The WOFOYO Podcast
The WOFOYO Podcast
You Are The Message.
Ever felt the pull to be recognized more than to be faithful? We open with John 1 to reset the center: the Word who was with God and is God, the true Light that no darkness can hold. From there, we track John the Baptist’s stunning restraint—refusing every label and choosing a vocation instead: a voice in the wilderness. That choice becomes our theme. When the church chases titles, the message gets thin; when we guard the message, the fruit gets real.
We wrestle with the Elijah question and how Jesus names John in the spirit of Elijah without John wearing the title. Then we zoom out to timing, ego, and the temptation to force outcomes. The wilderness tests read like a modern ministry playbook: satisfy the crowd now, perform for applause, seize power today. Jesus refuses shortcuts, and that pattern frees us from marketing our souls. Along the way, we share candid stories, from leaders who fell when platform outpaced character to humble pastors who’d rather be called by their first name than be sold on a flyer. The takeaway is painfully simple: you are your message. If the message is Christ, you won’t need a pedestal.
Expect practical steps you can use this week: where to start reading (John, then the Synoptics, then Acts), how to ask God for today’s assignment, how to recognize the passages and tests that reveal your calling, and how to avoid argument traps that feed pride but starve love. We end with a call to be the church where it’s darkest—prisons, neighborhoods on edge, living rooms where hope feels thin—trusting that obedience beats optics. If you’re ready to trade status for substance and let Jesus increase while you decrease, press play, grab a notebook, and meet us in the Word.
https://wofoyo.org/ #wofoyo
You've been working hard all week. You've been giving it your all. Some people might notice and say thanks, but most won't. The whole thing leaves you feeling, well, underappreciated. With all that you give the church, it's time that you get something back. You need a title. That's where we can help. We're titles are us, and for a reasonable donation, we can provide the title and proper documentation to raise your self-esteem. Apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor. We got them all. Feeling disrespected, a prophetess title will ensure no one calls you by your middle name ever again. You're the sharpest dressed person in your congregation. But something is missing. Complete your ensemble with an honorary Doctor of Divinity or Theology title. Salvation not required. Starting with our deacon and elder packages at just 1995, up to our most popular minister certificate, we have the proper titles to fit every pocketbook and ego. Certify your five-fold anointing with just a three-digit love offering. At Titles R Us, we provide the respect and recognition you deserve, even if you don't have the goods. We are going to be digging in to a couple chapters in the Gospel of John. I just get hyped up. You know, some people have their music that they lift the weights to, and you know, you get ready to go play a football game, get ready to go work out. You got to do something you don't want to do. And you got that music that gets you gets that adrenaline going, you know, get you ready. You're going into battle. A lot of people, you know, have that music, or maybe have a poem, or maybe have a verse that they read. But I this is one of those passages of scripture just gets me hyped up every time I read it. John 1.1. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and apart from him, not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it. Then it gets talking about John the Baptist. So he's the predecessor. He's come to give witness to the light. A man came, once in from God, his name is John. He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. This was the true light that coming into the world enlightens every person. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, and yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in his name and who were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, the glory of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testified about him and called out, saying, This is he of whom I said, he who is coming after me has proved to be my superior, because he existed before me. Which is interesting because John the Baptist was actually born in the flesh before Jesus was, about three months. So we're talking spiritually here. For of his fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace, for the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. God, the only Son, who is in the arms of the Father, He has explained him. If that don't get you hype about Jesus Christ and excited, I don't know what does. It's good to have a little ramp up to the actual study we were getting ready to do. Here's the actual study. This is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites to him from Jerusalem to ask, Who are you? Verse 20. And he confessed and did not deny. And this is what he confessed, I am not the Christ. So they asked him, What then? