Unscripted #3 - LEAVEN?!?!?, dealing with temptation, Marvel/Panthers sadness, jobs outside of ministry, and ChatGPT!

Welcome to FS Students: Unscripted! A podcast from Five Stones Church Student Ministry where Johnny, Caleb, and others answer YOUR QUESTIONS! 

Use the link above to submit your questions. If you like this podcast, subscribe and share it with a friend!

https://www.fivestoneschurch.com/students
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Time Stamps:

6:05 - NFL draft expectations

8:50 - ice bucket challenge

10:35 - bible characters

15:50 - talk to my enemies

21:25 - LEAVEN?

22:05 - jobs if you weren’t in ministry

28:20 - What is something you’ve changed your mind about? 

38:05 - why would god punish me if I do something wrong?

48:05 - camp locations

50:55 - thoughts on ChatGPT

56:15 - how should we handle criticism?

1:04:05 - how do I just be a good person?

1:13:16 - what is a movie you wish you could see for the first time again?

1:19:45 - how do I rebuke temptation when it comes along?

1:39:53 - recommendations for Christian books and devotionals

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

what up welcome back to eva students unscripted episode three episode three this is a special one because it's just gonna be me and caleb yep we got no guests this time because we have a lot of questions and um no guest was able to join us this week however next week um or our next episode we are going to have mr john mccance the reverend himself the reverend so we have in our description um a link where you can type in questions. And we are going to be putting a question box on our Instagram story a couple of days before we start recording. So if you have questions, send them in. We want to hear your questions and share this with a friend. If you like this podcast, give us five stars on whatever and share it with a friend. But yeah, we basically just go through some questions. We have not prepared any answers or anything. And Kayla Caleb, would you like to know how many questions we have this week? At least on the list. Ooh, to get to? We might not get to all of them, but just... Seven. Seven? I don't know. I'm just throwing it out there. 26. Oh. Oh, you mean in total? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. How many will we get to? Probably not that many. Gotcha, gotcha. I thought you meant like ones we were going to go through. But like the last eight are kind of like this or that questions that we got. So we're going to... Well, that's exciting, man. 26? Yeah. And already for McCants next week, we've got two, four, six, seven, like eight or nine lined up already. So it's going to be... Yeah, it's going to be pretty legit. So... Hey, how was your Easter? It was really good. It was really good. We had a great time here, of course. Got to serve in the Wonder Zone for the first two services. Yeah, baby. Oh my gosh, it was just an amazing experience. But yeah, then after that, we went to my great aunt's house, my dad's aunt's house. And she has this like... big farm, all this land. Um, and we just, we hung out, we had some food and some, I didn't cause I didn't feel like it, but some people, um, they have a range out there. So shot some guns and stuff. So yeah. Okay. That's nice. Good time. Um, As we're still getting acclimated to this whole recording thing, you might want to pull your microphone just a little bit closer. Sure. Yeah, there you go. We heard your feedback. You couldn't hear me last week. I apologize. Last episode. I know, I know. We're working through this, you know, work in progress. That's sick. What did y'all eat? Do y'all have like a staple Easter lunch? like tradition or is it just kind of whatever? So like we, it can be whatever. Um, sometimes there's like these set meals that they'll make, but this time we just did a potluck. Like everybody, everybody brings a certain dish or like we ought to bring our own drinks this time. Um, but there was, there was like ham, bunch of casseroles. I mean, it was like Thanksgiving level. There was a bunch of stuff. Um, and I don't think there was, It wasn't like turkey or anything, but we had ham, we had a bunch of potatoes. My mom makes these potatoes called off-the-hook potatoes. Off what? Off-the-hook potatoes. Oh, okay. And fun fact, they got their name, those got their name from that, from my grandma used to make them, my mom's mom. And my dad, I think one of his buddies was overeating them and had a bite of them and just stood up in the middle of the dinner and was like, Monica, these potatoes are off the hook. The name stuck. So they just kept those names. But, yeah, they're the best potatoes I've ever had. But, yeah, just that, a bunch of desserts. It was good. Bro, I need to have some of these off-the-hook potatoes. Dude, I'll bring you some. We actually have some left over. I can bring you some. Okay. Yeah, please do. Oh, that's sweet. Did y'all do Easter egg hunts or anything? A couple of the kids did. They did it right before we left. But yeah, my sister and my brother and a couple of the older kids came out. My cousin came out and just started hiding eggs, like chucking them in the grass. My cousin chucks one full of change, and he chucks it. I'm like, that's going to break open. The change is going to go everywhere. And sure enough, it didn't. Did you dye eggs as a kid? Yes, yes, yes. Did you do like the wraps around them too when you would dye them and stuff? The wraps. Like they had like almost stamps that you could put around them and when you dip them in the dye, it was like different things. I don't know if I remember that exactly, but it's funny you said that because I completely forgot about that. We used to go over to my mom's mom's house, my Momo's house, and we would– we would have all these cups of different dye and just dye eggs. That was the thing we used to do every Easter. So yeah, that was a blast. Dang. I did not dye eggs this Easter, unfortunately. I went to lunch with my family. We just went out and it was nice. We've had, you know, we wanted to mix it up a little bit this Easter. My dad's parents, we like almost always did Easter with them growing up. So like dyeing eggs and stuff, like we were always with them. And they both passed away last year. So this is kind of our first Easter without them. And so I know, uh, they kind of were talking about just doing something different and everything. Um, and so we went out to eat and it was, it was really nice. Yeah. Happy resurrection Sunday to everybody. Hope you all had a great Easter and everything. Um, I do. Okay. Before we get into the questions, one, one more question for you and I'm gonna, so something we're trying to do is we're trying to timestamp these questions. So if you want to look ahead to see what the questions are that we're going to be talking about, you can look in the description. Unless, of course, I didn't do it. At which point, disregard this whole last 30 seconds. Are you... Okay. Are you ready for the draft tomorrow? Are you a draft guy? The NFL draft? Are you pumped? Are you hype? Are you ready to go in on Panthers winning the Super Bowl? Or are you just not even going to watch? Dude, to be completely honest, I didn't even know the draft was tomorrow. That shows how much I keep up with that stuff. But no, I don't. My knowledge just is not to that level to where I know like, oh, I'm looking for them to pick this guy. I just hear from my brother or my dad when they talk like, oh, we got this guy. I'm like, oh, is he good? I know nothing about this college player. I probably know like some of the top like most notable players on the Panthers but other than that my player knowledge is just not yeah not it but I'm excited for their season as we talked about last episode yeah some of we gave some of our hopes for what the the record might be yeah um but no yeah starts tomorrow man it all starts with the draft baby Dan Morgan's gonna get them dogs yeah that's what he says he's just like we need some dogs on this team I'm like I love you Dan um Yeah, I have planned out my week so that every day I'm wearing Panthers stuff. So I'm in, even though it's like 80 degrees outside today, I'm in a Panthers sweatshirt. Tomorrow I'm gonna wear my Bryce jersey. Day after that, gonna have a Panthers t-shirt. Like, I'm ready. I'm in. It's the Michael Scott, like, I am ready to get hurt again. Like, no doubt about it. All right, all right. Well, to speak to the point I was talking about, who's Dan Morgan? Oh my goodness. I don't know what that was, but Dan Morgan... Bro, he is the Panthers GM. Okay. So he's the general manager. So he's kind of the guy that's over our salary. He is over the players that we get and everything like that. All of that sort of stuff. He does all of that. He does it with Canalis. Like a good GM partners with the head coach. Okay. But if like the head coach is responsible what happens on the field, the GM is responsible for what happens off the field. Gotcha. So if you want to think about it, Nick Bailey is our GM and John McCants is our head coach. There we go. There we go. That'll stick forever with that analogy. Yeah. All right. So the other night I posted on our social media. question box and said we have a podcast coming up what questions do you have for us we got a couple some interesting ones I'm excited about this but I want to go through those really quickly before we get into some of the other ones that that we've got for today so mm-hmm The first question we got was, why hasn't Johnny done the ice bucket challenge yet? Do you know what this is? The ice bucket challenge? Do you remember? Like the old one from years ago, right? The old one. So it's come back. In a different way or the same way? It's different. And I will answer the question of that's why I haven't done it. Well, both reasons are why I haven't done it. One, I've seen this come and go already. Back in the day, there was the ALS. I Ice Bucket Challenge, raising awareness for ALS, right? That's what it was? I think so. Yeah. That doesn't ring a bell, but that totally could be true. I don't know. I believe there was something connected to it. That does... Did you do the Ice Bucket Challenge back in the day? No. Did you get... I don't think I ever did. If I did, it was like something funny I did with a group of friends, and we didn't record it. Oh, yeah. I did not do the Ice Bucket Challenge back in the day, and I don't really know why it's back. I know it's not for ALS. I think it has something to do with mental health, which if y'all know me at all, I'm a huge proponent of talking about mental health. So it's not like a malicious, like, I don't want to be a part of this thing. It's more just like... I don't really know what's, I don't know. I feel like this is a moment where I'm like, I'm old. Like, I don't know what's going on. Like, I don't know what's happening here. I'm away from that now. I'm away from that. Okay, so there's that question. Second question. Well, have you been nominated? I was. So that's why they're asking. Oh, uh-oh. Yeah, so I don't, I'm sorry, it's not gonna happen. You're gonna have a Five Stone FS students mob requesting that you're, You're dumped with what I spoke of. I guess if that happens, then sure. The next question was, if you were a Bible character, who would you be and why? If you were a Bible character, who would you be and why? If I was one of them. Yeah. Wow. And that's a good one. That was kind of my response. It's like the question with sitting down to who you'd want to have dinner with. There's just so many. But who would you be? Who do you most closely relate to you feel like? That's how I'm taking this question. Because who would you be? I'm like, Jesus. But I'm not. There's no way. Well, I think... an aspect that kind of that I've been going and struggling with lately is trust in my faith. And I think someone that just popped in my head is Gideon. So in him dealing with the Lord and asking for proof that the Lord is with him, I feel like that can be because of my tendency to want control and desire for things to go exactly the way I plan them out. I need to make sure that things are gonna go that way multiple times before I'm just opening my hands to things. I was trying to think of a character that needs that constant reminder. And I'm sure there's a lot. But Gideon came to my mind just now. And him trying to test God to see if he would... provide what he needed as evidence that he's going to be with him. Or was it the, I'm just thinking of the VeggieTales scene, of course, because that's how all that, all those stories hit my head. Are you talking about the fleece? The fleece on the ground. He's like, if you do this, this means that you're going to be with me. Dude, yeah. Which I would not advise. That be your way of, to the students listening, I would not advise that be the way that you test whether God wants you to do something or not. Oh, the Lord, yes, no. Definitely not. But yeah, I think that kind of that mentality of because that's something I can fall into is just needing that constant confirmation of that. Dude, that's a really good answer. I love that. I was thinking about it, too. And I'm like, I think the easiest answer would be Peter. I feel like it's just so easy to see yourself in Peter because you just like have such high moments and such low moments. But I think the one that I have most closely related to in this past several years, I feel like has kind of been, um, Oh man, I can't forget his name on the spot. Jacob, um, the son of Isaac. Yeah. Jacob and Esau. Um, I think Jacob, because so similar to some of the stuff that you're saying, like he wrestled with God all night long, um, in Genesis four, something 36 maybe 38 I can't remember he wrestled with God and I think that's been a kind of theme throughout my life is it feels like I've been wrestling with God and just like constantly in a similar way to you wanting to see what God has for me, wanting to know what's next, wanting to know what's happening, like wanting to understand things. Like I really want to understand things. And so it just felt like wrestling to reach that point of faith and trust to like, you're just not gonna understand it. Whether it be theological questions, whether it be like life questions or whatever, there's just gonna be times where it's not gonna be simple, it's not gonna be cut and dry. And also it's easy to relate to Jacob because that dude was just like a knucklehead when he was younger. Like he, he lied, he made mistakes. He was just like all sorts of messed up. And so it's easy to think like, yeah, I can see myself in that. I can see myself in that way. Um, sweet. Any other thoughts on that one? Well, I was just, this is kind of taking it to a bigger scale, but I just love talking about specifically Jacob and him wrestling God. Um, Just the more in-depth Bible study you do and looking at theological things like that, the symbolism that God puts throughout the Bible to tell his story is so cool because that's really a picture of God's wrestle with the Jewish people for the years to come. Oh, yeah, man. It's cool enough to see that Jacob wrestled with God and what all that means there in that moment, but God putting it there to show... his people and us now in the future, the bigger picture of what all that stands for. Um, well, I mean, literally at the end of that, what you're alluding to at the end of that story, he, he gets the new name. He gets, he's renamed Israel, right? Like, right. Your name is now Israel. So cool. Yeah. I love it. Um, next one.

