Cancel the Debt: Don't Let Feelings Ferment Inside with Joby Martin

Jeff is joined by Jacksonville, FL preacher Joby Martin! Joby has grown his church over the years by being the messenger as he calls it... not sharing his opinion.. just teaching the good book to the masses! Jeff & Joby discuss God and family and serving both while not neglecting the other. They share road stories and laugh about their mistakes and missteps while forgiving themselves and growing because of them!

👇 In this episode:
Forgiving those that have wronged you
God's love is waiting
Setting the next generation up for success
Family serving God together

How to find Joby Martin
Instagram: @jobypmartin
https://jobymartin.com

🎧 More episodes: Who Gave Jeff Allen a Podcast?
🎟️ Tickets at JeffAllenComedy.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

One of the best things you can do as a leader at your of your home, one, how about be the lead confessor and the lead repenter? But you can also just pray out loud over your wife.

unknown 0:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Because it's because we don't live on the homestead anymore where we can fight the grizzly and the wolf out on the front stoop to display our love, but you can get on your knees and fight against the devil of hell for the hearts and souls of your wife and kids. And a lot of dudes I talk to here in Jacksonville, they're like, Well, Pastor, I'm not good at praying. Biggest word I know is delicatessen, and I don't know how to work it into the prayer.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Hey everybody, this is Jeff Allen. Welcome to uh uh Who Gave Jeff Allen a podcast? We're still asking that question. This is a big studio here. We got a lot of people recording podcasts, and they keep asking every day who gave this idiot a podcast? And uh we'll find you. We will. There's six billion of you out there, but we know that one of you did it. And uh anyway, while we're here, uh Nordic Wave, uh, my only sponsor. Uh, we're still pitching them, cold plunge, Nordic Wave. Uh go to Nordic Wave Jeff 150. And based on the response from my fans, not a lot of you like dipping in cold water. Um we're not not selling a lot of cold, cold plunges. But uh, I'm telling you, if you're suffering from inflammation, uh if your diet doesn't uh if you change your diet and it doesn't work, uh I know after a hard day of lifting, um, I love sitting in the cold water than doing the uh the sauna, and it makes it's made a huge difference in me. So find your inner Norseman and go sit in the cold water for about six minutes and you'll uh you'll you'll you'll feel it change. Uh and check with your doctor. I don't want you to have a heart attack and then sue me. I I don't have anything anyway. Um we're again, we have one sponsor, so not much you can take from me. I'll give you my my cold punch if you sue me. Uh and uh this guest today, man, well, this is what I this is what I love about doing what I do here. Um I get a chance to talk to people that I probably would not get a chance to talk to. We reached out and he was kind enough to agree to come on to this. Uh I've been following Pastor Joby Martin for uh probably well over a year now. Uh when I drive, I listen, and uh I love I love the way he he preaches, um, especially to men. He doesn't apologize, he teaches the word, and uh he calls men to be men. As a matter of fact, I just finished his uh latest book. I think it's his latest book. I was wrong yesterday when I interviewed another author, and I said, I think I got your last book. He goes, No, I've written two since then. So I'm hoping stand up, uh stand stand firm and act like men. Is that what it is? Or stand up and act like men. Uh stand firm firm. Stand firm and act like men. Uh and uh it's a uh uh again, an unapologetic uh look at what you should uh how you should behave as a man uh based on the Bible. And uh it's um I like to use the term a sweet aroma. Uh when I see a godly biblical husband and father, um it there's it does something to my heart as a man, especially when I see a big honking muscular guy reach down and pick up his son and just cradle him in his arms. Man, there's something to that. Um and we are called to be gentle but strong as men. And uh, Pastor will talk about that today. But Pastor Joby Martin is the founder and lead pastor of the Church of 1122 in Jacksonville, Florida. Since launching the church in 2012, he's led a movement dedicated to helping people discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. In addition to providing vision and leadership to the church of 1122, Pastor Joby is a nationally and internationally sought-after preacher and teacher, known for his passionate, practical, practical, and gospel-centered approach to ministry. Pastor Joby has been married to his wife Gretchen for more than 20 years, and together they have two children, a son, JP, and a daughter, Reagan Capri. Through his ministry, teaching, and leadership, he's continued to encourage believers to follow Jesus with bold faith and wholehearted devotion. And uh I can attest to that as a uh as a person who has listened to many, many hours of um of your preaching. So welcome, Mr. Joby Martin.