie continually of, oh, I'm just interested because, you know, I'm interested in the subject matter, not because God has a calling on my life and he's superintending and directing things in a way that my dumb behind is trying to act like it isn't happening, right?
SPEAKER_08Right.
SPEAKER_02So I go to yeah, I do the pastor thing, man, and yeah, I do the pastor thing for two years, and I was a knucklehead. Uh you know, thought I was smarter than my pastor, and that never ends well when you're the associate, you know, basically got run out of there, you know. Like the short of it is I got fired. Not really, but like, you know, it was the subtle sort of let go. We're like, we're not gonna renew your contract. You know what I'm saying, Rich? I've heard of that. You heard of that?
SPEAKER_08Can't relate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. So because you know, you're saying things that maybe the past is not in agreement with and he doesn't know how to control you, so he's like, well, you know, maybe it's better for you to find work elsewhere. And so at that point, how did that feel?
SPEAKER_08How did that hit you?
SPEAKER_02Oh, bro, you talk about all the sentiments that you've gone through. Yeah, I went through all of that, man. Like, I, you know, yeah, I mean, you name it and you know it. You know, I don't we don't have to rehearse it, but all of that, bro. Like, all up in my fields, the hurt, the rejection, uh, maybe God isn't directing me. What am I supposed to do? Now I got two degrees that are worthless, right? I got a master's. All my degrees. All my degrees are all my degrees are gonna keep me warm at night. One on it. Yeah, all these degrees are gonna keep me warm at night. I might not have money in the back, but these degrees. Right. And so I'm there. But you know, I just double down. I'm like, what are you gonna do next, John? Well, yeah. I remember my my professor when I was doing my master's, he I had written a paper and he's like, you know what, man, you you have an aptitude for theology proper. He's like, you should do a PhD. And you know, I'm like, oh shoot, somebody thinks I'm smart. Right. I think that's maybe one of the lies I lived with for so long is not thinking like me myself that I was smart, even though I was aware that around the circles I was around, that I was thinking well. But for some reason that lie got in there. Anyway, I ended up doing two years uh as that pastor thing, ended up getting kicked out, and I applied for this PhD program and applied for a PhD program at Andrews University and got accepted, and it was a provisional acceptance. And the reason I was provisionally accepted was because I had that terrible collegiate record. But they accepted me, and yeah, man, I started rocking, started doing my PhD systematic theology. What years this? This is I started the PhD program 2013-ish, I think 2000, end of 2012 or maybe end of 2013, I can't remember.
SPEAKER_08So by this time, you are on the circuit, though, because I had heard you preach places.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, by this time, people have been inviting me. I preach across the country. People are like, oh, this guy could preach, this and that, right? But the funny thing is that, and you know, again, man, we don't have that much time to go into all of this, but from the time I got back to Australia through my um masters and into the two years where I was being that associate pastor, like my preaching voice started declining. And it started declining because the deeper and deeper I got into theology, the more I wanted to impress people with my intellect, and the less the simplicity of what I was saying back in Australia was being able to be communicated. So there was a good four or five year um run where I say I lost my preaching voice because I was trying to be theological and trying to impress people with theology.
SPEAKER_08And so if I invited you for a weekend, yeah, and you're gonna come to my town, yeah. When you leave, what was the thing that I would have heard from Jonathan Leonardo?
SPEAKER_02Like, oh man, he he he he might have dropped this truth bomb. Like, I didn't know this thing in scripture, I didn't know this thing in the Bible. He broke this thing down in scripture really dope. But transformation, I don't know. But this is also the thing about the gospel. This is the good thing about the Lord, is that the Lord is has no pride. So that even with somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about and they're talking about him, his word will do what it's capable of in spite of the one speaking. Because the power is not in the speaker, the power is in the word, right? So it's the word that's spoken. This is why nobody can say Jesus is Lord and not be in the spirit, because that is spirit talk. It's it's the power of the word, that is spirit talk. It's not, it's it isn't the person speaking, it's the word that the person speaks. And so the Lord deigns, he humbles himself to be spoken about by a bunch of knuckleheads because he knows that the word that is spoken is what is the power, the power is there, not in the speaker.
SPEAKER_08Wow, right?
SPEAKER_02And so God was dope enough to continue to be faithful to his word because that's what is it, Psalm 138 or Psalm 139? He honors his word above his name, and he wants the word to go forth, and the word that he wants to go forth is the revelation of his love through Jesus Christ. And so, whenever I even got close to saying something like that, God was faithfully there. So you might have heard some good things, you might have heard some bad things, but if you heard it, if you heard good things, it was because of the power of the word. If you heard bad things, it was because this knucklehead sucked, right?
SPEAKER_08And so and you were getting your value from dropping truth bombs that people hadn't seen in scripture. But since you're a PhD theology student, you could break them down. And when we're just like, yo, did you hear what he said? That fed you. That that's the thing that was feeding.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, because I could no longer get fed all the time through females because now I had to watch myself because I was a PhD student, this, that. And so now the thing that took that place was um intelligence, like breaking stuff down. So I was really dismissive and condescending. Like I remember um I would just look at people and be like, Man, that person's dumb, they're not thinking. And that would come across, right?