UNKNOWN: 15:38

Um,

SPEAKER_00: 15:40

I thought this was a really interesting one. Let me timestamp this. I'm trying to keep up with this man. It's like learning a new muscle. It's just, do I have to talk to my enemies? Period. Period. Do I have to talk to my, quote, enemies? Do I have to talk to them? Well, God says you need to love your enemies. True. So... I'd say that's great more in depth than just talking to them. But at the same time with that, there's a lot of discernment that you need and that you'll continue to develop as you grow your faith on when and if you need to be in enemy territory. And I think that takes a lot of prayer. It takes a lot of discernment. There's times where you're going to be placed in locations, whether it's school, a workplace. or even people that you just don't get along with at a church that could be considered, I guess, enemy territory. People that are either their actions tend to pull you away from the faith, or they're not even targeting you specifically. They're just, you're just in an environment that's not very Christ-like. And there's definitely a balance there, whether it's whether you should be there or not. On the other hand, too, you don't want to create this echo chamber of just being around Christian people all the time. We're called to be in the world and to speak life into others and preach the gospel. In order to do that, we're going to naturally be put in places where we're in the enemy's camp. So it depends on the situation as to why you are there though. If you are there to be preaching the gospel or there to speak encouragement into whatever you would call your enemy, it depends on how you're defining that too. There's many different ways to define what an enemy to you would be, whether that's someone who's just directly opposing Christ or someone that is just not taking a liking to you specifically. But there's absolutely, to contradict what I just said about, not really contradict, but to balance it out with the echo chamber of being just with Christian friends, you can't just be with... know the enemy or people that aren't christ-like either all the time and solely because you're not going to get poured into the way you need to um they're they're more than likely going to pull you away from the word and from the lord and uh i mean we talked about this in the first episode just being careful about who you surround yourself with yeah influence there was a question about influences um and i think this is directly in line with that so um it you know it all directly depends on the situation um yeah Yeah. Yeah, I think that would be... I have a lot of follow-up questions to this question. Yeah. Strictly speaking, if I'm just giving it a yes or no answer, no, you don't have to. And I think, like you're saying, it's wise to... If you know someone... If you know a conversation is not gonna be fruitful, it can be wise to say, no, I'm not gonna engage in this. Yes. And be like, I'm not gonna be a part of this. I'm not gonna subject myself to that. Like, the Bible never... advocates that we just be a doormat upon which people i mean upon which people can just tread all over ourselves and we lay ourselves down in front of people like it the bible does say turn the other cheek the bible does say you know lay yourself lay your life down but that isn't but that's laying your life down for christ and so if he calls you to go to you know there's missionaries that are called to countries where it is like the death penalty, you know, in the Middle East or something like in Asia, like where there are countries where you are literally, like you're saying, going into enemy territory and you're called there. If somebody is just going to be a complete jerk to you all the time, take every opportunity you can to show love to them. And then honestly, I would say like, stay away from them if you can. If somebody is just not gonna be, again, don't actively avoid them, ignore them, all that sort of stuff necessarily, but you don't, strictly speaking, have to talk to them. But I have a lot of follow-up questions with that one. Yeah, for sure. And to go, to take Johnny's point even further, I think there's a difference between like he's saying, deciding to cut it off and, you know, kind of end that relationship versus you never want to get to the point where you're harboring hate for that person. Yes. Um, or at a point where you are just staying as a part of their circle because you want to either get back at them for something you did. Yeah. Um, I think that goes along the lines of, like Christ said, you turn the other cheek, and you remain the one who says, you know, my hands are off with this situation. It doesn't mean, like Johnny said, that you are a doormat and you get walked all over. I think people take that out of context and think, like, oh, we just have to take everything, which isn't true. Yeah, Jesus stood up for himself many times. Absolutely. Like, he would. But I think that's what you were talking about with the discernment of it all, of, you know, pray. I mean... Honestly, do you have to talk to your enemies? No, but I would advocate that you pray for them every day. Like if there is a person that is an enemy in your life right now, you should be praying for them. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right. Next question. This is definitely one of the more interesting ones we received. Levin, question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark. I'm not expecting us to answer that one. I just wanted to... Leaven? Yeah. I just wanted to make sure that we included it because this person that sent... I'll explain later. Is it like leavened bread? Yes. Yes. I'll explain later what we're meaning by this. But I just wanted them to know that I saw that. I received that. I love you. And... Yeah, there we go. All right, on to the next question. I really like this one. If you weren't in ministry, what job would you have? If you weren't in ministry, what job would you have? Man, I've got immediate thoughts if you want to think for a second. Yeah, you go ahead. There are two jobs I've always talked... Well, three. There are three jobs that I've always talked about, like... this would be my thing. I would want to. I don't know if I could ever do it. Number one is actually realistic. Strictly speaking, if I was being literal, if I wasn't in ministry, I would be a counselor. I love that. I feel called to that in some ways. Like I think my role right now as a student pastor, I get to do that a lot. But if I wasn't in ministry, realistically speaking, that'd probably be what I was doing to completely just like off the wall. I love this and I might hate it if I actually did it, but, um, I would want to be a barista at a coffee shop or own a coffee shop. I would love that. Like, actually I have no idea if I would love that, but I love coffee. So I'd want to open a nice coffee shop that has a bookstore attached to it that would be just like the dream or a movie critic I'm not smart enough in any way shape or form I read or listen to movie critics sometimes and I'm like it's like Andy I was just thinking that they are getting things that are going way over my head but I love going to the movies I love thoughtful movies I love movies that everybody else thinks are weird because they're just like more abstract and thoughtful than actually like plot so Those would be kind of my answers, but what about you? Dude, I think you'd make a great movie critic. Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, yeah, that'd be cool. He talks about being a food critic. He's like, that food tastes bad. That movie was bad. That's so good. These muffins are bad. So what would you say? Yeah, I think two constants throughout my life that I really have enjoyed are, one, it's collaboration with people, and that can happen in so many places. but I was a Taekwondo instructor as my very first job. And if that ever presented itself and ministry wasn't an option as an opportunity, I think I would do something along like in some sort of like teaching or leadership role. But I even thought about like the possibility if that were a thing, if... you know, leading a Taekwondo school or becoming a head instructor was something that I could possibly do. My instructor moved off to Georgia and he asked me to come with him. Would that be a sensei? Or is that karate? Sensei? I think that's technically called karate. We don't call him sensei, it's just like instructor. Oh, okay. Yeah, or master. Oh, nice. But I don't know if that is exclusive to, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was, I had to get used to that. That was like the weirdest thing for a while. But yeah, I just enjoyed that to a level that I never thought I would, because I think it, one, I didn't know I had a love for teaching, but grew that through getting to work with people of all ages. I mean, we taught as young as three and went all the way up to, I think our oldest student was like, 65. Wow. So it was people of all ages. It got me comfortable with speaking in front of people. And then there was physical activity involved with it too. You're not just standing there talking, you're showing movements and it was physical exercise and just the community that was involved there. So I think either something in teaching or, um, I mean, I really like math and like analytical stuff, but with that comes a lot of sitting at a desk and I can only handle so much of that. Oh yeah. So, uh, Yeah, I'd like to say some sort of teaching position. I think I'd really like that. That's sweet. Yeah. Okay. But I actually had a question I was thinking to ask you today anyway, and this is kind of a good segue into it. Since you are in ministry, what is the most fulfilling thing to you about ministry? Oh, man. That makes you stay. This is a bonus question because we didn't have this one. Okay. The most fulfilling thing about ministry. Oh man, it's hard to narrow it down to one thing. I think being able to be a part of the story God is writing in the lives of students is probably, if I had to say it in a sentence, that's the most fulfilling thing. I'm at the point now where last year, last year, I think so, um, was some of the students that when I started at my first church and I was, I was their pastor when they were in sixth grade, they graduated. So they've gone, I've officially had a crew go from sixth grade all the way through 12th grade. I wasn't with them that whole time, but I got to see them. Um, and I even got to hang out with some of them. I was And in now like the senior class we have now and the one from last year and everything like being able to see students grow and develop as as young men and young women. It's just so freaking cool. Like, I just really, really love it to see how God takes, you know, a. scared 11 year old, like they're all terrified when they show up at middle school for the first time and see, and some of them know Christ, some of them don't, some of them are like mature in their walk with Christ and they're at 11 and it's like that's crazy and some of them aren't and getting to see how God grows in their life It's so cool. I love preaching. I mean, that comes as a surprise to no one that's probably listening to this because I talk a lot. And then I just love sitting and talking with students. Camp is a bonus, too. Love camp. Which is, I mean, full steam ahead, but that's where we're headed, man. Here we go. Sign up for camp. Dude. Shameless plug. Sign up for camp. Summer's going to be awesome. It is. Yeah. uh next question what's something that you've changed your mind about at all or like in the thing um sorry uh i was typing um okay something you've changed your mind about either theology or otherwise theology or otherwise otherwise um I love this question. Yeah, that's a very, very good question. Because we're all changing our mind. We're all changing things. Man, I'm trying to think.