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Great to have you here, man. Thanks for having me. I've listened to hours of you standing on stage too.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Oh yeah, it's a little it's a little fluffier than what you talk about. But uh I uh I always tell the audiences, uh, I know what I'm here for. I'm a distraction. If I can distract you for an hour, hour and a half, uh, and take away your problems. But uh let me ask you, because uh your book, uh you know, when you're when we reached out to you, the people wanted to know what we wanted to talk about. Um my gosh, every chapter is a is a is an hour podcast. Um I kind of settled on the uh Corinthians, the love chapter, because I think um people gloss over how deep that really is and what the call is uh for a husband on how to love. And um, you were pretty open and honest about uh shortcomings with that. So one of my questions was initially uh what's the difference between say what Paul wrote in Corinthians and what Solomon wrote as the Song of Solomon? Um one was poetry and the other one was a uh a letter, if you can Yeah, yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Um that was the hardest chapter to write for sure. You know, when I sat down to write a book, Stand Firm and Act Like Men, and then just kind of the way I see First Corinthians 16, 13 is the act like men is like the hub in the middle of the wheel, and then the imperatives around it or how to do that. And you know, I felt pretty good about being watchful for the enemy and being strong and using that strength to serve and um being able to stand firm against the enemy, and I am a man, and then very few people keep going because there's another verse in the same context. It says, Let all you do be done in love. And I thought, oh, that won't be hard. I'll just go to 1 Corinthians 13, it's kind of the preeminent text on love, and I'm reading through it, and I'm just thinking, oh no, because it doesn't like you said, Song of Solomon's poetry. You know, your hair is like a flock of goats, and you're you gotta be careful with this though, boys. He's like your your belly's like a mound of wheat. You might want to understand the context before you tell your wife she looks like a sack of flour, but you know, there's a lot of poetry there, but there's no poetry in 1 Corinthians 13. It doesn't say love is like and tell a story about birds and flowers, it just says love is patient, kind, gentle, keeps no record of wrong, is not rude, does not demand its own way, is not envious. And I thought, well, I'm not doing very good here. And so I literally called my wife and said, Hey, I gotta, I gotta confess something, which by the way is the worst way to start a conversation with your wife. You should probably start with, I'm not cheating on you and I'm not gay. Now let me tell you something. Okay, so uh, and I just said I have not been loving you very well. And she's so sweet. She's like, baby, I know you love me. And I go, Oh, I love you. I have all the feelings. I mean, they're all in here. We've been married 26 years, and she's the jam. I was like, but I have not been loving you well. She's like, What are you talking about? I said, Well, would you describe me as patient and kind? And she goes, What else you got? And just immediately.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Yeah, I love it when you the way you're the patience, especially in behind the wheel of an automobile.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Oh, I'm I'm the worst. And so, and then one of the things I saw for the first time in that text, it's in that text in 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul says, another famous verse, when I was a child, I acted like a child, but I now that I have become a man, I have put childish ways behind me. And a lot of times what men do is they're rude, they're loud, they demand their own way, and they're saying, I'm being tough. And Paul goes, No, you're acting like a toddler. That's not what real men do. That we're to love like Christ loves. That that is our call. And uh so it was um one of the things I try to do when I preach, when I teach, and when I write, is just be honest. Right. You know, like throughout high school and college, I had the hardest time finding a church where the pastor would admit that he had struggles and that he wasn't just killing it. And so I would go away on a lot of Sundays and just feel completely defeated. I was like, I don't I might not even be a Christian, man, because I I struggle like crazy. Right. And uh so I found it to be more helpful.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