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the prophet? He answered, No. Then they said to him, Who are you? Tell us that we may give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? And he said, I am the voice of one calling out in the wilderness, make the way of the Lord straight, as Isaiah the prophet said. In a world and in a system that wants to confer all these titles. John the Baptist goes, I ain't taking your titles. I'm not taking them. What you need to know about me is the message. I am the voice of one calling out in the wilderness, make the way of the Lord straight, just like Isaiah did. What's interesting is John the Baptist won't say, I'm Elijah. What they're saying in Scripture and in Jewish eschatology that before Messiah comes, Elijah comes. He comes back from being pulled up into the whirlwind into heaven. Now, Jesus said this. Let's start at Mark 9, 11, and we'll go through 13. And they asked him, saying, Why is it that the scribes say Elijah must come first? And he said to them, Elijah does come first and restores all things. And yet, how it is written of the Son of Man that he will suffer many things and be treated with contempt. But I say to you that Elijah has indeed come, and they did to him whatever they wanted, just as is written of him. Now, if we read that same passage over in Matthew, when he's talking about John the Baptist, Matthew 11 14, and if you are willing to accept it, John himself is Elijah who was to come. Which is interesting. And I remember having this discussion because when I first started reading the Bible, reading, reading, you know, get baptized in the Holy Spirit, and I had this discussion and have a discussion with my mom, who, you know, she read the Bible too. And she goes, Now, wait a minute. He said he's not Elijah. Jesus is saying he is. A little bit of a conundrum there.
SPEAKER_01:A little bit.
SPEAKER_03:I'll tell you something else that in reading about history, right in that period, the turn of the century, right before the Pentecostal movement breaks loose in America, there were several of your big time famous preachers. I say several, there was at least three, that were big name, well-renowned preachers that all of a sudden flip their wig toward the end of their ministry, and people that walked in miracles and start saying, I'm Elijah the prophet. And dying within about three years. You know, oh, now the ministry is disgraced and all this. Just saying. This is one of those things that happens. They're saying they're Elijah the prophet. Here's the thing. Jesus saying John John the Baptist is this is the this is Elijah. This is the spirit of Elijah that that's resting on him. And Elijah, and John the Baptist, not Elijah. No, I'm not the prophet. Yep, I'm not. So having read those passages, I want to think about, we always harp on the title culture that's in there in the church. But there's probably some of those from Jerusalem that actually like John the Baptist, and if it were politically expedient, they would be quick to declare him and then try and capitalize on him. All the things that they would, you know, oh, this is hey, this is this is Elijah the prophet. He's doing this, he's doing that. Said John did know miracles, but he's walking in the spirit and power of Elijah, he says. Jesus says that. So here's the deal. What's more important? The titles and all the accolades, Jesus said, Woe unto you when all men speak well of you. For they did the same thing to the false prophets. So man is always wanting to confer a title. And what really jumped out at me in reading these scriptures last couple days is you are your message. John John goes, It's not about what title you can confer, it's about the message that I'm preaching. It's about the message that the Lord has given me to preach. And I would just put it for you, for me, for all of you out there in podcast land, for every one of you that gets hung up on the titles and stuff, forget about that. What is more important is the message that the Lord has given you to speak.
SPEAKER_00:What I find interesting here is that just like in a lot of other places, the Pharisees and the scribes wanted to immediately make this about doctrine. Uh really what they wanted to do. That's what the title was about. If we can get you to admit to something, then we can start running the doctrine. And if we can prove your doctrine false, then we got you. So, you know, um was was John the Baptist, did John the Baptist come in the spirit of Elijah? Yeah, he did. Jesus said he did. Um but does Elijah come before Jesus to set things straight? Yeah, he does. He actually does that in the flesh. Um scripture doesn't contradict himself or itself, uh, because we see that in in the Bible there are two figures that have not suffered death. And we believe that we believe that to be Enoch and Elijah. Uh so we believe the two witnesses in the book of Revelation to be Enoch and Elijah uh before Jesus comes back, you know, uh at that time. So so what we see is a spiritual manifestation of Elijah before the physical manifestation here in the future.