SPEAKER_03: 28:55

I know, that's a deep one.

SPEAKER_00: 29:04

I mean, I think one of the things that, I don't know if I've changed my mind about it, but it's become more present in my mind as I've gotten older, is how the gospel is so simple, like Jesus came to seek and save the lost, John 3.16, whatever verse you would wanna throw out there. God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world. But that is simple, the gospel is very simple, but everything else is crazy complex. Everything else is so, hard to categorize and put into neat like students will ask me big theological questions and i'm like well not it's not really cut and dry and that's not to say that there aren't answers like there aren't things to believe and hold to but it's just never as simple as we are able to articulate. Because God is, I mean like scripture says, his ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Like we just can't quite nail him down. And I think for me, you know, kind of contrasting what I was saying earlier about like Jacob with doubts and stuff. Like I think that has allowed my faith to grow because I'm like, okay, God can't be easily defined. Like he's not, he's not easy to explain. And that only makes him like bigger to me. That only makes him more beautiful and amazing. Like we think about something like the Trinity, like try to explain that we can't. And even in all the ways that we would try to are insufficient and I think that's what maybe that's it like that's the thing that I've continued to have my mind changed about because when I was graduating from high school and when I was going into college and getting my degree in ministry it's like man we got all the answers we got all this laid out here and as I'm continuing to grow it's like okay so we have some of the answers we have some of the ways to define these things but it's not as easy as to just cut and dry, kind of describe. But again, to me, that doesn't scare me. I know that scares some people. That doesn't scare me. That's really exciting. And that's how we get people that have been following Jesus for 60, 70 years that are like, I'm reading scripture and things are coming alive like I've never experienced before. So I think that's one of the things that I've changed my mind about. I used to think coffee sucked. I definitely changed my mind about that. I used to not like mac and cheese, and then I found mac and cheese that I really liked and changed my mind about that. You used to not like coffee. That's interesting. I would have never thought of that. Yeah, dude, until I was done with my freshman year of college. I hated coffee. Yeah, in college hits, you're like, oh, coffee's great. Well, bro, I just found a good way. I found the way that I liked it, and then it just changed everything. And what was that? black with one sugar, one pack of sugar. And that's still to this day, that's how I drink it. That's how I prefer it. What do you think? What's the way you've changed your mind? I think, thinking about it, I don't think there's one solid theological idea that I've had completely flip on its head. I feel like a lot of the thoughts I've had, kind of similar to what you're saying, have been edified and changed in how I perceive things. And I feel like I've had, this is kind of one example that came to my mind. I feel like one feeling I've had that I feel like I've always known better, at least should have known better, but just in terms of how God's relationship to us works, especially when we stumble is it's easy for me to get into the mindset of, oh, I have to be, I have to follow Christ. like fervently for this amount of time. And then I can access him. I can, you know, talk to him, be in prayer and feel good. Um, whereas if you, you stumble and you fall as we do like the day of, or the time that you do, you're like, okay, I got to wait a while before I can talk to Christ. Um, so my understanding of how his closest to us personally and his attitude towards us during our, our, um, stumblings has changed. Um, because, um, That's good. For me, and it's kind of a, in a way it's a selfish thing too, is it's a changing of my mind from a reliance on me to a reliance on his grace, not my own power to get me to this certain point to where I feel good about myself to where I can go to God. It's that realization that even when you feel like you're doing great and when you're on your worst day, you're no more worthy than you are in either situation to approach God anyway. He's the one that makes you worthy to do that. Yeah. So I think that among others has been instances where as God just continues to impart wisdom to you, your thoughts on how he works and all of that stuff is edified. And then to speak too about God, I think kind of along the lines of what you're saying, like God's character and stuff being revealed to us. I can't remember who it was that I was having a conversation with, but just, this is like a possibility kind of thinking thing, but He reveals things to us during this time that we're here, and then even in heaven, because his character is so infinite, he'll possibly continue to reveal things to us until the end of time. That's right. So just little things like that where you start to... It's not even things that you know. I'd say the first example is something you can know for sure. You can come to learn and know that God is close to you. And then there's things like the second example where you start to... God starts to impart wisdom to you, but it's not always like, it's not like we know for sure that's how it's gonna work in heaven where God infinitely gives us wisdom. We're just like, you know, I've seen his character like this and this kind of would make sense or this is cool to think about. Kind of those questions that are just up in the air and aren't 100% and the things that only God knows because there's things that he has not, chosen to impart to us yet, or may never. Yeah. Man, that's so good, and I think I want to amend my answer based off of that great word, because I do think what you said about God's character, I think is probably the way in which my mind has changed the most, because I used to think God was just really, really, frankly, I used to think that God was just really mad at me for Any and every mistake. And I try to describe this to students sometimes, but it's like we don't have a context for this type of relationship that God has for us. No matter how much any person in your life loves you, there is a breaking point. Now, hopefully you never reach that with any relationship, but I could do something where it's like, all right, this relationship, you and I, there could be something that could happen, and it's like, all right, well, this is never gonna be the same. And it could be that way with anyone, your best friend, my family, whoever it might be. There is a point, but with God, it is not that way. He is... He is with us and he loves us and cares for us. always and I think that's just such a hard thing and we're almost scared in the church to talk about that so much because we think people will just like run off and be sinful like wild heathens or something and so I understand we want to like temper you know our the way we talk about it but at the same time it's like for me so much of my life I was just scared because I was like God's just so mad at me and everything that's happening in my life is just a punishment and I need to just feel shame and I need to walk it's almost like I had this even though I wasn't raised Catholic it's like I had this idea of like penance or something like I have to pay back what I've done wrong or that like a self-punishment like I have yeah yeah yeah like a masochistic yeah type of thing and and it's like that's not what Christ said that's not anything that he says or does not not once he's not okay with our sin and in the slightest, but his anger is not directed towards us. His anger is directed towards sin. His anger is directed towards the effects of sin. It's directed at the ramifications of sin, not us. And this is gonna lead, actually, I'm gonna jump out of order here. This is gonna lead to our next question of why would God punish me if I do something wrong? Why would God punish me if I do something wrong? Well, to that, I would say, whether you want to look at it as punishment or consequences to sin, there are always consequences to sin. And I'll put it to you this way. Just like an earthly father, a good earthly father or mother would, if their child does something that is wrong or something that breaks the rules, then if that child is then, I guess, given permission to do that with any sort of ramifications or a punishment or a scolding or whatever, that child is not going to be able to correct themselves or learn from What they did wrong and then fix it for next time. So I think a lot of the times people think is God's punishment is this wrathful like, oh, because I fell today, he's planning this thing where he's not gonna bless me with this later or I'm not gonna be granted this thing I've been praying for. And to a certain extent, that could be true. God may have you wait longer for something, or maybe you're not quite ready for the blessing that he has prepared for you. But it's not in a malicious way where he's like, you are, now I'm going to punish you. Well, and with that, if I can interrupt and ask, is that even punishment? If he says you need to pause and you need to wait because you're not ready for this. Yeah, absolutely. I think this is where you're headed, and I'm just drawing the point. Yeah, no, I mean, to your point, just to get to it now, I'm more in the line of calling that discipline. It's good. It's your, just like I said, just like an earthly mother or father would, it's your heavenly father's discipline towards you, and that discipline towards you is because he loves you. And... But there's always the balance there, like there always is. There are consequences to sin, and we never really know what those are. It's not like just because we're covered in Jesus' grace that there's no consequences to sin. But at the same time, if you want to use those harsher words of punishment and then couple that with wrath, God's wrath is not on you anymore if you have Christ. His wrath has already been poured out for you. Right. on when Christ died for your sins. And if you've accepted Christ, Christ now covers your shame and has taken that wrath for you. And to kind of... use that as well with the previous question we were talking about. I think it's so easy to get caught up in the natural order and process that we see things because we think it takes time to, when we hurt people or hurt others, like Johnny said, there's a breaking point or we think, I mean, naturally when we get in a fight with a sibling or a parent or a friend, it takes time to get to mend with them, right? It's typically not the next morning or especially if it's something serious, it can take weeks or months. So we naturally take that instinct that we've learned from dealing with people And we apply it to rebuild the trust. We got to, yeah. Yeah. And we apply what we know in the natural and we apply that to the supernatural and think those things are the same and they're not, they're not at all. Um, So, yeah, I'd say, you know, one, with that in mind, God is always right there, ready to hand you grace. His grace and mercies are new each morning. And it's a loving discipline. It's not this malicious, wrathful punishment because Christ has already taken that for us. Well, and I think something that you talk about, or at least I've heard you talk about it a couple of times, is like, I think his, I think, well, first of all, okay, let me back up. Yeah. When we think about the effects of sin, I love the paradigm that I've heard. There's sin we do, there's sin done to us, and there's sin done around us. We are going to deal with exactly what you're talking about. We're going to deal with the consequences of all of those. God's not just going to rescue us from every mistake we've ever made. That's just not how it works. You can view that as punishment. I don't. Yes, yeah. Yeah. sin in this question. Sometimes what we think of punishment is not punishment. Just because we're going through something hard doesn't mean we're being punished. I'm reading a book right now that literally says at the start, sometimes hard isn't bad, sometimes hard is just hard. Like, was Jesus being punished when he was crucified? Nope. Well, I mean, he was, but it wasn't his punishment. Like he bore our punishment, but it wasn't, it wasn't like he did something to deserve it is what I'm trying to say. When he was, maybe this is a better example. When he was kicked out of Nazareth, his hometown, he visited in the gospels, he visits his hometown and he's kicked out. That could be viewed as punishment. Was he being punished? No, not by God. It was the effects of sin. And so I think there's a passive, way in which God allows us to go through things. And I do not believe it's always punishment. I think to your point, I think there's discipline. I think there's discipleship that happens like growing with Jesus cannot happen without suffering. Like every single one of us are going to suffer. Every single one of us is going to go through things we wish we didn't have to go to through. And that is not always a result of your sin. But I would also say the, the, passive uh punishment that we can receive is exactly what you were talking about where like yeah you you lied on a you you cheated on a test you get caught you ask god why are you punishing me i'm like bro that's the effects of your sin like you you cheated you got caught now you have to face the consequences um sometimes you'll receive grace from people in this world sometimes you won't um but i don't think i think that's so much of how god um handles these things. I don't think if you lied yesterday and you fall and break your leg tomorrow, I don't think that's a result of your sin. That's not punishment because of your sin. Honestly, I would argue some of the greater punishments, and I heard somebody talk about this recently, some of the greater punishments are when we get away with things. I've heard people talk about that, like when we lie and we're not caught, when we harbor anger and it's never... brought out, when we steal and we're not found out, or we covet and we never have to confront it. Sometimes the punishment is like, okay, you've hardened your heart to me, okay, keep going. But even that, I would argue, is like a passive, I don't think it's this, Don't say this one phrase or you might get struck by lightning kind of relationship that God has with us. I think it's more of the Romans. Romans 1 talks about this, which, shout out, we're about to start a Roman series in the main auditorium and all you students should be there. it talks about how god gave them over to their desires their sinful desires it's like you are fighting against god's correction and direction so much that okay i'm gonna give you over to what you what you want to do and i think we have a really warped view of what punishment even is um because we automatically think of something bad is happening in my life then well i've done something to deserve this and that might not necessarily be the case um But yeah, I mean, I know it's tough. Like when you're walking through something, um, I know it can be hard when you have to face some of the punishments of your sin, but man, God is, even when we face earthly punishment, like God is, God is using it. Even when we face other forms of punishment, God's using it. He's growing us, uh, through it all. Um, but it can be really hard. So I would recommend whoever asks this question, if you feel as though God is punishing you right now, find somebody to talk to and talk about that situation. Whoever you feel like you can be most detailed with, because I think sometimes it's really hard for us to see it and have that perspective unless we're kind of from the outside looking in. I know that's definitely how I've felt in my own life quite a bit. Yeah, and speaking of God's character too, one thing... Like kind of how Johnny was talking about, like God being angry or mad. God, we can't disappoint God. Like God knows what's going to happen. It's not like he has this view of us and then we do something and we, he's like, oh, where did this come from? Like he knows all of our thoughts. He knows all of our actions. Yeah. Specifically with two, if you're looking at, I think it was so good what you said, Johnny, about keeping things, things are never found out and that's more of a punishment because that's what the enemy wants is us to sit in that shame and that can be the punishment. In that darkness, that hiding. Absolutely. And I think we tend to think that someone finding it out or revealing it to the light would be the punishment, but in all reality, nine times out of 10, that's the most freeing thing for us to do. And the earlier it happens, the better. Right. That's so good. Man, that's such a good point. We've had a couple heavy ones, so let's move to something lighter. Somebody asked, are we ever going to change our location for camp? Are we ever going to go somewhere else for camp? From Fuge or from the Fall Retreat? I would say we're always open to... trying something different. I think it needs to be the right place. There's a lot of camps in the area that seem really great and they're like 900 bucks a person. we're not doing that. Like, Nope. Um, but there's, there's been some camp locations that have been really cool that I've looked at. Uh, I know we've talked about like some different places and, and different things. And so you never know. Um, I don't want to say like, Oh yeah, next year or the year after that or whatever. And then it not happen. But, um, Yeah, I mean, are you just not down with the hills at Ridgecrest? Is that what I'm hearing from this person that asked this question? Let me go to Fuge for the first time, and then I'll give you my thoughts on that, since I've never been there. That's true. Guys, we've got to go there this summer, because Caleb's never been there before. It's not even a question. No, but Fuge has a lot of locations. There's a lot of great camps. There are so many great camps. And I've told you, I grew up going to a camp in Florida. Now, that's not something we're going to do, because That bus ride was 12 hours. Did you imagine? Big stuff down in Florida. Panama City, baby. 12 hours on a school bus. No AC. No AC. Oh, gosh. Dude, we saw a man flip his car and... and run naked through the streets of Alabama when we were going to Panama City Beach. My sixth grade year, it was like a welcome to camp experience. I thought you were about to say you saw that in Florida. I was like, that tracks. I mean, Florida is just Alabama's stepbrother. But yeah, so we're always down. We're not going to go anywhere too far away, but there's been some places we've looked at, and so we'll let you know. We'll let you know. You said we're like the biggest church at Fuge, right? Yes. Every year we are. Right. We outnumber a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah, no kidding. Bro, the first year we were there, they give us these packets that have our church names on it, and it literally said Five Stones Baptist Church. I sent a picture of it to McCants, and I'm like, we've been outed as what we really are. How did that even happen? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, because that's not how we signed up for it. Anyways, all right. Moving to another kind of light question. I know my thoughts on this, but I'm interested to hear what you have to say. What are your thoughts on chat GPT? Ooh,

SPEAKER_03: 50:59

okay. Man.