SPEAKER_08And so Yeah, and I and we want to jump a ho uh a little bit ahead, but this is when I ran into you, I ran into you at Andrews, and I've seen you a couple times, and I remember running into you and thinking like this dude is confident in himself. I haven't seen him for a while. I felt like you were not about to waste your time. Like in some ways, in some ways at that time, I felt like oh, I might be. In the way of him getting something that he wants to get done today, I'm probably in the way of that that's what the impression was. I'm like, I'm in this dude's way a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, you're 100% right. Because it was about me. Like I was about my intelligence, my thing. And if you weren't, if you weren't adding nothing to me, I wasn't messing with you. I didn't need to. I'd be cordial, I'd be nice, I'd be polite, but you can pick it up. I'll be like, all right, man, you know, a chuck of deuce and keep it moving. Um because you know, I had at this point, now I had a vision for what I want to do. I want to finish my PhD, hopefully get a theological uh position somewhere, and then kick back and teach, and then have summers off.
SPEAKER_08To do whatever you wanted to do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, to pursue other interests. And again, it's always my the like a core thing that I've always had is curiosity. Like I want to spend three months being curious about a new thing. Like I want to learn about, you know, how do you make bread? I'm not I'm not sure I want to make the bread, but I want to learn how to make the bread. Like I'm not sure I'll ever make the bread, but I want to learn everything about how bread is made. So I want to spend 10 hours on YouTube learning how to make bread, and then maybe might make my bread or read books on it. And then maybe as I'm learning about making the bread, I learn about a business owner who had all these bakeries all over the country. Like, how'd he do that? I want to learn about that because I'm curious. So now I'm learning about this baker. Like that, I wanted to pursue it, it was for me.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what I felt. I think this might have been between 14 and 16. I'm not sure of the exact.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's that's the way I'm living. Like, I'm not a bad dude. Like, I had great friends. People would have said, Yeah, Jonathan's cool. Like, he's a bit of a jerk sometimes, but once you get to know him, you you know, you you see his heart, and he's not trying to hurt nobody's feelings.
SPEAKER_08He's just he's just gonna be and that's who you believed who you were. That's what you believed about yourself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like I wasn't trying to hurt people's feelings, but I was trying to do my own thing, and you know, I'd I'd let you know that, yeah, bro. I'm not I'm not trying to rock with any institutional sort of um imperatives. Like, that's just not so I'm not trying to put anything on that I don't agree with. So if somebody's trying to tell me, oh, you gotta be like this or be this way, I'm like, well, you can. I don't have to be. Ah, well, then it's gonna cost you this and that. I was like, well, cool. Then I counted the cost. Like, fine, that's the consequence of fine. But this is what I want to do, and this is how I'm gonna do it. And that was just that was just my vibe. Um, the this the I can tell you, one of the places where I got my card pulled was um, this was back, I'd have to go back. I was I was a Hebrew tutor. So I'm tutoring Hebrew to master students, right? I had gotten that good at Hebrew. Don't ask me now, because it's been years since I practiced proficiency, so my proficiency's way down. Um, but I was a Hebrew tutor and breaking down some Hebrew stuff in a class, and there was a brother in there who's a good friend of mine. At the end of class, he's about to leave, and I'm wrapping up. I'm putting my bags uh together to close up the classroom, and he turns around, he goes, Jonathan, let me ask you a question. So go ahead. He goes, Do you know the gospel? And uh I mean, I felt so naked in that moment because I knew Homeboy had touched on something that I knew I didn't know. I had a whole bunch of theology, but I probably couldn't give you a clear gospel presentation. I didn't know how to work through a gospel presentation. All I knew is theology. So we could talk a whole lot of theology. So if we use theology as a starting point, we could talk theology. But as far as gospel, like I don't know that I could actually I couldn't give you a gospel presentation. I didn't know why it worked. All I had was a bunch of cool theological tricks. But I didn't know the gospel, and I remember feeling exposed, and that exposure carried into my doctoral work, and the pursuit of my doctoral work was in order to cover up that I knew I didn't know the gospel, and I knew that my life didn't match up with what I should be living, but I didn't know what to do about it. And so this is where in what did you tell him when he asked you that? I just played it off, like, come on, guy, I know the gospel. And I I, you know, I'm real good at switching the conversation real quick, and I switched the conversation and kept it moving, right? And uh, but that's that stuck with me, man. That stuck with me. And so by the time I'm doing my PhD work, I'm working from this place of trying to um, I'm trying to close the gap, or I'm trying to cover up, not close the gap, but I'm trying to cover up the fact that I don't know the gospel and I'm not living with power, and I'm trying to cover up with a whole bunch of theology, and I'm thinking that knowing a lot about God is what God requires. And that feeds into my Adventism because my Adventism, you know anything about Adventism, it's a truckload of information you got to know. In Adventism, you get really good at nutrition, you get good at uh finances because you got to do your numbers right, right? You get really good at math because you got to add up all the prophecies correctly, you get really good at the 28 fundamental beliefs. We believe this about the state of the dead, we believe this about the Sabbath, we memorize the text, and this works together with that. And we're like that dude that's solving a crime and is standing in front of all of the evidence that we've put on a wall and we're connecting it by yarn, but right? And it's that video montage, like all the dots are connecting. That's Adventism, and it's all super intellectual. Like too often, Adventism is that, right? So I'm trying to be super proficient in that. I'm trying to be the man that can break down the three angels' message in Revelation 14, 6 through 12. I'm the dude that's hoping to understand what Daniel 8, 14 means when it says unto 2300 days, then the sanctuary will sanctuary will be cleansed. I'm trying to understand Daniel 9 and that prophecy of the coming one, right? I want to know that. I want to know why the ontology of Adventism is different from the ontology of Protestant evangelicalism. I'm trying to figure out why the simplicity of God as promoted or as communicated through the Catholic teaching of historical Christianity doesn't actually accord with the ontology of God in Scripture. Like this is my mindset. I'm trying to understand these metaphysical questions. I'm trying to understand the relationship of God to the world at these philosophical levels, the theological levels, because that's what Adventism or my version of Adventism plays into. So since I can't answer what the gospel is, I'm gonna inundate you with a whole bunch of biblical data. So you're so overwhelmed by my intelligence that you can't even think to ask the question because you don't want to go to toe-to-toe with my brain. That's my game. Right? How was it working out? Oh, it sucked.