SPEAKER_03:And you and you also have that confirmation on the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus is talking with Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets. There you go. But but he's this is not just a spiritual vision. They were there.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And the first thing John does when he's asked, first thing John does is start saying who he's not, which is pretty cool. Um but I think John also recognizes something. Maybe he does, maybe he does. I don't know. But I know we recognize something here in in the 21st century, that the moment you accept a title, someone else can plaster your face on a flyer. Oh man. You can be marketed. And that means money. Uh that means revenue. Uh and and then we don't we don't we don't want that. We try to stay away from that. We want to stay away from that. Yes. And and so um you'll see folks who who are just truly who don't who don't give a crap about money and revenue as far as pimping the gospel and stuff like that. Um they'll shy away from title. Uh I heard a pastor one time being introduced uh to somebody, and the person said, Well, I what should I call you? Do I call you pastor? Do I call you by your name? What do you want me to call you? Pastor looked at it, well, call me whatever you might I tell you my name, but whatever it is, whatever I am to you, you know, call me that. If if you must call me something. Which I thought was pretty profound, uh, pretty interesting as well.
SPEAKER_03:Gary Brothers, he pastors the big they don't use the name anymore. Um used to be Cape First Assembly of God, then it was Cape First, and now it's Global Life Church. Looks like a Glock logo. And the reason being is they had a Cape First in Syson and a Cape First in this town. I I get that. Yeah. But that that that was a church, is a church. Yeah, it has all those trappings. But the one thing that always impressed me about that guy who has spoken some crazy accurate things into my life at the right time. And he seems very unaffected in all my interactions. I've sat with just a men's Bible study with this guy. And for for all the big, the bigness. It reminds me of that Peter Gabriel song, big time. Gonna go to a big church, gonna pray to a big God. So much larger than life. Gary, you know, same thing. Well, what do we call you? Do you call you an apostle? Do we call you a pastor? He says, How about Gary?
SPEAKER_00:There you go.
SPEAKER_03:In front of everybody. You know, now, is it necessarily my cup of tea? I've always had a good time there. They got a lot of the trappings that a lot of these other churches do. Uh, but the dude is genuine. And I talk with Daryl Coulson, who was him and his wife, and I think maybe even one of their kids was uh helping to do music ministry there uh for several years. And I go, the dude is what you see is what you get. He reminds me of the the old man, the dad on the movie The Jerk.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:See that? That's shit. See that? That's Shinola. Shit, Shinola, son. You're gonna be alright. To be who you are, number one, there's an old admonition. Uh believe it came from the Greeks, know thyself. I would admonish every one of us. First, we need to know God. As we learn to know God, he's gonna reveal a lot more of ourselves to us than we could know on our own. There's a lot of illusions that we have about ourselves that they get revealed, they get revealed in the word and get revealed uh as we learn to apply it. Uh, you know, Holy Spirit's gonna say, okay, here's the standard. Now, how are you measuring up? Or why did you just do that? That's one of the ones. Why did you just do that? Hey, uh, where do you think that came from?
SPEAKER_00:Damn, you saw that?
SPEAKER_03:What are we gonna do about it? Once you uh know who the Lord is and you begin to develop that relationship with the Lord, you're gonna find out there's certain things and they're gonna start to pique your interest. There's certain things that you you might find that you do better than other believers, and and then there's things that those same believers will do better than you, which is the way it's supposed to be. And you're gonna find out certain parts of the word of God, certain passages, certain themes will jump out at you. And this is a good indicator of what the message God has given you is gonna be. Certain tests that you keep having to go through, good indicator of what the message is. And again, man's gonna try and market it. You were mentioned, you know, they put you on a flyer. It reminded me, especially in urban churches. Doesn't have to be a big church, but they have this flyer where you're gonna have this conference or this get together, and basically you're gonna have church in a different room. You're gonna have a dinner, you're gonna get charged$25 for a$10 meal and get preached at by the same people, and they might even bring in a guest preacher or something like that. But especially in the urban churches, when you look at that, everybody has their titles in front of their name. And they always reminded me of the old Master P cassette covers and CD covers. Yeah, whoever does the artwork on all these urban churches, man, this reminds me of that bad album, The Chronic, from back in like '95 or six.