SPEAKER_00: 51:03

I approach AI with a lot of caution. A lot of caution. I did... kind of like so when i was at wing it i actually had a professor that said it is required to use chat gpt for i did last semester too yeah for this research paper now it wasn't a thing where you just say write my paper it was we had to use it for research yes and he was more of the on the lines of like this isn't going anywhere i'd rather prepare y'all on how to use it properly than to just be like how dare you use this and i was like that's a that's a fair way to look at it. That's, you know, I was like, I like that approach rather than just freaking out like everybody did trying to figure out how to shut it down. Um, you know, cause it's, it really is, it's not going to go anywhere. And he was showing us some of the stuff it could do. And I was like, you know what, that's pretty cool. He like went on it and was like, make me a recipe with like ketchup, a potato and like one other item. And it made him like a dinner. And that was pretty cool to see. Um, but for me where my caution comes in is like when and where you use it. So if you are getting to the point where you're using it for pretty much everything you're doing, or if there's something that requires a lot of personal thought and input, I would, I personally would advise against it. I think that, you know, at the end of the day, AI is made by people. And also, especially when you're trying to come to a decision on something that's moral, like AI is morally indifferent. So when you're using it in things like, you know, I think the biggest thing for me is using it in things in ministry. If you're asking questions about theological stuff and trying to get real deep into using it to supplement the word or something like that, that's when I'm like, okay, maybe take a step back on that. But yeah, it's not like I will never use ChatGPT, but I definitely have a caution towards it. I think that's a good way to say it. I threw it out in a sermon on a Wednesday night a couple of weeks ago. Like, if you turn in a paper that you say is yours but you just did what you were saying earlier, like write me this paper, that's cheating. You should not do that. Do this quiz for me or whatever, do this homework for me. I had a professor last semester as well that one of our quizzes was have a conversation with chat GPT and it was about a specific subject because an important thing to know that's not always Chad GPT is not infallible. It can be very wrong about a lot of things. It is all about what you input into it. And so if you input something incorrectly, it will give you an incorrect answer. Or it just might not have the correct information. And so you always need to check whatever it is that you're doing. I definitely agree with you. It does not take the place of a personal relationship with somebody. If you're needing help with life decisions, if you're needing to process something, always go to a person. Other than that, dude, it's just a ton of fun. Honestly, for me, that's where it is right now. It's just so much fun to throw things in there. I've used it for ideas before for different things. um like uh literally the name of this podcast came from chat gpt like i was just like talking with it and i'm like i want a name and i mean some of them oh shoot i should have brought out all the names that it gave us because they gave us some bad ones it was like so dumb um something like rocks right yes it was uh sling the stone um let us know in the comments should our podcast have been named sling the stone because that's what chat gpt thought um And so I definitely think it is a great tool. It is a tool to be used. I think you should be wise in how you utilize it. It is not an excuse to be lazy. It is not an excuse to cheat. It is not an excuse for your personal relationship with the Lord or mentors that would speak into your life. But other than that, have fun. It creates some wild, like I was making some... really embarrassing, annoying, like Easter shirts that I was sending to people of like, he is risen with two Zs. Yep. Yep. Like it is so funny to do stuff like that with it. But so yeah, go and be responsible with your chat GPT usage. I mean, you speaking of his infallacy too, I saw a video where this guy literally got it to say that two plus two equaled five. Yeah. Like he spent like 30 minutes, like typing stuff in, going back and forth and saying, no, you keep getting this wrong. This is why two plus two equals five and he got chat gbtv like yeah you're right like it can it can convince it is kind of a like i'm gonna regurgitate kind of what you want right here yeah it is um yeah and so yep okay um that's a good one all right next one uh so how should we handle criticism

SPEAKER_03: 56:19

The

SPEAKER_00: 56:22

immediate response is chuckling. I

SPEAKER_03: 56:23

laugh because I cannot be the best at that, to be honest. That's one of my weaknesses. It can be.