SPEAKER_01Oh, right. Hey, here's hey, here's why it doesn't yo. Hold on, hold on. Yo, I'm gonna use the bathroom, right? Okay, hustle, hustle.
SPEAKER_02All right, you ready?
SPEAKER_08Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_02All right, man, here I'm gonna get into the meat of some things, so I'm gonna just go. So early 2016, I think it was, um, February, I was in Nashville. I had returned to visit some friends. This is where I had done ministry, and while I'm there, I reconnect with this girl that I was interested in. And um, she's this dope girl, great family, great girl. Uh, and her and I connect, and we connect in such a way that, you know, I want to pursue and see if this thing has legs, but I can't give myself permission to pursue because she's not Adventist. So I remember February, we were sitting there and we're having a lunch, and I remember I'm feeling super conflicted, and I look at her and I say, um, you know, this um this thing between you and I, it's really low stakes for me. And the reason I said that is because I'm trying to protect myself uh against this expectation of being in a relationship with an Adventist girl while at the same time deceiving myself because I want to be super, super honest with her. Because I think in honesty, I'll be able to avoid the complexities of what I'd have to face if I go farther and further with her, while at the same time protecting my heart from being too vulnerable and being hurt. Right. And um, because that's a whole nother thing, like super, super conscious of not wanting to be hurt, right?
SPEAKER_08Um I think that's like the uh a huge theme on your way through college, the why you answer questions the way you've answered them, why you talk to people the way you talk to, is that protection from being hurt because it sounds like you were hurt and that wasn't fun, and you're like, not can't be mean, not gonna happen again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you know, we don't have all the time to go into it, but I'll just tell you two quick ways I was super hurt. One, my uh my dad taken off, right? The consequence of my dad is that there's this enduring, lingering um place of
Relationship Pressure And A Gift Of Repentance
SPEAKER_02don't open up your heart because it can get hurt. Like watching my mom and watching my sister, because my sister was a daddy's girl, right? And so I I I was very intellectual about it because I wasn't a daddy's boy. I was a like I was I'm a mama's boy, right? But I I watched it and I sensed it, and I was like, nah, I never want to do that. And then when I was 16, I did open up my heart, you know, 16 puppy love. I opened up my heart to this girl and it didn't work out for, you know, you're 16, stupid. But um it didn't work out in a really sort of deep way for me, where I felt that my heart was hurt, right? She ended up dating a really good friend of mine, my best friend, actually, in a way that I at 16 years old really internalized it and was really hurt. And that became two deep ways, and where I was like, man, relationships are whack. Look how it ended up for my mom. And then at 16 years old, I was like, look, I gave it a shot, and it's whack. I I'm gonna do the other thing where I'm completely honest, I pursue my pleasures, I'm not trying to get hurt. So at 28, 29 years old, nah, that's a lot. I will, I was probably in my early 30s at this point, sitting with this girl, and I'm still being formed by the same lie where I'm gonna use my intellect and I'm gonna use my matter-of-factness as a way to avoid vulnerability because I don't want to be hurt while at the same time desiring to be in a relationship with you, but I don't know how to actually make sense of it with the religious expectations of my community and the professional expectations of what I'm pursuing and who you are. And so I remember I had a long drive from Nashville back to Michigan, and I'm struggling with this. And I called a buddy of mine, and it's the same dude who had asked me whether or not I knew the gospel. And he's walking me through this whole sort of rigamorole of questions of as to why I want to pursue with this girl, what's the intent behind my heart? And all I can see is that I cannot be um religious, I cannot be Adventist and pursue my desires. Because if I want to pursue this girl, I can't be Adventist. I can't be religious in the way I've conceived of myself as religious. Because my religion and my sense of self is Adventism. I tell people this, I say, Adventism is like a third parent. There was my mother who was there, there was my dad who wasn't there, that deeply shaped me. And then Adventism is the third parent that's ever pervasive in my life because Adventism tells me how I eat, tells me how I spend my money, it tells me how um what I do with my time, uh, the entertainment I have. It tells me how the the TV and the entertainment I imbibe. It tells me when I play sports and when I can't. It tells me what time I set aside during the week to actually be with God. So Adventism is super pervasive. It's the social uh ocean that I'm swimming in, all my friends. So, you know, Adventism is everything. And so as I'm confronted finally, yet again, with my desires versus theology or my desires versus religion, my desires versus my, you know, social expectations, I can no longer keep living that lie where I can sort of sort of like play one against the other. And so I remember I'm struggling with this because I really want to see what's up with this girl. I remember that Sabbath, I went to church and I went to this church called OnePlace on Andrews University. They meet in the campus there, and I walk out and they're about to have the worship set and they're singing Amazing Grace, and as they're singing an Amazing Grace, they get to that line, you know, that saved a wretch like me, right? And when it got to that line, wretch, something within me just moved like deeply, and I just started crying. Like this deep thing within me just cried out, and I just started crying. And uh I started crying in a way I hadn't cried in probably 10 years. Like I had cried since, but the way of crying, which was the same sort of crying that happened that day where I preached at my school when I was in college. It was that same crying where there was this release, this recognition, and I know now what it was. It was God giving the gift of repentance because I was seeing the wretch, the wretchedness of my situation, that I couldn't live this double-minded life. That's what he was trying to introduce me to 10 years prior, when I acknowledged the hypocrisy I was living in. He was giving me the gift of repentance, and I didn't know how to steward, I didn't know what it was, right? Ten years later, it's the same thing. And I remember I was crying so hard. Like I had to go into the green room, and within the green room, I had to go into the bathroom because I couldn't stop myself from vocally wailing, and snot is coming on my nose, and this recognition of my wretchedness, along with a release in my body, is