SPEAKER_00:I believe I got that one laying around here somewhere.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, dear me. They had a dude named uh named Dawkins that's from New Orleans. Only reason I knew about that, he was over in our unit. Man, army days. If anything helps you appreciate different cultures and being around different cultures, being in the military with a whole bunch of people, they ain't been raised like you. They might not have the same upbringing, might not have the same politics, might come from a whole different environment. And yet you got to blend together as Americans and make it work.
SPEAKER_00:The Army's why I know Master P.
SPEAKER_03:Uh I had Yeah, I wouldn't have known him if it hadn't been for that.
SPEAKER_00:No, I I had a I had a competition stereo system in my truck. And Master P was one of the CDs that I used for demonstration. Uh yeah, that's back in my army days. Uh but like like you said though, everybody's green. You know, everybody's green in the army, but uh yeah, uh you just don't you don't see yourself as different. Uh no. And and and you you learn to you learn to appreciate and like what everyone else is doing, and you you'll you'll even you'll even try uh what other people are doing just just just because you you respect them.
SPEAKER_03:Dude, one of the craziest things I've ever done. Just this is not on the list of things you got chalked up that you're going to do when you join the army. I was hanging out with a bunch of Filipinos eating fried chicken skins and drinking Canadian Miss Whiskey up in up in that bearish room and singing Margaritaville in Filipino.
SPEAKER_00:There you go.
SPEAKER_03:Karaoke.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Those are good days.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Ain't got nothing to do with the gospel. Amen. But we done taken that rabbit trail. But but men will try and confer those titles on you. And what can happen, but here's the issue. And one of the reasons I'm putting these two things together, and the reason I think they're in the word together, is if you take the title, you gotta be careful that the title doesn't become your message. That your message that God has given you, it's God's message, but He's given it to you to preach. He's given it to you to teach people, He's given it to you to live out. You need to make sure that that title doesn't become your message.
SPEAKER_00:Doesn't become your identity.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. The message and who you are and acting that out, and who you are in Christ, and the message that becomes your identity.
SPEAKER_00:Now here's the truth. You may read the Bible and see yourself in some of these biblical characters. Uh, it's very possible that John the Baptist saw himself in Elijah. Yeah. He might have done that. Um, and and there's nothing wrong with that. Um there's plenty of times where I've read the Bible and saw myself in a particular situation that a biblical character was in. Um and that's really, and that's not because it's not because of who I am or or anything like that, but that's how God's how God lets us live out the message and and birth that he, you know, birth that message in us um before he allows us to speak it. Um Jeremiah was was really good. Jeremiah's really good about that. Um you see Jeremiah living that message uh, you know, as he speaks it. Um so it's okay if you see that. Be careful not to be filled up with pride and then somehow think that you know you're on that level, so to speak, and that becomes your identity, because that can be a dangerous place to be.
SPEAKER_03:And another thing that happens I'm gonna allude to here, is this is John II, and he's just thrown over the money changers' temples, he's just got through going back and forth uh with the Sanhedrin, and it's during Passover, and everybody wants to make him king, pretty much. Everybody's believing on him, and uh says many believed in his name as they observed his signs, which he was doing. But Jesus, on his part, was not entrusting himself to them because he knew all people, and because he did not need anyone to testify about mankind, for he himself knew what was in mankind. I don't need your accolades because I know what you're gonna try and do with it. And the other thing I want to bring about here is or bring up is timing, is you might very well be called to be one of the big five-fold ministry type. You might be called to be that. I would be very cautious about that and make sure it's not your own ego, but there might be a time. But if you look at the temptation in the wilderness, every one of those temptations was to get Jesus to act on ego and make things happen before their time. Oh, make these stones bread. Nope. Man shall not live by bread alone. Well, what happens? As soon as temptation's over, the angels come and minister and give them food. Throw yourself down. Nope. You shall not tempt the Lord thy God with evil. You know, if you will bow down and worship me, I will give all these kings. They've been handed over to me.