SPEAKER_00: 56:32

Me too. So we're the exact people that should be talking about this. Yeah, that is a very great question. I do not chuckle at the question. It's my own personal stuff. But to speak more to that, I think where I kind of... you know, counteract or encounter intuitive with my own self is I welcome it. But when I receive it, I don't act like I wanted it. Like, and it depends on who it's from. Like, it's a great way to say it. Cause I have this. Yeah. I have some of the same problems. I can welcome it all day long, but once I actually get it from people, it's how will I respond? It's how do I react to it? Yeah. Um, And I think it's different depending on who it is. Like if I'm going to be more receptive to someone here coming up and saying something that I would be like my dad or my mom, probably, or like my family members. Shout out to Mr. and Mrs. Peters. Yes. Yes. Love y'all. But no, I think it's just like, especially with people in your family or not that you're friends or coworkers aren't close to you, but the people that really, really close to you and you get criticism, it depends on how they give it to you too. But sometimes even when people give it to you in the right way, it's, you know, you can take it the wrong way. And for me, I can take it too personally, even something like a little comment, because I'm trying to make sure that the, the, and that's another weakness I have. Like I put way too much emphasis on how others view me. Um, I'm, I'm a perfectionist. I like to make sure things are done the right way. And I care a lot about how other people perceive me and what they think. And I want to know I'm doing a good job. So if I hear I'm not, I can be more apt to focus on, you know, why, oh, shoot, I messed up. This person just told me I messed up. And instead of saying, okay, how can I fix this? I'll get to that eventually. But first is I'm kind of upset at the person because, you know, because I'm angry, fleshly stuff. But it says, how do I take it? How should we handle criticism? How should we handle? Yeah. I think it's just, you have to be hyper-focused on how you react to things. And you will get, if you continue to have that mindset, you will get better at those things. Another thing that I struggle with and that goes through my family line is anger. I can be quick to get angry and still can at times, but it is significantly improved over the years. And if you continue to keep the mindset of how do I specifically react to this criticism? What can I... How can you look at the person that's giving you the criticism rather than someone who is telling you that you're doing something wrong? Look at it as someone that is loving you enough to say that you need to fix this part or whatever you're doing. It's the same thing we were just talking about with the Lord and his discipline. It's the same, that loving criticism. Now, of course, criticism can be given in the wrong way because we're human, especially if we're giving it to each other. It can be given in the wrong way, and if it's given in the wrong way, it's going to be all the more easier to respond in an anger-fueled or a less godly way. But even in those times, we have to respond with grace and an understanding of where that person's coming from, whether it's valid criticism or it's not. So I would just say to receive criticism, always think of everything you're doing. How can I do this better? I don't want to go too cliche and say, what would Jesus do? I mean, it is a good reference point for a reason. What action can I take, or how can I look at this through a Christ-like lens and respond in the appropriate way? And again, you can think that all day long, but once you're in the heat of the moment, you've got to be able to you know, rear back at your flush and say, Nope, I'm not going to say this impulsive thing. I'm going to act this way. Right. Um, so, yeah, I think that's, um, I think you hit the nail on the head. Like, I think there's a couple of things. Uh, it does matter. Not all criticism is valid. Um, especially if it, uh, especially with who it comes from. Like it can be, um, it can be really hard to receive criticism from people that, especially like you're saying, don't know you, um, don't know your heart. Um, it can be really hard to receive it from family. I'm right there with you. Uh, it's always harder for some reason in that way. Um, but, uh, I think I, I had to read a book this past this semester, um, called the lost art of listening. Shout out to that book. It was not written by Christ followers. So I'm just going to go ahead and caveat that. But, um, It's all about we don't know how to listen to each other anymore, which I fully agree with, unfortunately. But it talked about, one of the whole chapters was about criticism, and it was all about listen, in those moments, it is important that exactly what you said, be aware of your response, and listen to the heart of the person. Like that see past whatever emotions might immediately rise up in you and see to the heart of the person, which is why it's so important that, you know, when we invite criticism, invite it from people that you trust, invite it from people that are close to you. That's not to say that we shouldn't receive criticism from a lot of people. We should, but constructive criticism, I should add, like, But the people that are closest to us should be the people that are speaking into our lives and we should be hearing them. Like we can't close our ears to that. So listen to what they're, the heart of what they're saying, like you were talking about, like how they love you, how they care for you, how they want what's best for you. Choose to listen to that rather than just listening to your emotions that immediately rise up. Along with that, it's always valid to like, check the criticism that you receive like to go to a friend or go to somebody else in your life and be like hey I heard this from someone you know don't throw somebody under the bus but like I heard this from somebody is this Have you had the same experiences with me? What do you think about this? Not in a gossiping type of way, like don't go to the friend that you know is gonna immediately start backstabbing that person in school or whatever, but go to your parents, go to a teacher or a coach that you really respect and be like, hey, I heard this and I'm having a tough time receiving it. Go to your small group leader. Is this what you've seen? How should I respond to this? Like, I think that's some valid stuff because it's really hard for us there. We all have blind spots. We all have things that we see clearly things we think we see clearly and things that we just do not see at all about ourselves. And we need to know what those are and we need them to be raised for us to be able to grow as individuals, but it can be hard. It can be really hard. So, um, Handling criticism and it's gonna be something that you're continuing to work through for the rest of your life. Oh yeah. Like that's the best way I know how to say it. Okay. Next one is do how how do I just be a good person? How do I be a good how do I just be a good person? How do I be a good person? Man You want to start with this one first? Yeah, that's a great, that's a good question. And I feel like I, maybe it's just because of what I was just talking about, but I feel like I hear the heart behind this. And I feel like I can empathize with whoever this is. Like I so badly want to be a good person, a good Christ follower, all that sort of stuff. It can be, it can be all consuming sometimes. And so I want to say, I want to look at this from two angles. Number one, if you are in Christ, he has made you good. You have been justified. You are being sanctified. You have been made clean in a legal sense. You are good. In his eyes, there's that old adage like when when god looks at you he doesn't see you he sees jesus like he sees jesus in your place he sees uh what he did for you and how he has made you right with him because of what he did on the cross and so if you are in christ you are good um now the other angle of that The Bible says there is no one good, no, not one. So in a very inverse type of way, you're not good. But I think there is a weight that we carry around sometimes as Christ followers of... perfection expectation that we put on ourselves. Similar going back to the, why does God, why would God punish me for doing something wrong? Like we are all going to do wrong. We are all going to stumble. We are all going to fall. That does not make you not good. If that makes sense. We will all make mistakes. And so I think to be a good person, I think is continually submitting yourself to God. It's doing what I know you mentioned earlier, like as soon as sin enters into your life, bring it before the father, like the, Bible tells us that as soon as we sin, we are able to go to God and to ask for forgiveness, be made right. 1 John 1, if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Boom. He will do that right in that moment. He will take care of it, whatever is going on. And then continue moving forward. There was a great book that I read a while ago called Stumbling Toward Eternity. And I'm like, that's exactly what we're all doing like we are just stumbling and falling and picking ourselves up and everything and I think a continued humility of except of understanding that I am not good but I am trying to pursue Christ personally I think that's so important like I think that heart is more important than just like never getting anything wrong because that's just not not possible. Like we're always going to get stuff wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think the first thing that pops in my mind when Johnny asked this question is just, you can't. Um, and from the second point that he talked about, that's very much true. We cannot be good on our own. Um, Christ makes us that way. And, uh, the, God looking at us through the lens of Christ makes us good. Um, and I know this question comes from a, uh, a pure heart stance because it's something that all of us ask like how can we live out a good life but the danger of that is letting that concept of good or saying how can we be good encompass our entire faith walk because then it turns into this legalistic check mark of trying to make sure that I have to be perfect because that's honestly what we mean we don't mean good we mean perfect right and you know kind of with Johnny's two points the question that you asked too is like well whose definition of good are you talking about what does good mean good means if you ask one person versus the