occurring. I'm just like, I can't make sense of it then. I can name it now, but I couldn't then, and this is happening. So this happens. Me and that girl um try to date, it kind of fizzles out, and while it's fizzling out, I'm trying to pursue the things of God a little more, but I don't know what to do with this experience I've had. But it's absolutely obvious that my religion, my Adventism, my pursuit of theology is now pressing up against my desires and what I want to do, and it is gonna be a problem. That much I'm clear, I'm that is becoming clear. All right, so this is February. Me and that girl kind of fizzle out for reasons I'm not gonna get into, but by mid-May, I'm finally over the girl and willing to move on into something else. She calls me again. And now she's in Chicago and is inviting me to come see her. And I don't want to precisely because I'm gonna protect myself. I'm not gonna be vulnerable, I'm gonna be super heady about this. I'm not gonna give my heart over because I'm afraid I'm gonna get hurt. I'm afraid I'm gonna be in a position I don't want to be in. It's the same reason I never want to be pursue pastoral ministry. I don't want to be in a position I don't want to be in. It's the same reason I don't want to put on institutional markers because I don't want to be in a position I don't want to be in. Because I'm all about me determining my life, me determining how I'm gonna live and breathe, like a super, super self-oriented in this way. In ways that I don't want to hurt other people's feelings, but in ways that I want to satisfy my own life. So when she calls me and tells me, hey, come over to Chicago, I'm here, come kick it. There's a part of me that so deeply wants to, because I want to see if there's some legs to this thing. But she represents non-Adventism, she represents non-religion in the sense of like my sense of religion. She's like, good girl, but the way I grew up, right? And I don't know if I want to do that. I remember I called my brother-in-law at the time, and my brother-in-law tells me, Well, Jonathan, I mean, you know, what's the harm in it? And going to see her. Would you regret not seeing her? And like, you don't have to write your future in the next couple of days. And I'm like, Oh, there's a lot of wisdom to that. I don't have to, you know, make a bigger deal than it is. Well, that would forever change my life because I went that weekend and her and I got up to, you know, regular shenanigans that you do in your early 30s and you're around the town, right? But those sort of things aren't like they're they're pressing on my heart now in real deep and meaningful ways, in the ways that I wouldn't allow them to press on me back in college. Back in college, I feel bad that I don't feel bad. Now at this point, like I'm beginning to feel bad because I'm a wretch and I'm living in hypocrisy and I'm double-minded. I've been a lifelong Adventist, I've pursued this theology thing. Maybe I should be a pastor. People are telling me I can preach well, and now I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. And I'm considering maybe I don't be a preacher, maybe I can do like, you know, some sort of consulting, or maybe I could be a business guy, or maybe I could do some sort of uh professional uh uh leadership thing. Everything that's gonna take my skills and talents, but not feel the weight of what the gospel requires, right? Right. And don't knock on anybody who's hearing this podcast and has done that. But if you're hearing me say this and it presses up against your heart because you know you did that and you abdicated the call in your life, and now you're doing like some sort of, you know, like business consulting or business, like get back on the horse, right? That's just a shout out to whoever's listening and hears, right? And so I'm considering this, bro. And I come back from this weekend with this girl, like just defeated, because she is the culmination of so much in my life. This weekend with her is the culmination of me satisfying my desires, me trying to do my own thing, me pursuing my pleasures, me doing it at the expense of my um theology or my religion, or even doing it at the expense of what I think the call on my life is, but justifying it to some sort of equivocating about me pursuing theology and not being a pastor. That's stupid, right? But I've lived there for so long that I thought it was I could do it, but now I'm realizing I can't. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't. And I'm coming to the end of living this double mind, like I can't, and I'm sitting on my couch and I'm just like, what am I gonna do? Because now me and this girl are in cahoots, but I'm halfway through a PhD in Seventh-day Adventist theology, like in systematic theology. Like I got a lot of money put into these degrees. I got a lot of sweat put into building something, whatever that something is, right? And so I'm sitting on this couch, and as one is wont to do, I'm like, what should I do? I'll just gonna surf the internet. So I open up, I get on Facebook, and as I'm scrolling through Facebook, I see this video of a guy who um is claiming to have healed a deaf person's hearing. So this person had trouble hearing, and this guy in the video puts his ears on, he puts his hands on this man's ear ears, praising the name of Jesus, oh eyes, uh, ears be opened. And all of a sudden, the guy who's getting prayed for is jumping in excitement. Like tears are running through his face, he's excited, he can hear. He's telling people to talk to him from yards away, like 10, 15 yards. He's like, Say, say my name, say my name. He's like, I can hear you, I can hear you. And he's super excited. And the guy who's just quote unquote been healed, he looks really, really genuine, right? You know when you can tell that some social media post is really like marketing, and you're like, oh, this is probably a movie because it has all it's trying too hard to be authentic. This one looked 100% authentic, but then the guy who prayed for him is this weird-looking dude with an earring, tight t-shirt, he's got dreads, right? White guy with dreads, and I'm like, eh, I don't know. And all of my theology, all of my religion, everything comes to the fore. And it's like, this guy's a charlatan, he's working the works of the devil. Because how can God actually use a man like this? No, notice the lie. How can a God use a man like this when 12 years prior, when I was reading Patriarchs and Prophets, that's exactly what began to move me? Wait, wait, God uses us, right? But I am not aware of what I'm saying because I'm working from deception and uh intellectual pride and uh intellectual
The YouTube Moment That Broke Him
SPEAKER_02insecurity and fear, and institutional insecurity and fear, because I'm afraid that if I take I'm afraid that if I align myself with this girl, it's gonna cost me my institutional identity. Um, and so in that moment, my institutional identity rises up because that's all I know. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I hear you.