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_03:It is said, Thou shalt serve the Lord your God only, and him only shall you serve. And guess what? He's king of kings. He got it, he has the titles. He didn't have to prevent right. No. But there's a time that he's not taken the title. Right. There's a time he's going, this is not the proper timing for what I'm about to step into. Even though I am, you know, Jesus. What does it say? He is the word. In the beginning was the word. So what is the word? The word is your message. He's living it. He's out there doing it, you know, and he's the logos. You are the message. What he does is the message. What God calls you to do is the message. How he calls you to live it out is the message.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's very easy to find out if you are one of those people that wants to to prove themselves. Um, and and I'll tell you this from experience. Um, very easy to tell if you're one of those people, because you'll be the guy trying to prove himself right in all the discussions. Every time someone brings up a point, uh, especially a point of doctrine, you're going to prove yourself right. You're gonna you're gonna lay it down, you're gonna you're gonna lay it all out. Um and I know that because I've been there. Um, and there wasn't there wasn't much stuff in my own mind that that I was wrong in. Uh it's just my own ego. Um but we see John the Baptist doing just the opposite, avoiding those those arguments. Because he knew that's all that's all they really were. They really were arguments. He didn't need to get into it. Um, so be careful because the enemy loves to pull you in. Those are snares. Um enemy loves to pull you into those arguments, and the next thing you know, you done got wrapped around the axle, you done snapped on somebody, you done went off, you done lost your temper, and enemies are sitting there laughing at you. Uh the enemy don't care. The enemy's unsaved. They don't care. Um, but now you've done lost, you've done lost your witness.
SPEAKER_03:And not only that, one of the reasons he's laughing at you, because I didn't even have to do that. That was all you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that was all you. That that very thing that you thought you had in check wasn't in check. Um, that's what we call getting pulled off your square. Uh, you know, you done got pulled off your square, and it was all you. Now the enemy's living rent-free inside your head. You're gonna think about it for a while. So you know, watch out. And it was and it was pretty good in that area.
SPEAKER_03:Well, one of the other things, you know, how how do you keep from doing that? Well, later in this gospel, when John's disciples come and tell him, hey, everybody's going after this Jesus character that you testified of, and he goes, Here we go. You know, the friend of the bridegroom can't help but rejoice with the bridegroom. He said, He must in he must increase and I must decrease. Yeah. Know your position. Who's increasing? Are you increasing? Are you seeking to have favor with God and man? Are you seeking to improve that stature as a man of God? I've watched about three-quarters of a movie, something to kill about 20 minutes at a time, with uh it's on Amazon Prime, and it's uh about a Greek Orthodox priest. Movie's called Man of God, and I've seen three-quarters of it, and he's getting toward the end of his career because he's he starts out and he's young. And as he's getting older, he's uh, you know, he's got the gray hair. And he literally just forsakes all the things. He's like one of the most beloved guy's name is, I believe he's sainted by the Greek Orthodox Church. Uh Saint Nicterios. And he's over there in Egypt, and it starts off. They go. He's giving money away. He's doing stuff. He's living what his message is. He's associating and praying for the Muslims and the Arabs. He's over giving money away to people that are in need. And your higher ups are going, well, he'll bankrupt the church if he does this and he does this. But he's so popular, it's kind of like the same thing that happened, Jesus. Well, we can't do it this way. There'd be an uproar among the people. So what they do is they pit the patriarch who is this guy. He said, That's my spiritual father. The one thing that happened is the patriarch had had somebody move against him before. And the higher-ups, there's three of them, and they they get right in that dude's ear. And so he expels them. He removes them from his uh it shows some of the inner workings of that system, you know, as far as how things are done with the Greek Orthodox