And uh my understanding was uh uh that you were in medical school when you got called, or you were going to medical school, and your dad wasn't exactly thrilled to death to hear that his son wanted to be a preacher.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Yeah, that's very true. Um, yeah, I went to VCU, Virginia Commonwealth University. I did the pre-med program. I'd just gotten into medical school, uh, accepted an MCV, and uh I was serving at my local church, leading a group of 10th grade boys, and I don't know how to explain it, but I can't deny it. I just felt this overwhelming sense that God was calling me into ministry. And so I had to go tell my dad, and we did not grow up in church. We just hunted and fished all the time. We thought we were Christians because we were Southern. So we believed in God, like we believe in SEC football and the Second Amendment. You know, it was just all one package deal. But I'd gotten saved about two years before that and was serving at my local church, and I had to tell my dad, I'm not gonna go to medical school, I'm going to seminary. And he said, Boy, what is seminary? And I said, Well, that is like preacher school. And he said, Preacher school, why you need a school for that? You only work half a day a week and study one book. And I was like, I well, I don't know. That's what they say you gotta do, so I'm going. And then he gave me some really good advice because he's like, What are you gonna do? I said, I'm gonna be a youth pastor. And he said, Boy, you don't get up and go to fun, you get up and go to work. Right. And he he was just looking out for me. Um, the good news is my dad got saved uh five years ago. Surrendered his life to Christ. I've been praying for him for over thirty years, and he finally surrendered his life to Christ. And every week now, send me a text, and it'll just say, Great Sun, buddy. Or he'll ask a question about it. If you'd have told me ten years ago that my dad would be sending me encouraging text, he wasn't anti-church or any of that, right? And he was real proud of all the things that me and my brother have done. Um, he's always been a great dad, but it's a miracle that he sends me these encouragements about discernment, about baptizing people, about all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Yeah, my grandmother sent me a text. Um, not a text, it wasn't my grandmother didn't text. She called me and in tears. Uh, she prayed. I was 40 uh when I um came to to know and the Lord, and um she prayed for me uh as her grandson. My my dad was uh an atheist, um and uh she prayed for all of her of her grandkids, and I was uh one of the ones that got away and then came back. She just called me in tears. Um 40 years. She said, since the day you were born, I prayed for you to know come and know the Lord in that. And you know, and it's it's a powerful thing, and people need to hear that. Um uh, you know, what did I I think it was Swindles said uh God invented time, man invented the watch. You know, we like to we tend to micromanage uh his timetable. Uh the key is to be faithful in in what you believe, and then you pray for those. I prayed for my brother for years. Um he was on the streets, off the streets, crack cocaine, and and the funniest thing, he started in in rehab at 20, 21 years old was his first rehab. He got sober at 66, I think he was, and he managed to live the last five years of his life sober. And I said, What was it that clicked? And he said, I figured it out. I said, You figured it out. That's great. He goes, It's the first drink. If I don't have one beer, I don't wind up in the crackhouse on the south side of Chicago. I said, Wow, that's like you could have learned that day one, uh, back in when you were 21 years old. That would have been great for you, you know. Uh, but you we are a thick-headed uh uh uh species um that God created. One of the things I wanted to ask you too was um, you know, when when Corinthians says love or Paul says love keeps no record of wrongs, you know, it's it's a beautiful, wonderful bumper sticker until somebody wrongs you. And and uh I mean it really cuts you and hurts you um like like only those who love you can. I used to tell my sons all the time, you know, you notice I don't yell at the neighbor kids, you know, right for playing in the streets, you know. I I don't love them as much as I love you. I I you know so uh I guess the question is is it a process that you went? Did you go through it? I mean, uh I I've I've learned because of my life, uh I was always the villain in everything. I was the angry, bitter, jaded, cynical, foul mouth uh partner in this relationship. So um when I got hurt, I just or when she did things or something, I just felt I I deserved it, you know. And then there came a point where I stepped up and said, you know what, I'm not gonna let you talk to me that way anymore. I've I've I've repented of all of this. So um for those of who've been hurt and we're supposed to keep no record of it, uh I letting go is difficult.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Yeah, and it has to be it has to be rooted in the gospel. I mean, if you if you look at the gospel of Matthew, when Peter asks Jesus, how many times do I have to forgive? 70 and 7.