SPEAKER_02And so I get this guy's name and I YouTube him because I'm gonna YouTube him to completely prove him wrong and know that he's a charlatan and he didn't really hear heal somebody's ears. And uh uh uh uh a video pops up, he's got this bright shirt on, he's got his head up and dreads, he's wearing these jeans with like the finger toe shoes. And I press the video, he starts talking, and the dude is talking in the calmest voice in this video. Like, like, you know, I'm just gonna say some things that the Lord put on my heart, and I do you guys hopefully you'll receive them. You guys ready? They're like, Yeah, and he starts and he says, You know that without the Holy Spirit, you're never gonna make it. Like one of the first things he says, it's like 20 seconds in. Bro, when he said that, my something within me left. And like on the inside, just left. And then he said, How can we do ministry not having what the disciples did and think we're good because we have what they did. And what he meant was they didn't have the New Testament. And we do. And we think it's enough to have the New Testament and talk about the things they did. But what they had was the Holy Spirit. That's why the things they did were written down and handed down to us. And we think it's enough to know about the things they did and not have the power of the Holy Spirit and think we're doing ministry because we're talking about what other people did, and we're not doing it because we don't have the Holy Spirit. He goes, because you know that if you're don't have the Holy Spirit, you're still all about yourself. And bro, I'm the Lord. Because as this dude is talking, something within me is just yelling like more, more, more, because I'm thirsty, thirsty, thirsty. Then he starts saying things. You know the problem with the prodigal son story is that we're always highlighting that he's prodigal, forgetting that the whole time he was son. It's like, don't you know that the gospel is all about the love of a father for sons and daughters? It's not first and foremost about wretched sinners that he came to redeem, it's about lost sons and daughters who fell into becoming wretched sinners that he came to restore, to put back and make them what he intended them to be. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, what? And he's putting all of these verses together and he's talking about, yo, Holy Spirit, the life in the kingdom is about righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit. We are, we have the privilege to live in purity and in wholeness. Not because we're trying to earn something, but because we are something. And I'm like, what? And he's using all of these verses that I know, but he's putting them together in a way that I never thought. And bro, I sit there for six, eight hours listening to this man, just break stuff down. And the reason I could sit there is because nobody else is in my apartment. I'm sitting in my apartment listening to this dude. Because as this dude shares his testimony, he starts saying that he has a GED. He has a GED, went into the military twice, got court-martialed or something, was a fugitive of uh military justice, was a drug addict, like was a like part of a rock band, and then one day had a radical encounter with Jesus and began to just learn. And he's like, The Bible's the only book I've ever read, and it's the only book I've ever been able to understand because the Holy Spirit will actually instruct you how to read the Bible. And he's making the Bible so, so plain. And he's like, I've never read a book in my life. All I've ever read is this book. Like, I couldn't read a book because I had a learning disability and because I was dumb. And it wasn't until I like the spirit did something in me, he started revealing this truth to me. And this truth is for you too. And I'm sitting there, like, you got a GED, and you're reading the Bible and making it come alive for me. Here I am, halfway through a PhD, and I could never do what you just did. And I'm coming to this realization that, like, maybe what I'm doing is not the way to go about to actually be solid in answering the question that I've always been interested in answering, which is what is my relationship to God? Because that's the question that's been driving me since I was 10 years old. Like, what is my standing in relationship with God? And I thought I could pursue it through theological pursuits. And here I got a dude with a G A G E D telling me what my relationship to God is right now, and telling me that my relationship to God is secure because Jesus Christ has secured it and all I need to do is receive it. And I'm listening and I'm like, what? You what? I went to bed completely convicted, but completely confused. And I'm marveling at everything I heard, and bro, I went to sleep.
SPEAKER_08Wait, what was the conviction though? You're confused, but what was the conviction was that what this guy was saying was absolutely true.
SPEAKER_02That what this dude was saying was it, that he had the revelation that I was searching for, that he was living in Holy Spirit power, and he had theology I had no access to because he had theology that was given through the wisdom of God, because he had prayed for it and God had given it to him for free, and he was able to just spit hot fire that I could not because I was trying to do it through the constructs of reading a hundred books. And I'm not denigrating theology, theology's great, like I love theology, I'm still super theological. You know that, Rich. I love theology. But here's what I here's what I do know theology does not give life.
SPEAKER_08Mercy.
SPEAKER_02Theology does not give life, Jesus does. And if you don't know Jesus, but you got a whole bunch of theology, you don't know squat.
SPEAKER_08Mercy.