Church. And it removes him from office. Removes him from being, you know, the priest over there. So he's bouncing around. And the whole time he forgives him and just seeks reconciliation and uh the whole time and gets bumped around. There's people that are wanting to fight for him, but he's not willing to raise his voice. Now, where I was at the last time I had a minute to watch it was he said, here's the difference, because he's the Lord leads him to start a convent. This guy's writing all these prolific theological books and articles that are getting published everywhere. He ends up taking some small parish that nobody wants. He ends up just going wherever he can just to be faithful. And he's taking every slight, every insult, every everything. And there's people like, man, you could be the patriarch. You could be this, you could be the head of the whole thing. You're so popular. Doesn't want it. Wants none of it. He said, I don't want what that could do to me. He said, it's the it's the power. He said, there's trappings with the power. And he said, Lord, you know, when they're when they're voting on a new patriarch, Lord, do the right thing. Don't put me in there. Yeah. So as these people are, he ends up working at uh a high school, training priests and other people, you know, over the time. And this is all right around turn of the century. And then there's this blind girl that comes up to him and says, Well, I want to be a nun. And so he opens a convent with the blessing of that patriarch that was in that area, and all of a sudden, there's a little bit of jealousy that creeps in because it's so popular and he's so effective. Like, well, wait a minute, I wanted you to be my number two. I needed you to. I said you could do it, but and then he goes, Well, what are our options? And they lay down that, hey, there's some options here. You could do like they do in the West and declare it. Well, maybe the Greek Orthodox Church doesn't rule over this convent. Maybe it's just a not-for-profit. And he goes, I don't want to do that, but we will. And so the guy that he is mentored, you know, uh, as soon as he started teaching that high school, he goes, I don't get you. I I just don't get I've seen people slander you. I've seen people do all sorts of things. You could have a higher position. He said, I don't want the higher position. I want to do what the Lord's told me to do. I want to be obedient to Christ. He said, I'm being obedient to Christ. He said, but the whole time I've seen this happen and this and he starts laying out all these slights, all the abuse this guy's taken, all the slander. And he goes, and you don't defend yourself. I said, no. He said, but you are willing to fight for them. He says, ah. This is man of God doesn't have to fight for himself. He said, but the difference is he will fight for his children. That's about where I'm at. But just remind all the trappings. He doesn't care about the titles. He didn't care about the titles that could be conferred and all the power that comes with us. Because the Greek Orthodox Church in some areas has some power, just like the Catholic Church in some areas has some power. He's like, I want to be obedient. And yet his message is the one that reverberated, not the one of the patriarchs. Right. It was his message because he kept himself in check. You know, we just had two things uh happen here in the last week, maybe 10 days. Definitely been within the last two weeks. Um Robert Morris was had written a book about walking in the Holy Spirit and getting to know the person. The Holy Spirit was a Baptist pastor. And I remember studying that was that was the book we were studying. It wasn't as good as Good Morning, Holy Spirit, but it was a lot like it. Over when I went to Cape First, uh, under uh you know, Gary Brothers leading that Bible study. And but it got found out. He messed around with an underage girl. He got sentenced. Now, that doesn't mean the message that he was saying was flawed. Does it? Doesn't mean he's flawed and deserves to go to jail. Yep. Mess around with 12-year-olds. Yes. 100%. Also just had a mega church pastor over in, I believe, Alabama, uh, has just gotten, I think, arrested or sued for laundering four hundred thousand dollars of church money for his own personal expenses. Vehicles, clothes, all this stuff, travel. Here's the thing: if you take the title and you don't live up to it, people get hurt. If you preach the message that you were given to preach and don't worry about the titles, and you get people to focus on your message, then all of a sudden your shortcomings don't have near the impact on the people that hear it. I'm gonna tell you, folks, C dub and bones are as flawed as it gets.