unknown 14:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

And Jesus he tells a story about the the guy that owes a bazillion dollars, gets forgiven of it all, but won't forgive the guy that owes him a couple days' wages. And basically what he's saying is, listen, man, forgiving people, forgive people. And we've had a great marriage. We've been married 26 years. We were both believers when we got married. We've loved each other, but the the key is our marriage has gotten better and better and better because we're not just gonna settle for what the world says is normal that we want to do it God's way, and he's not done working on us until we go to be with him in heaven. You know, one of the things you say and one of your bits is it was either your dad or your father-in-law who gave you great advice before you fight. Ask, do I want to be right or do I want to be happy? Right. Well, a version of that is very biblical. I when I do when I talk to couples, I tell them, listen, when you when you fight, you can either I'm talking to the husbands, you can either be right or you can be married. And Ephesians chapter, because there's a bunch of dudes and they're right, but they ain't married no more, you know? Right. And it really is rooted in the gospel. Like in Ephesians chapter five, Paul tells us, husbands love your wife like Christ loved the church. Well, how did he love us? He went first. You know, you get the list is long. One of the things that Christ did on the cross is he took responsibility for things that were not his fault. Right. Our sin was not his fault. And he could have looked at us and been right and said, I didn't sin, you sinned, I'm going back to heaven, you're going to hell, see you later. But he took responsibility, he took the burden of the penalty of our sin. And that's how we are supposed to be with our wife. And the only thing that will fuel that is no, I have been forgiven of all of my sin, past, present, and future, freely by the costly blood of Jesus offered to me freely. So when Paul says love keeps no record of wrong, the word is legitsomai. And too many of us like keep a scorecard because we want to be right. You know, I I heard somebody say one time when some couples fight, they get historical or hysterical. Some people get historical.

unknown 16:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Because they want to bring that thing back up. And aren't you glad God doesn't just continuously bring up uh the number of times that you failed him? And so we do our best to try to not to do that, to keep a scorecard on each other.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah, when my mother passed away, I spoke at her funeral and I looked right at my father, and I said, one of the the gifts that mom gave me was she did not keep a scorecard. Um and I said, uh, there are people who go through life, and my father was one of them, who could tell you every slight and every hurt and everything that any human being ever did to him throughout his life. And uh I thought, what a horrible way to live. I've I've I I was one of the first things I got when I committed my life to Jesus was the understanding, and I understood it at my core, that I am to forgive as I have been forgiven, to understand that grace and mercy that was done for me on that cross. So who am I to hold a grudge against anybody? I mean, um uh so I and I got that, I really did. I didn't carry things. Um prior to that, uh I like a lot of people, I I knew everything that ever happened to me, you know. Um, but um Yeah, and it's it's that is so huge.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

A lot of people don't understand forgiveness, they think that it's a feeling, and forgiveness is not a feeling. Um, just before uh Jesus shares that parable with uh with Peter about the unmerciful serpent, he he talks about what forgiveness is. He says, um he basically says this the point of that parable is the the guys that owe the money have to give an account. And what what forgiveness is is canceling the debt of what somebody owes you. And if you can think about it as a canceling of debt as opposed to feelings. So what when I when I'm walking our church through forgiveness, all you gotta do is identify who sinned against you. And you can't overlook it. Sin's a big deal, it costs Jesus his blood on the cross. And so you identify what you took from me. Like you lied about me, you you know, whatever the thing is. You and and in a sense, you owe me that. The reality is you can't go back in time and give it back to me. But if you'll spend the time identifying who sinned against you, what they did, and the emotions involved, then you will have a debt ledger. And then you have one or two things you can do with that debt ledger. You can hold on to it, but it's gonna kill you. That's eating the rat poison, thinking the rats are gonna die. And I would encourage people, if you're gonna hold on to it, just laminate it and put it up in your living room. And so when you go, so you can just be like, see what Tammy did? Right. So the reason I'm a jerk is because look how evil Tammy is, right? Right now, you're gonna ruin every relationship in your life, all right? Because it does everybody. Because unforgiveness begins to ferment, and only two things happen when something ferment, it stinks, and you get drunk on it.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