SPEAKER_02Right? Because yeah, man. I thought my mind was gonna do something for me. And what I finally learned was that God had done something for me, and my mind could just receive and believe me. What I needed to receive and believe was that I was son. And I was his son. And I was still his son. And he paid a high price to have the privilege to call me son. Like he paid a high price so that he could have the right to call me son. He didn't pay a high price. He didn't pay a high price for me to be like, okay, all right, yeah, I get it. Like he paid a high price so that he could have the right to call me son. Right? To redeem me from the deceitfulness of my former self. Like it was him chasing me. It was him telling me who I was and him. It was him wanting to catch a revelation of everything that he had always intended for me. It was him telling me that before the foundation of the world, he had chosen me. He had predestined me to stand before him, blameless, holy, in love, without reproach. That it was him telling me that I did not need to pursue intelligence because he could give me the mind of Christ. It was him who was the wisdom of God and that he would give himself liberally to me. That he was telling me that I did not need to pursue uh uh uh desires without him, because he could be the satisfaction that I was constantly looking for, that I didn't need to protect my heart uh and not to not be hurt, because he would be my sustenance, he would be my endurance, that he would teach me how to live, that he would teach me how to go into a situation and have my heart wide open and allow myself to run into a spot where I could be hurt because I had him as healer. And since he's my healing, there was no hurt that could overcome how he has healed me because in him I was enough, in him I was redeemed, in him I was restored, in him I was son, and it all boils down to this one fundamental truth: God loves me. God loves me. God did not just God loves me, man. Now I remember I woke up the next day after hearing this truth for eight hours and I realized that God loved me, guy. I like the whole world had changed, my man. Like I opened up my eyes, and the first thought that flooded my mind was like, God loves me. And that idea of God loves me was not an idea that I myself came up with. Like, it was an idea, it was it was the first word that the Holy Spirit spoke to me when I finally believed the gospel, that he loved me, man. And I didn't need to try to be anything else, dude. Then, bro, that just it just liberated me, man.
SPEAKER_01I didn't need to be anything else, man. And oh man, it was just it, man. Like, yo, God loves us, Rich.
SPEAKER_02Hey, he loves me, dude. He loves you. I remember I'm in the shower that morning, and I'm just geek because God loves me, and I don't know what it means, but it's true. And I realized that I'm like, yo, I'm free from my lust. Like inside of me, like I'm free from lust. I didn't even like I probably couldn't have put it in those words, but I knew that on the inside he had come and done a heart work. And I remember, and you've heard this story. I was like, I'm like, yo, is this for real?
SPEAKER_01So I'm gonna go, I was like, I gotta see this thing is for real. Like, I'm tripping out. So, you know, I did what I don't think anybody should do. I went to www.ishouldn't be here.com.
SPEAKER_02Right? And uh I opened up, I opened up the screen, and as I opened up the screen, like it's these images of acts that you know I shouldn't be watching. And I remember like I closed the laptop down real quick, and I was like, oh, mercy. And I knew that me closing the laptop that quick was not me. I didn't do that. Like something had done it within me. Like there was a new power source inside of me that was actually willing and doing his good pleasure within me. And I couldn't believe it, dude. There was never a time where I had closed the door, there was never a time where I had said no, because I knew that if a woman as fly as Potiphar's wife had come into my room, I would not have run like Joseph. But here I am running like Joseph in that moment. Because how dare I compromise what my God has given me? And I'm like, oh, this is it. This is what folks have been talking about. Like, there is life and there is power to live unto godliness. Not because God, like, not because like living pure is gonna get us something, but
Freedom From Lust And New Worship
SPEAKER_02because purity is the gift of who he says we are in him. And so now I have the privilege of living with a clean conscience, not because I'm trying to earn something, but because he has given me something I could never manufacture in my own. I there's no amount of books in the world I could memorize read. There's no amount of scripture that I could memorize. There's no amount of theological degrees that I could accumulate, no amount of knowledge that I actually put together to actually give me what he gave me as a free gift. And that was life. Like he gave me his life. And the way he gave me his life was by simply believing that he called me son. And in him calling me son, I was able to give up all the things that named me otherwise. So all the things that called me a sexual deviant, no, I renounced them. All the things that called me a broken man, no, I renounced them. All the things that called me a hurt boy because of my parents' divorce, I renounced them. And all the things that called me intellectually prideful because of my arrogance, I renounced them. Why? Because that's true repentance. I repented and renounced the lies that kept me enslaved. Why? Because I had caught a vision of the way God loved me through the death of Christ Jesus. And at his cross, I saw the revelation of my value because he was willing to spill blood to have me. But at the cross, I saw the end of sin as well, because the end of sin is death. So in the person of Jesus, sin is condemned and I am elevated because in the person of Jesus, I get to sit in heavenly places because through the person of Jesus, I am Son. And when I saw that and caught a vision of that, it changed everything, my guy. So I'm closing laptops. I'm riding my bike, listening to worship music, just screaming my head off. I can't listen to secular music anymore. Like in that in that season, because anything contra God was so, so, so, so tainted with who I used to be. I wanted no part of it. I remember that Sabbath, I went to New Life Church where our brother Michael Polite was pastoring. And uh, shout out to Mike if you're listening, man. I love you. And um I uh I'm sitting there and the choir is singing. I don't remember what song they're singing, dog yo, but I've never been an expressive man in worship. Never been an expressive man. But all of a sudden, as these, I think they were singing like either the anthem, something else, like, you know, hallelujah, you have one of the victims. I think it was something like that. And as they're singing, bro, this deep, deep sense of just rising up, like literally standing, was just building in my body. And I was the sort of dude that would never be expressive in worship because I didn't want to be that funny guy, particularly in an Adventist context. Adventists aren't that really expressive in worship. Um so you don't want to be that one person that raises their hands, and people are like, ooh, he's charismatic, ooh, he's a weirdo, right? But I could not, like life within me was screaming out, praise the Lord. Everything was within me was screaming, praise the Lord. And I remember I just stood up to my feet, not caring what anybody thought, just lifted my hands up to the sky and just praise the Lord at the top of my lungs because I knew, I knew that I had been brought from death to life. Like I knew I was alive. That's why that song from Brandon Lake uh is so, so meaningful in this season of life. Like, even right now, I love that song so much. Um, it just recently came out, you know. Um, I think it's called Gratitude, where he's uh, so um lift up my soul, don't you get shy on me, lift up your song, because you've got a lion inside of those lungs. Get up and praise the Lord, right? Um, and bro, like I'm I'm reading the Bible, and all of a sudden the words are just jumping off of the page. Like, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, right? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly place, right? Um uh being renewed in the image after the knowledge of your creator, right? Therefore, being sober-minded, set your minds on the hope that you have that will be revealed in Christ Jesus, right? Like this is the hope of glory, Christ in you, right? This is I'm just like, like all of this is just alive, alive, alive, alive, alive. And I remember I was trying to make sense of it to my friends. I was like, yo, I literally hear God dead. And they're like, oh, that's dope, John. You don't get it. And yeah, man, I just yeah, man, I went from death to life, dog.