other person on the street you're going to get two definitions of what good is um but then in the bible it says god is good now what is we know that god is the ultimate example of faithfulness trustworthiness and he's also the ultimate example of what is good um So if God is good and God is also perfect and infallible, we'd have to assume that that's partially a part of what good means. To be fully good is to be fully God, fully perfect, and all of those things. And we know we can't be those things, but we have been made good through Christ, just as Joni said. I think that's a perfect way to put it. But the reason I say that, too, about falling into it is just like what I was talking about with my weakness of following God it's not a weakness to want to follow the rules, but to let, to let the desire to want to follow the rules and to have that perfectionist mindset, it's very easy to get caught into that. Like I said, that over-encompassing legalistic idea where how much you do is how much favor you've earned from God. And we, I think it's, you know, it's also something that's been revealed to me too, is it's, the enemy can use your good intentions to turn you even further away from the Lord because you're pursuing the wrong thing. I just finished this book called Not a Fan by Kyle Eidelman, and he talks about the differences between a fan of Christ and a follower of Christ. And there's so many fans that think they're followers, but they're not because they're looking at their faith the wrong way. And he describes it as, there was this Olympic, I think, archery guy, and he missed a target. like completely. And if he had just hit the target, he would have been fine, but he, he hit a target, but he hit the one that was right to the left of his lane. So it's like, we're, we're aiming at a target and we're hitting it, but we're hitting the target that's right to the right or right to the left of the target that's actually in our lane. Um, so we think that we're hitting the mark and we're pursuing all these right things. And that's what we often think when we're pursuing these good and legalistic things. Um, but we're missing, um, It could be we're missing so many things. We could be missing the Christ's true grace and what that means. We're totally not taking that into account. Or we're missing out on the fact that we're supposed to be loving and generous people. Because there's a lot of people that get so caught up in the legalistic and good work stuff. But they're the most bitter and awful and angry people you've ever met. Yeah. Well, that's a great thing to consider and something that we need to keep in mind of how we can live a good, godly life. That's never something that we should not consider. But when it encompasses our entire lifestyle where we have to do all these things each and every day, has to be done by this time, that's when it can become dangerous. Yeah. And I think it's just like a... Man, there's just such a... It's the... it's the confusion that's found in the book of James, right? Where it's like faith and works. Like we must have faith in the grace of God that we are, it is by grace you have been saved, not of your own works. So no one can boast. Nobody can say, oh, I'm so good. I got saved. God's lucky to have me. Like nobody can say that. But then James turns around and says, but faith without works is dead. Like if you don't ever live it, in any way, shape, or form, then man, what even is your faith? Is it even there? There's this tightrope that you're describing of like, we must rely on grace, but it can't tip over into like, well, I'm just gonna go do whatever I wanna do. Paul talks about that in Romans chapter seven. He's like, that's not at all what I'm saying. He's like, absolutely not. Should we go on sinning so that grace can abound even more? He's like, absolutely not. But I can't be so afraid of every single thing that I'm gonna do because you are gonna make mistakes. I've sinned today. We all will. We can't be so bound in that that we are paralyzed like you're talking about. So it's a tightrope of grace and faith that God calls us to. And man, again, I have such a heart for whoever asked this because I know it can be such a... such a web for all of us to kind of untangle because shame can just be so tricky in the way that it just wraps around us and makes us think the worst of ourselves. But God doesn't speak shame over us. He speaks life, he speaks love, he speaks grace, he speaks truth, but it's never shame. And so, yeah. Okay, that was a couple heavy ones again in a row. We only have a few more left. We're not gonna get to all of the questions today, but what is a movie you wish you could see for the first time again? I'm trying to think here. First time. Man, I feel like I know exactly. The best movie I wish I could see again for the first time would probably be the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I've seen them so many times. I would love to see them again for the first time, to really experience that for the first time. But if you're talking about experience seeing a movie, bro, there was... I don't know if there will ever be an experience like seeing Avengers Endgame in the theater where people were just like, it was a sports game. Like if we were at a football game, a Charlotte FC match, something like that, like the energy in the room was just so palpable. And so if there's like an experience, it would be Avengers Endgame. If it's just like, I love this movie so much, I wanna watch it again for the first time, it would probably be like, either one of the Lord of the Rings or something like that, like just a movie that really blew me away. Yeah, what would you say? Yeah, those are good. I think, because the first thing that popped in my mind was Lord of the Rings, but thinking about it, especially with what you're saying, I think my, I mean, I don't know, I don't remember where my head was the first time I saw those, but I feel like I like those more the more I watch them. My love for them just continues to grow the more I watch them. We watch them every winter. It's one of my most fond traditions that I have with my dad and my sister and most of my family that we watch those movies every year. I think my experience of them now is even better than the first time watching it. But if I had to say like experience wise and something that I never expected, I think Spider-Man No Way Home probably be one I'd want to watch again. That's a good one. That's a good one. I mean. one because i'm a huge spider-man fan but other than that the them bringing andrew garfield and tommy mcguire into the movie is something that like people would only talk about i feel like that's something people would only talk about on the internet and just never oh yeah and they actually made it happen yeah i never thought it would actually take place even still watching it over again now just seeing that they did that it's just kind of surreal to see that they made like they made that happen um because it really hadn't been that those connections like that hadn't really been done before in superhero movies so So it was really cool to see them go to the multiversal route and do that. You know, unfortunately, all this makes me think of Marvel has just gone so off the rails. It just makes me sad. When are we getting back to the good days? What is the saying? I wish I wouldn't. I wish there was a way you knew you were in the old days before you actually left them. The office one, yeah. It's like that Wolverine meme of crying and touching the picture. It's like me going to see Endgame. It's like I have no idea how good I had it. There was another one, though, I was thinking of. It's like don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened or something like that. Oh, yeah. I've never– yeah. But, no, I totally get what you're saying. I miss– it's kind of like– I don't know. I feel like the Panthers and Marvel, it's like a shadow of what they once were, and now we're hoping they get back to where it needs to be. Honestly, they fell off right at the same time. I mean, Endgame came out, what, six, seven years ago maybe? Endgame was 2019. So six years ago? Yeah. And the Panthers have had seven straight losing seasons, the longest in franchise history. Like, bro. That I did not know. Hey, 2025, Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four. Oh, yeah. Bryce Young. Bryce Young. We are so back. We are so back. Like, we're here. I don't know. I mean, but along the lines of Marvel, like, people are saying Thunderbolts. People are pretty excited. I think it looks like it could be good. I'm excited for Fantastic Four. I mean, it looks really good. Dude, I've... That's the one that I'm like, I've watched the trailer, and I'm like, I don't know about this. Really? Yeah. But we've talked about this. I feel like I'm a pessimist now. It's that and Superman. Both of them have been like, I don't know about this. I don't know if this looks right. Yeah. For some reason, I was more pessimistic. Well, I don't want to say for some reason. I know the reason. Yeah. James Gunn's work with Guardians and stuff, and then moving to Superman, I was like, is it going to work? Is it going to be too cheesy? And it still might be, but I will say with every trailer and seeing that four-minute clip, I'm definitely more pumped. I'm still not sure how I am feeling about Cosmo and the dog. Yeah. Just because I'm like, that's so James Gunn, though. Dude, that's the type of thing. Those types of things in James Gunn movies are what my issue is. That's what completely... turns people away from um like superhero movies like my wife will go see chloe she'll go see superhero movies like the second the dog popped up on the screen for the superman trailer she was like why does this look dumb like and i mean i was thinking the same thing it's not even like it's just her but i was like that's some of the stuff that he does that i'm like this might just get like too really out there for people but yeah it's totally who knows i the reason i have a lot of or at least hoping he does well, is because I knew nothing about Guardians of the Galaxy before those movies came out. And those have become probably top 10 Marvel movies. He did so well with them. That first one especially, man. It came out of nowhere. Well, stay tuned. Over the summer, maybe we'll get some students together and go see Fantastic Four and Superman and then do a quick pod afterwards. Get some people's thoughts. Maybe I'll get to be... We'll do movie reviews. A movie critic after all.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:25