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:That's why I don't try and highlight. If I drop a word every now and then, if I have a little bit of angst in my voice, I would rather you see the genuine article and hear the genuine article than for us to present ourselves as something that we're not, and later on, oh well, they're not what they seem. No, no, no, it's about the message, and it sure ain't about us.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there's there's no reason to spackle over the cracks. Um and you're right, it it has to be about the message, not about the speaker. The power is in the message, not in the title. Um the the more the more we focus on titles, or the more we focus on flesh, more we focus on man. I love the book of John here. This is why whenever I speak to someone, whether or not we're able to speak and and pray through to salvation or we're just piquing someone's interest. I like to I like for folks to start the book of John. Absolutely. Start at John, then read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then go into Acts. I think the the flow is really good that way. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, you know, Matthew's my favorite gospel, and I would still concede to you, read John first.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it just the the flow is really good. And then when you you read John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, then you're going right into Acts. Well, Luke is the author of Acts, so you're you're getting the same uh flow uh grammatically that way. Uh so yeah, I mean, just it works. But uh the book of John, it it entered, it's the really is the introduction of Jesus as God.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. It's almost especially in those first couple chapters, especially that first chapter, it's laying out a spiritual blueprint of who Jesus is. And if you read the Gospel of John for the rest of it, it shows how that plays out. And in the other three Gospels, you're seeing how Jesus is the word, the word was with God, the word was God. You're seeing that played out through all the rest of these gospels. And if you get that in your head first and in your heart, then all of a sudden, man, it lightens that whole thing up.
SPEAKER_00:I think you have a very solid foundation to go back and start at the book of Genesis. And then when you read that, especially that first few verses uh of Genesis, your mind should be going, oh, I get this now. Yeah because I read John.
SPEAKER_03:John one and John one and Genesis one are different accounts of the same thing. Oh man.
SPEAKER_00:It's crazy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. You're seeing him play out at creation. He's there. Don't focus on yourself, focus on the message. Focus on the message. Focus on focus on the message that you that the Lord wants you to preach. Because I'll be quite honest, and one of the things that happened with the wilderness is going into that process, what it had to undo in me is I had an ideal about myself. I had an idea of what I was supposed to be doing. And then the Lord started telling me some things, and I'm going, oh, really didn't see that coming. I thought I would be in pastoral ministry. Folks, my demeanor is crap for pastoral ministry. I work in a maximum security prison, one of the largest in the country. The way I deal with people is probably not good pastoral ministry mindset. So I just see when you're on the BS.
SPEAKER_00:It might be what the church needs, though. Who knows?
SPEAKER_03:Probably for that. When he started dealing with me about being prophetic, which had its own preconceived misconceptions that popped in my head, which is part of what he undid and part of what I strive to make sure that he keeps undone. I had all these misconceptions about who I was and what my message was going to be. And the Lord's going, I've done told you what I've called you to do. I've done told you some things I'm going to do through you. Now, sit your ass down down here in the wilderness. You got some things to learn. Isn't that funny how that works? Best place I could have learned it too.
SPEAKER_00:We mess around, get saved. And within a year or two, we think we know what's going on. We think we know what we're going to do. We think we know how uh it's going to manifest. We think we know everything. We think we know the whole plan of attack now. We think we know better than the author of Eternity himself, all of a sudden, after just about a year or two. Boy, ain't that a smack in the face?