SPEAKER_08So this is this is I'm just hearing all this has happened. You're loved one day in this apartment when you realize that you've always been a son.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, man. And then I can actually renounce sin in my life because I know sin is unnatural to me. This is why I have such a hard time with the way we talk about sin, particularly when we we fall into this theological trap of saying, you know, oh, we we just got a sin nature. Like, no, you don't, right? And I know some of y'all listening to this just got triggered, but in the New Testament, sin nature is never there. Some of y'all got an NIV that uses this language of sin nature, but that's a translation error. Error. Like Paul constantly talks about the flesh, the flesh, and he makes a clear distinction between the flesh and um the body, right? Flesh he uses the word sarks, and for body, he uses the word soma, right? And flesh is the agreement of your body with the dark powers of the enemy because you are a slave to sin. Let me say this again. Flesh is the agreement of your body, your mind, everything that you are under the dark powers because you're a slave to sin. So your body, your soul, is actually in the flesh sarks, right? Your soulma body is in the flesh sarks because it's a victim to the slavery of sin. And sin has corrupted and caused immense damage to your body. That's why your body is corrupted. Your body is corrupted because of the sinful effects of being in the flesh upon it. Jesus Christ came and liberated us from the power of the flesh, Sarks. But we still live in these corrupted bodies, Soma. Why do we live in these corrupted bodies? Because they have been corrupted by sin. So they are sinful, corrupted bodies, but it's not a sinful, corrupted nature. It is not natural to you. You were a slave to sin, a very unnatural slavery, and now you exist in a very corrupted body, right? Because the body
Sonship Spirit Power And Sin Language
SPEAKER_02you inherited is the body that was enslaved uh uh all the way back at Adam. Adam was not made with a corrupted body, right? His body ended up being corrupted because he fell a victim to the power of the flesh, sin. And so we have this long history of a corrupted body, and that's why this body needs to be redeemed, right? That's why we're gonna get new bodies. Why? Because this body has been schooled in the desires of sin, in the desires of the slavery. So that's why we wage against the desires sometimes that this body elicits. But here, hear me clear. You are not in the flesh, you are no longer ruled by what your body may desire. Why? Because Jesus Christ has given up his spirit so that we can live through the spirit. For through the body of Jesus Christ, I died to the flesh, so that I might live. So this body that I now live, this body that I live in this corrupted body, in this corrupted soma, right? It's a fleshly body, but it doesn't, it's not in agreement with the flesh anymore. So that now I have the power to live through the life that he's deposited in my body. Is this body still corrupted? Yes. Does this body have the weight of all the years of sin? Yes. Does this body need redemption? Yes. Can this body be led according to the temptations that come from the outside and the desires that have been cultivated through centuries and centuries of propensity to sin? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. But I do not belong to the power of the flesh. I, Jonathan Leonardo, are not, I am not in league with the flesh. My natural disposition is in agreement with him because my natural disposition is a life in the spirit, because the life I live is now in the spirit. So I live my life in the spirit through him who loved me and gave himself for me. And we're shortchanging ourselves when we naturalize ourselves as no better than the agreement that we have with and in the flesh, under this power of the flesh and of the enemy and in sin. We have been liberated from that. Are we still in corrupted bodies? Yes, but we now live with power. We are children, we have authority. We put to death the deeds of this body because this body has been put to death through baptism in the baptism that we participate as Christians, right? So we now have the privilege of living with power. We have the privilege of living in authority, we have the privilege of living with the very life of Christ within us. So why would I call myself anything less than what he has called me? If he says, here is my son in whom I am well pleased, why would I position myself as something other than that in order to justify some theology that I've been identifying with for 30 years? What do you think that's gonna do for you? Absolutely nothing. Because all of the theology that we've been living under is absolute rubbish if it's not if it's not surrendered to the very life and righteousness that God has given us through Jesus Christ and has deposited in us through his Holy Spirit, how can I live contrary to the very spirit that he paid such a high price to put into me? Why would I then compromise and call myself anything less? Why would I give permission to anything less? So I no longer live from the flesh. I live in and through the spirit. And now I know that as a son, if ever this old corrupted body gets led by desires and gives way to sin, I know I am not in the flesh because I have been freed. So I rise up in confidence because my father calls me son, and he bids me to receive everything he says is mine. And so he reminds me that I have an advocate before the father. So if I stumble along this life, he says, My son, look, you have an advocate before the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. So why would you let yourself be identified more with your fall than be identified with what I've identified you with? And so that's the shift that happened for me. I was no longer identified through my double-mindedness and through my wanting something other than what theology said. I now began to identify through his identification of me, which was a beloved son. And so I renounced sin. Why? Because I renounced it via the revelation of his love. And if ever I fall along the way, I have an advocate for the Father, before the Father. I am not in the flesh, I am in the spirit, right? Romans um um 8 9. We are not in the flesh, we are in the spirit, and this is what changed, man. We have the privilege to live in power, boldness, and then people say, ah, well, it sounds like you're saying you don't sin anymore. No, bro. What I'm saying is that I will not allow my sin, I will not allow sin to identify me, identify me with more clarity than what the blood says. How dare I? How dare I not receive the blood as the absolute cleansing agent that it is and still call myself dirty when he calls me clean? What sort of theological arrogance and pride we steward when we think that we're doing God a favor by holding on and retaining a thing he paid such a high price to cleanse us from. The arrogance and the pride of people. Because this here gospel of grace, this here gospel of grace presses against their own notions. And I know it because it pressed against mine. I learned the gospel from a man with a GED. And this is me. Super intelligent. You know it, Rich. I ain't no dummy. Halfway through a PhD, but I had to receive the gospel from a man with a GED because this pride covered up via this intellectualism would not allow me to see the simple truth that calls me clean, that calls me beloved, and then empowers me to live according to it. How dare we?