We'll be a jack of all trades over

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:27

here. Yeah, there we go. Doing everything. I love it. Okay, next one. So we have, let's do, we're gonna do two more, all right? And we're gonna call it a day. Let's do a serious one and then we'll close with kind of a lighter one. So how do I rebuke temptation when it comes along? How do I rebuke temptation when it comes along? Man. Wow. Number one, the fact that you want to, thumbs up. Way to go. Know thyself. That's really, really important. How do I rebuke temptation when it comes along? I want to get into a lot of things, but I don't want us to move too far into this conversation without acknowledging that we have a standard of how to deal with temptation found in Matthew 4, where Jesus faces temptation with Satan, and he responds with Scripture. I think there's so much more we can talk about, but we cannot talk about anything. It can't be less than talking about when Satan was... talking to Jesus, talking about kind of a mirroring thing of how Jacob mirrored Israel, the temptation in the wilderness mirrors the temptation in the garden. He slithers up, and he's not entirely... I mean, he is dishonest, but he packs it with enough truth that it's like, oh, this might be... I might consider this. Knowing Scripture is so important. That's why we are going through the Gospel Project. If you're a middle school student, that's why we're going through the Gospel of Mark. If you're a high schooler, because we want you to know Scripture. We want you to be able to respond to the temptation of the enemy and the temptation that can rise up from our own brokenness with Scripture. I think there's a lot more that we can talk about, and I'm going to shut up and let you speak. But I think that's it. We at least have to start the conversation there is we've got to look to scripture and see what it has to say about whatever it is we might be being tempted by. Yeah. No, I think just to continue to add to the importance of the word, we can't know what we're fighting against first, how to fight it or how to flee from it if we don't if we're not reading the Word. Now, this doesn't mean you have to be an expert on the Word, but God grants you wisdom, as we all know, through the Word. And there's so many simple truths and verses in the Word that, just in my own battles, just remembering them, it's encouragement. It's just filling your soul with what you need, with that truth. And I think in specifically how to rebuke it, yank it out at the root. Like all temptation or most of it starts in the mind. And as soon as you start to get something where you're tempted to fall into whatever you're struggling with, it's saying, nope. take the thought you're thinking, analyze it. You say, is this from God or is it not? And if it's not, you cast it out and you don't think about it any longer. Now, obviously, that's easier said than done. It's not as easy just to be like, nope, not gonna think about that, not think about that. You might not think about it for a little bit and then it comes up five minutes later, two days later. But we have to be so on guard with our minds and what we're thinking on. And we can't, with that, to... We can't do the opposite of that, especially. We can't say, oh, since this isn't that big of a deal, I'm gonna let this slide. Because then it starts snowballing into things that become worse. So taking very, putting a lot of care and thought into into how you handle your thoughts and specifically how you fight and battle certain temptations because there's times to fight it and stick it out and there's times to just straight flee. Like Jesus tells us to flee sexual immorality. There's no fighting that because it's so prevalent. But there are times to fight temptation as well. And specifically going to Jesus' after he was baptized and going to be tempted in the wilderness for 40 days. um it says after he was done that satan tempted him and then he left him and waited for an opportune time and i think that's another thing to keep in mind too is once it's done don't you dare let your guard down because the um the flesh is just retreating to gather more reinforcements to attack you even stronger you know later yeah and but at the same time too there's so much and i'm I'm getting shivers just thinking about this, but there's so much joy to be had in our suffering and in our temptation because it means that we're following Christ. It's Paul, right? Count it all joy, brothers and sisters, when you face temptations of many kinds. It's a showing of your... James, James. James 1. But there is... a lot of the times we think of it as pain and it is pain, it's suffering, but there's to, to think that we get to be worthy enough to suffer for Christ, um, is an amazing thing. And like going back to a few questions before too, we think of that suffering as punishment when in all actuality, a lot of that suffering is because you're a target. Now you have made yourself a target by claiming that you are on Christ's side in the spiritual warfare. Um, and now you are being targeted by, uh, by Satan to, to get you to fall, to get you to, to, think the way that you're not supposed to and a lot of the ways he does that just like johnny was talking about in the garden it's not in black and white ways where sometimes you always know it's him it's in crafty ways in things like it's just twisting it's just twists yeah twist it yeah and yeah it can be in things like where you are uh struggling not to do something and just like we were talking about good works it's like satan's like well you you know you say you're not about good works. Like you're, you're getting into this. If you don't do this, you're, you're getting into legalism or you're just, you're just focusing on this because you're doing good works. You're not focused on the Lord. And then you start second guessing yourself and all that stuff. But that's just one example. And he, he, and then as soon as the temptation starts, he can flip it where he would be like, you know, you better do this. You better do this. You better do this because you got to earn your way to God. You got to earn your way to God. And you're like, no, I'm going to, I'm going to give into grace. I'm going to, I'm going to understand that I'm not perfect. And you start to relax a little bit. And then all of a sudden he's like, well, all right, well then you're not good enough. Like you've, you've made so many mistakes. How could, how dare you think you're worthy of this grace? Like he's constantly flip-flopping all around. Um, and, but I really liked what you said about going to the root. I think. The older I get, the more I see that, again, going all the way back to one of our first questions of like, this is so much more complex than just stop doing whatever it is you're doing. I really believe you need to understand the root of why you're doing what you're doing. I think it requires a lot of introspection. It requires a lot of thinking back on your life and what it is that's led you to this point. Because more often than not, the temptation that we're facing right now are like the manifestations of wounds we've received or given from previous in our life. So addressing that, and then there's a pastor in Texas, Matt Chandler, that always talks about be violent toward your sin and exactly what you're saying about your thoughts. But I'd take it even a step further of like, if you know something is gonna cause you to think about stuff like i say all the time like if you struggle with lust you should probably be off of social media like you should because what's gonna happen is you're gonna find that account that's gonna lead you to lust and then you know what's instagram tick tock whatever is gonna continue to feed you more of something that's very similar it's gonna continue to do that if you struggle with coveting same thing like you see this person in their beautiful life and you just envy so much wanting what they have It's going to continue to feed it to you. And whether it, if you struggle with anger, man, you should watch the type of music that you listen to. Like, what are you, like, what are you feeling? You know, Romans 12, it talks about be renewed by the, be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And we just think we can keep on doing the same things, watching the same things, listening to the same things, hanging out with the same people and everything's going to change. And it's like, no, you've got to, you've got to like change the things that are coming into your life even. It's so important. And then another element is I know that I've found so much in my life as I've thought back over the times where I've failed in rebuking temptation, which I love that church language. How do I rebuke temptation? That was the question. I rebuke you. Hebrews talks about how every God will offer a way of escape. that when we are tempted, when we face sin, he offers a way of escape. And, um, sometimes it's that still small voice of like, you can just barely hear it in the, in the corner of her mind or something like that. Sometimes it's like a fire, you know, like a, a police siren fire side, uh, Gosh, I don't know what just happened to me. Like a siren going off and you're just like, oh, I see this everywhere. But he will make it a way of escape for you. And so it is gonna be a... development process as you follow christ to see that to look for that to know it not just in hindsight but in the moment like oh here it was here it is this is where god's offering me a way of escape yes um and then lastly i'd say man you don't have to rebuke temptation alone um find people that are close to you find people that you can trust and be honest about your temptations be honest about your anger about your pride about your envy about your about your lust, about your whatever it might be. Find people that you can talk to about it and walk through it together because exactly like we were talking about earlier with shame, like Satan wants nothing more than to keep your sin and your temptation in the dark. He wants it to be hidden. He wants it to be completely shrouded in mystery and you walk through the rest of your life pretending as if this doesn't exist. And now I want, you know, be wise about who you share it with. Don't just like immediately post it on social media, be like, this is my temptation, help me, you know, whatever, but find people in your small group, find people that, uh, find, you know, a mentor, a parent, a guardian, somebody that can walk through this with you that will help you see some of these things, a counselor, even, um, like find someone that can walk through this with you, uh, because I don't believe that we're called to rebuke it alone. Um, there's, yeah, I could go on, but I think that's, that's an important element to all of this too. Like we talked about earlier, it's one of the hardest things to do, to do that, to bring it to the light. But that's, I mean, you get the most healing from that. And like Johnny was just saying, do approach that, approach that with prayer too. Like even like we were just talking about you, um, you can approach the throne of God even after falling and say that you fail in rebuking that temptation. Approach the throne room of God and ask him how he would want you to go forward with this, whether it is telling somebody specific or, you know, it's not always that. Sometimes you should tell somebody. It's not like you have to tell somebody every time you make a mistake, but especially if something becomes a reoccurring problem, that's when it becomes best to bring it into the light. And, you know, repenting and turning towards God is great and that's exactly what you should do first but there's something about telling a fellow brother or sister in Christ that makes it brings all the more healing to you and God knows that and that's why he asks us to do that and the last thing I would say is just like the word says no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man everyone is going through this and that's another reason to tell people about this because whether they whether they just listen to you and are there for you for that struggle that you're going through, or it turns into them being honest and vulnerable with you about something they've struggled with. And that helps all of us because it's comforting to know that other people are going through those struggles and we're not alone. And that's another thing that Satan wants you to feel is that you're alone in this struggle. You're the only person to ever go through it. And because of that, you're even less worthy and it just continues to snowball and snowball. So- Be encouraged that you're not the only one struggling with those things. There's plenty of people that do. And it's nothing new. It's not like we're in 2025 and this new temptation has come about that has never existed before. That's so right. It's the same. I mean, my counselors literally told me before, like Genesis 3, like, man, nothing's changed since then. Every single temptation is some version of Satan sneaking up behind us and saying, did God really say? Like, hmm. That's the long and short of it. Like, did God really say? All right, last question. Hold on one second. Oh, sorry, sorry. No, no, you're good. I just wanted to catch it before we go into the last one. There was one discussion we had, and I'm kind of feeling pulled to talk about it a little bit. We were talking about, I think you said, the point where God says that people harden their hearts and he gives them over to their desires. I think this would be a good thing to talk about at what point are we given over to our fleshly desires? And we know that's a pretty big question, but I think it would be something cool to talk about. Yeah. I mean, I think, I don't know if there's a clear cut, like here's the line kind of thing, but I think we should be very cautious about the sin that we just mess around with, that we just pretend as though it's not an issue. Um, I can tell you it will not feel as though, that's one thing that is for sure, is it will not feel as though just all of a sudden something snaps and we're just gone or something. I really feel as though, it's that old song, shout out to 91.9. It's a slow fade. like when we give our, that Casting Crowns song. It's a little cheesy, so if you've never heard it and you're gonna go listen to it for the first time, like be aware. But it's just, it's very, very true. Like it's a slow fade that we just kind of, and I don't wanna just say this and cause everybody to get scared or something, but it is like a, I'm just continually, like I know something is wrong and I'm just going forward with it. It's something we all, I would not say that a person that is actively struggling against a sin, that you fall into that category. You know it's wrong, you're fighting, you're stumbling and falling, whether it be some type of addiction or a friend group that you just can't seem to break away from. There is a level of which we just, we're gonna struggle with things. There are people in our lives that I love dearly and they're like, I think Alcoholics Anonymous puts it like this. They talk about it in a way that I am always an addict. I am an addict. If I've been sober for 50 years, I'm an addict because I could still fall back. I could fall off the wagon, so to speak. There's a healthy awareness of I could always make that mistake, but I think that's a big difference between that and a coldness of, well, I just don't care anymore. Um, and so I think if there's something that you have been like habitually struggling with, that is where to your point, bring someone in because you don't want to grow cold to that type of sin and kind of have it, have yourself be given away to it. I think another important thing about that passage is like, those individuals were no longer listening to what god told them to do they started listening to what culture told them to do the romans specifically like where you're gaining your right and wrong moral spiritual kind of like equilibrium i think is really important in that conversation as well and in that context um yeah Do you have any thoughts about your own question? Yeah. Yeah. No, the reason I asked this is because, I mean, even now and still do in my own journey, and I'm sure you guys have this question is like, I mean, we've been taught the big theme. A lot of the themes that we've, or one of the big themes that we've been talking about today is, you know, or today is being a good person and, you know, constantly striving to be as Christlike as we can. But I think a lot of us can worry like what, You know, if I'm struggling with this sin, just like Johnny was saying, and even though you feel bad about it, you're like, at what point is God just going to let me go? And, you know, we can get very scared and fearful of that. And in a sense, that's a good thing because you're fearing God. You have a reverent fear for God. And I would totally agree with Johnny there. As long as you have that conviction there, that is a sign that the Holy Spirit is working within you. And do not be discouraged at all, especially when you have the Holy Spirit. There is no earthly power that can take the Holy Spirit from you. Once you have truly accepted the Holy Spirit and believe upon the name of Christ, there is no earthly power that can take that away from you. Exactly. No earthly, no spiritual. I mean, that's Romans 8. Like what can separate us from the love of Christ? Nothing. And that means even your own will. So once you've accepted the Holy Spirit, be encouraged that God's will is working in you and you're not even going to be, I mean, the Bible says we become a slave to righteousness. So at that point, you made a choice to accept the Holy Spirit, but there's nothing you can do now to reject the Holy Spirit once you fully accepted it. Now you can reject the Holy Spirit before you accept it. And the Bible says that's one of the sins that is unforgivable is rejection of the Holy Spirit or rejection of Christ as your Savior. And just like Johnny was saying, signs of that come when you get to the point where Or maybe you're always at that point where you're not convicted by sin. You don't see sin as sin. You just see it as living life, and there's nothing about it that you think it's good. You think it's something that you should continue to feed. You don't see it as an evil, and it's not something that you do, and you're like, man, maybe I should change my ways about this. It's just natural to you because your flesh is your master and not Christ. And the reason, I think, to offer you all more encouragement too, the pain that we go through, the suffering that we go through, the things that we face, as Christians it hurts so much because we are going the exact opposite way of where our flesh wants us to we literally have to make an entire 180 now not on our own because Christ gives us the strength to do that but we are literally going exact or against the entire nature of who we are fleshly you know of course we weren't supposed to be this way we were supposed to be made the way that God made us to and we are the ones that caused that fall away but because we have and we have to go the exact opposite direction now because like christ it is painful and it hurts um but there's there's joy to be found in that because we're becoming more and more like christ through that pursuit um so that's good um all right let's go to the last question do you guys have any recommendations for christian books or devotionals ending on something a little light something okay uh I love talking about books because I love reading books so much. So thank you for asking this question, whoever you are. Yeah, you got it, man. Do you have any immediate that come to mind,