SPEAKER_03:I was going to be an assistant pastor at a church with a thousand people. And I was, you know, by the time I did what I was supposed to be doing, was going to get it up to 3,000. Now, that community can't support a church of that many. And but that was directly affecting my message because it would have been church, church, church. We're going to evangelize everybody in the Bible belt. Not that that don't need to happen. That's just not what I was called to do. My calling was to do prophetic things and to teach. So that's what we do. He had to show me through a couple different lenses all the atomic destruction I would have wreaked doing what I wanted to do, doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing. And part of that is that when we talk about, you know, cookie-cutter Christianity, that's part of the part of the reason we think that is the only thing you can think about was if you're called, then you're going to be either a pastor or an evangelist somewhere, persistent pastor. There's so many more people that never get the accolades. You want to know who's doing real ministry, find the darkest places and see who's bringing God into there. That's who's doing real ministry because you'll see a change in that place.
SPEAKER_00:It can be very difficult. You get saved, the Lord starts giving you revelation, and our first knee-jerk response is to start fitting all of that into what we already know about church and ministry. And the only thing we know is the only model that we have. It doesn't fit, it doesn't work. I think God has been trying to break a lot of people out of that for a long time. I think there's a lot of folks who have been pulled out of that, who have been broken out of it. It's a lot of folks who never went in. Yeah, a lot of folks never went in that direction. But in the same sense, there are a lot of folks who got the call and said, okay, well, this is what I need to do. I need, I need A, B, C, X, Y, and Z, because, well, that's how you get into ministry. But we never asked ourselves, okay, Lord, how do you want me to get into ministry? What what what is my ministry? What is what's your plan? Um, we just think that uh God's called me into ministry. I need to go to seminary, no, I need to go to Bible college, get me a doctorate. Uh it may not be the case.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I'm gonna leave you all with this. Get in your word, get alone, keep your handy dandy notebook nearby with your ink pen. And just ask him, Lord, what have you called me to do? And what's your message? What's your message for me? What's your message for me? What's your message that you want to put through me? And just listen, write it down.
SPEAKER_00:Lord, what's your agenda today?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What do you want me to do? Here's the thing to wake up in the morning and live out tomorrow. You don't have to have all the dispensations of the Bible committed to memory. You don't have to have you don't have to have all that stuff. All you have to have is a yielding and willing heart to follow the Lord. The Lord will walk you through the day. He'll walk you right through it. He'll lead you right to the person that you need to be with. He'll lead that person right to you, and he'll give you the words. Next thing you know, you'll have had a conversation, not even realize you've had it, and been on about your day, and you'll go home and say, Lord, did we even do anything today? And you'll say, Well, yeah, matter of fact, you remember so-and-so.
SPEAKER_03:The other thing you should be asking is, Who am I supposed to give your message to, Lord? Because that that affects a lot. I can tell you, personal words, a prophesy. Yeah, that not saying I haven't. I'm just saying that's not the norm. Overall, over reaching things of, hey, here's here's what's happening right now. I don't know if y'all see this. That's about what the Lord does to me. But that might be totally different for you. So ask him who who he wants you to share this stuff with, and just be willing to step out on faith and be obedient.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Right. You may be the reason why someone chooses life instead of death. You may be the reason why someone chooses to keep a baby instead of having abortion. You may be the reason someone chooses to live instead of commit suicide. It may not be that dramatic. You may be the one you may be the reason that someone decides to go home to their spouse uh instead of choose divorce. Um whatever the case may be. Wake up tomorrow and ask God what's what's on the agenda. What's the message? What's the message and send me to him?
SPEAKER_03:You could be the one that keeps somebody from robbing a convenience store, humble themselves to ask for help.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:Right. You know, and you might be the help too. Never know.
SPEAKER_00:Never know. But uh it's always about the message. We need to be in a place where we can um be God's message, where we can be his word, uh, be a vessel that takes that into the world. And instead of uh going to church and playing church, we need to learn how to be the church. Amen.
SPEAKER_03:Hey everybody, thanks for listening. We hope this challenges you and causes you to grow. You can always check us out at wofoyo.org or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Rubble, or even check us out on YouTube. Remember, folks, if you're gonna grow, you got a woefoyo. Get in the word for yourself.