SPEAKER_08We uh we could go further and and get into it, but I think we're gonna save that for later. And I kind of want to just ask you this as we close. And that is you knew you were loved. Someone's listening to this, and they don't feel it. How can they know that they're loved by the same God that loves you?
SPEAKER_02Because Jesus Christ came into this world and endured, endured shame, ignomy, endured the absolute condemnation of the cross to have the right to call you his. And he is resurrected and he is alive. And if Jesus Christ is alive, that means your life was so valuable to him that the king of the universe was willing to lay his down so that you might know your standing before him. You are immensely valuable, you are a great worth, you are a great treasure before the eyes of the Father and the man Jesus Christ, the God Jesus Christ. Right? God Jesus Christ. I don't want nobody to be thinking I'm over here with some modalism. This ain't what it is. Right? Like that is your great value. And if you open up your heart to just receive the truth that you are who he says you are, then sin, you can see it for what it is. You cannot see sin for what it is apart from his great love revealed. Right? Everybody's teaching people to first repent of sin and then come to the Father. The only reason you can repent is turn is because the Father sent his son for you. Let me say this, man. You know, we constantly do this thing where like, you know, just turn from your sin and run to the cross. That's the wrong order. Right? Right? Don't we say, how does the song go? The world behind me, the cross before me. Is that how it goes?
SPEAKER_08I've heard that one yet.
SPEAKER_02Is that how it goes? That's wrong.
How You Can Know You’re Loved
SPEAKER_02Let me tell you why it's wrong. Because the cross, the cross is the thing that's in the world. The cross is the thing that meets you at the point of your greatest sin. That when you arrive at that point of your greatest sin where you think you've gone too far that God can't forgive you, guess what's already there first? The cross of Christ. Because the cross of Christ is saying, this is what the end of sin is, and this is your value and your worth. So turn and run to the Father. The cross is the agent that's causing us to turn and run to the Father. But then the irony is that the way we turn is we turn from sin and we run to the Father through Jesus Christ. Right? We run through his death and resurrection. So this in this way, it's like through the man Jesus Christ. But the cross is there at the place of our greatest defeat. The cross is there at the place of our greatest ignomy. The cross is there at the place of our greatest shame. The cross is there at the place of where we think God won't love us. And when we arrive there, we find out that he was already there first. And he endured the shame. He endured the abandonment. He endured the betrayal. He endured the violation of body. When you trusted somebody and they hurt you so deep. When the men that were supposed to protect you violated you, when the friends that would not have betrayed you did in fact betray you, and the spouse that was not gonna abandon you in indeed abandoned you. Jesus Christ endured all of that, was raised upon a cross, and he says, I have gotten here first before you, so that I might have the right, I might have the right to have victory over this and give you the victory as a free gift. And I free you from shame, I freed you from guilt, I freed you from the power of sin. For your natural destiny was not to live in this shameful existence. Your natural destiny was to stand holy, blameless before the Father in love. That's the worth and the value that God saw for you. That's why He sent the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ did not come into the world to make God love men more because we believed in his son. Jesus came into the world because his father so loved the world that he sent Jesus to redeem them. It is the enemy of our souls that has cast a dark shadow over the minds of men so that they might think of God as some harsh, severe, exacting predator who's looking to visit men with judgment. No, Jesus Christ came into the world on behalf of the Father, and the Father was in Jesus Christ. This is the mystery of the incarnation. The Father was in Jesus Christ, reconciling the world unto himself through death. God died for us. God died for us. God died for us. And if God died for us, that means that his love is great. And if he resurrected, that then means his love is the greatest and cannot be overcome by anything. So if you receive the simple truth that you are his daughter, you are his son, then life, life will testify to the validity of what I'm saying. And you will see that the love of God is what powers a life. Right? So, yeah, man.
SPEAKER_08That's it, bro. And in the future, we'll talk about what's happened since then and the life that's happened since then. And the miracles, the miracles we've seen with our eyes. I've seen them with my eyes. Yeah. You've seen them with your eyes. And bro, we're loved out here, bro.
SPEAKER_02We're loved out here, man. Let's talk, yeah, man. Let's do a part two, and then we'll tell the story of love reality at some point.
SPEAKER_08Alright, bro. Appreciate you coming on, man.
SPEAKER_02Alright, love you, big dog.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's too late, can stop it, it's a boom. No, I can't wait till you approve. I got people with me on the other side. Come on up to Rit on the rock. Comin' up for the night, they come a lot. Come and up for the right, y'all stay a lot. Stay the lack. They put your face down. We don't come account.
Wrap Up And Music Outtakes
SPEAKER_00Stop it. No, I cannot wait till you approved. I got people with me on the other side. Come on, you too bra. I need it on a rock. Come enough for the night, yet come along. Come enough for the fight, yeah. Stay a lot.