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:18

though? Maybe a few, but I know you're going to have a lot more, so you go first.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40:22

Well, I'll say if you go into the– Description of this podcast, there is a Linktree link and a link on our website, fivestoneschurch.com slash students, and there is a resources page, and there are a ton of books there that we recommend for parents, that we recommend for students, and everybody in between. I know since a student probably asked this, I'll try to tailor the answers to students. I'll know... I know... Two of the books that have had the most impact on me over the past couple of years have been a book called Gentle and Lowly. It's going to be tough to read for some people. It's a very serious book. Talking about learning about the character of Christ, the first time I read that book, I wept like crazy. five different times. I love that book so much. Another book that's one of my favorites is called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. It is absolutely fantastic. If you want to be encouraged, challenged, convicted on the way that we live in this rat race of a world, then hop into that book. It is absolutely amazing. To be honest, I don't really use a lot of devotionals. I've never really... that's never really been something I've been drawn to. I know a lot of people really love, uh, new morning mercies by Paul David trip. That's a really good one. Um, my Chloe and I are reading through the Bible in a year together and we're using a, it comes with a daily devotional called the Bible recap. They also have a podcast, so that's kind of cool. Um, and so, yeah, uh, Two right off the dome would be Gentle and Lowly by a guy named Dane Ortlund and Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. Those are two that just immediately come to mind. I'll come back with a few more in a minute, but what are you thinking of? Yeah, so... Devotion and like straight devotion books wise and just Christian books. I'm not going to have many because I just started getting into some of those. Thank you, Mr. Kevin Raines for the suggestion. Shout out. Love that guy. But literally, I just finished an audio book like I was just talking about that Kevin suggested called Not a Fan. Like I was just talking about Kyle Eidelman. And it was very good introspective look into what your relationship with Christ truly looks like and whether you are a fan or whether you're a follower I won't go into too much detail. The message itself was very simple, and I think something we often consider, but it just kind of goes into the fact that there's so many people that consider themselves strong, fervent followers of Christ when they just simply know a lot about Christ, but they don't know Christ. Yeah, that's good. And that's something we should always be doing, not to the point of fear, but constantly looking within ourselves, how is my relationship with Christ? How am I continually to actively live that out? Um, but when I first got here to, um, Pastor McCants gave me a book called authentic manhood for the gentlemen that are listening. Um, and it's by, uh, Steve Snyder. Um, and I've read a little bit of it and it's just literally like one page, one pages, uh, one page per day, I should say. Um, and just kind of gives you some advice on how to, um, live out your, your faith as a Christian man. Um, then aside from devotions i'll take it to the other side of things um i i think i mentioned it here before but i'm really into uh into apologetics so if you guys are looking for things like questions about like theological questions or wanting to know like evidence for christ or exploring other um looking at why christianity is the one true like way and religion um A couple books that I read, I read Jesus Among Other Gods when I was a teenager. That's by Ravi Zacharias. And then I love Frank Turek a lot. And he has one called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, which I haven't read all the way through, but I've read a good bit of and used it in writing some papers and stuff. So those are two other good ones if you're more... if you're looking for something that's more apologetics-based. Yeah, that's good. In that vein, if you want kind of to dip your toe in the apologetics field, there's a book by a woman named Rebecca McLaughlin called 10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask and Answer About the Bible. It's really good, and I really enjoyed reading it. It answers a lot of really kind of hot-button topics, questions right now. I'm not going to throw out too many more. Uh, another book caught by a guy named Donald Whitney is called praying the Bible that made a huge impact on my life. Um, it's literally, it's a super small book and it's literally walks you through like, here's how to pray scripture. And when you're spending time with the Lord, um, it was incredible. really kind of transformative for my prayer life. I really, really loved it. And then, Uh, other books, um, man, Harry Potter's really good. It's not a Christian book. Um, but, uh, it's man, it's so good. I love those books and it's nonfiction, right? It's nonfiction. True story. Um, no, not even close. Um, that, that's so good. I love, uh, I read a lot of fiction. I love, I love reading fiction, but, um, that's, that's really good. Lord of Chronicles and Arnie are amazing. I mean, the The older I get, the more I'm like, adults should read this, not kids. Chronicles? Yeah. Oh. If you do want something that's a bit more aged up, version of Chronicles of Narnia. C.S. Lewis did a lesser known series called The Space Trilogy. It's a three book trilogy out of the silent planet, Paralandra, and This Hideous Strength. And I've read the first two. They are unbelievable. They're in space? They're in space. Oh. They take place, the first one takes place on Mars. The second one takes place on Jupiter. And I haven't read the third one. I think it's Jupiter. I was about to say, C.S. Lewis did his version of Star Wars or something? Dude, It's crazy. It's such a cool book. But there you go. So if you have more questions, this has been our longest episode yet. Has it actually? Yeah. Hour 40 something minutes. All right. So here we are. Our next episode is like we already said. We had Bishop Nick Bailey on the last one. Next up, we've got Reverend McCants. And I'm ready, man. It's going to be great. It's going to be awesome. So send in your questions to the links. Let us know what you think of this. If there's something you'd like us to change or you just really, really love it and you want to give us some encouragement We'd love that. Say a quick prayer for the Panthers that we can write this ship. And same for Marvel. And the MCU, yeah. Yeah, and the MCU. Because they are somehow tied together. But yeah, this has been Unscripted. Hope you've enjoyed it. Love you guys. See you soon. See you guys soon. Bye.