And so that's what the bitter person is, man. You get drunk on your emotions and you do a bunch of dumb stuff. Or you can cancel the debt.

unknown 19:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

And so what I would encourage people to do is do the hard work of going through the process and then burn it, tear it up, bury it. Like a guy in our church, burn it and paddled out with the surfboard and sprinkled it like ashes in the ocean so that when those feelings come back, he can remember, no, I've canceled that debt because the enemy wants you to think it didn't work because you have feelings about it.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

And one day feelings will catch up because if the enemy can convince you that forgiveness on the horizontal doesn't work, then there's no way that God could forgive you of all of your sin. Oh, right. So forgiveness matters like crazy.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah, I'm watching it now in my own family. My two my two sons have not spoken in six years over stuff that the wives said to each other six years ago. And we're getting together um at the end of the month. It's my 70th birthday, my wife's 65th, and then we're married 40 years. So all the numbers lined up. So we put out a big invitation, we're inviting people, you know, and uh I asked both my sons um if uh if I invite you, if one shows, will you not show because I want both of you there. Um, and we expect you to be civil, you're adults. And um both of them said, Oh, I'll be fine, I'll be fine, don't worry about it, you know. And we just dropped off our granddaughter. We took her to her first concert, uh, Brandon Lake, and uh to watch my watch my 12-year-old granddaughter. I baptized her last year at 11, and um to watch her just sit and and the joy of uh 15,000 people just worshiping was just the coolest feeling. And we're hoping through prayer uh that she can get her father and my and her uncle speaking. But uh we dropped her off, and Tammy said, Have you called your brother or text your brother that you know you're gonna be at the party? He goes, I'm waiting for him to apologize. Oh man. So we haven't left square one. We have not left square one in six years. And I asked him, Well, what was this about, by the way? And neither one of them can remember what was actually said. They just know the feelings were hurt and they've dug their heels in.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Well, Jesus says you're blessed, because he says, Blessed are the peacemakers. And peacekeepers avoid conflict for comfort, and peacemakers step into it and try to reconcile because we've been reconciled to God. Man, I hope and pray they'll see what they're throwing away. Well, I'm really close to my brother.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah. They were so close growing up. And uh we're hoping that when they see each other um in at the end of this month that they'll remember, you know. Um and that's one of the things I've been pushing on my latest tour is uh for men to remember the first time you laid eyes on that woman that became your wife. Don't it's in there. Those feelings and emotions are in there. And uh they're covered in dust, maybe in cobwebs, but you gotta dig them up. Um, you know, and uh you know, I I when I think about the moment that Tammy walked out of that in the as a waitress came out with her street clothes on, you know, I make a joke out of it, but it was profound. I mean, white blouse, short black leather skirt, you know, 5'10, all legs. Uh well, she's 5'6 now, but she was 5'10. But uh you know, lugging me around for 40 years. But anyway, uh, that's uh we we tend to forget. I mean, how many times uh in in scripture does um does God tell the Israelites, you get you keep forgetting. We keep forgetting.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah, and the Bible often says, uh, husbands, remember the wife of your youth. And what one of the chapters we talk about this, that Peter is writing to the men of his church because he's writing to the elders, and he says to be watchful, watch out, be sober-minded. Because what a lot of us do at men is as men, we get lazy. And the lazy man's a dangerous thing. That's what took David out. I mean, in the in the time of year when kings go to war, David's laying on the couch. About two pages later, he's a murderer and an adulterer. It's not good. That's not what he intended, but that's where it goes. And so sometimes we're getting lazy at home. And uh, I like to hunt a lot, and too many men treat their marriage like a big elk hunt. Like you study, you get in shape, you learn them, you know when they're gonna be moving, when they're gonna be roaring, and you chase them, you do all the hall work, then you shoot your shot, you bag them, you put them on the wall, and ignore them for the rest of your life. That is not God's design for your marriage.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Are you listening, Christian? Christian just got engaged. Are you listening to this? Absorb it, absorb it, my young man. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Yeah, one of the best ways, the best one of the best things you could do as a leader at your home, one, how about be the lead confessor and the lead repenter? But you can also just pray out loud over your wife.

unknown 24:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Because it's because we don't live on the homestead anymore where we can fight the grizzly and the wolf out on the front stoop to display our love, but you can get on your knees and fight against the devil of hell for the hearts and souls of your wife and kids. And a lot of dudes I talk to here in Jacksonville, they're like, Well, Pastor, I'm not good at praying. Biggest word I know is delicatessen, and I don't know how to work it into the prayer. I'm like, all right, boys, here's what you do. Today, take your wife by the hand and you say, How can I pray for you? And then she's gonna say words. Right. Pay attention to the words. Right. And then just when she gets done, just bow your head and say, Dear God, and just repeat verbatim what she just said. Right. You don't have to add to it. You don't have to be like, and Lord, help with her gym membership. You don't have to add anything to it. Just say what she said, then you say amen. And you go look it up. She's gonna be crying a little bit. She did. Those are good teachers.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

I I heard that in one of your sermons, and I did it. I went upstairs. I was sitting in my sauna listening to your sermon. And uh I went right upstairs. I grabbed her by the hand, I looked her in the eye, and I said, How can I pray for you? And she started crying. Amen. Just uh I just I want good health, Jeff. I just want good health. And we, because of your uh your preaching on this, uh, and it's and it's something that you repeat more than once, uh, because it needs to be repeated. We have thick heads. Um uh we are now praying every night. And the funniest thing, we we I had a we we were coming down to Florida. We she rarely travels with me, and we get into a huge fight um uh going into the airport. And now we're sitting at Blake Shelton's place, old red, at Nashville Airport at a two-top, and there's a guy next to us, and we're you know that ventriloquism thing that you do with your wife. The guy next to us had his head down. He was just shoving food in his face. He wasn't gonna look up and make eye contact. And uh the whole time, man. And then we ended up getting to the gate, and uh, I said, Look, babe, you want me to, I'll take you home. I'll take you home right now. I I'm I'm really I you don't want to come with me, that's fine. So she goes, we didn't say a word all the way to Orlando, not one word. And we get into the hotel room, we check in, she's she lays down on her side of the bed. I walk over and I kneel beside her and I lay my hands on her. She says, What are you doing? I said, This is the time we need to pray. When it's the most uncomfortable, this is not comfortable. And the next day she wakes up, she says, You know, look, I'm sorry. I said, I'm sorry, sweet. I don't even know how these things happen. I really don't. But I also told her, I said, This is demonic. You know, I said, you know that, right? I said that these these things that happen are that are so out out of the ordinary, you know, when you can step outside of it. But yeah, uh, that is because of uh your concept, and our pastor talks about it, but that is something that you you um you explained in such a good way, man. I you know, just because I was like that. Man, what do I say? I don't know, you know, and then you just go up and ask her. You know, it sounds logical.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Yeah. And then when the wives are listening, I tell them, and please don't correct him, don't correct his theology, don't be that. That's not what I said. Just it just your response is Hercules, Hercules, because men are simple. We're like puppies. We will repeat what is rewarded. So just tell us we did a good job, pat us on the head, and we'll be fine. But you are right, it's demonic. If you look in the Bible, the devil does not show up until there's a wedding. There's a wedding, the next the next line is the serpent shows up on the scene.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Oh, wow. I never put that together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Yeah, he does not want you to be married.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Oh, it makes sense. I mean, in in hindsight, looking back at some of our worst moments, um, uh certainly after becoming believers, uh, you know, when we weren't, um, we kind of had our we we had our own issues, other issues, but um uh the the stuff that came after saying yes and then uh trying to build our marriage on uh on a biblical foundation, um you know, the stuff that would come in between my ears, um, you know, were again no other word but demonic.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

You know, my wife changed our marriage early on, and I don't know what was wrong with me. I was just being grumpy, you know? Yeah, I was just you know, and and she's like, What are you doing? You're gonna we have we have so few days when you're not busy, we got all day, and you're gonna be a jerk. And so she said, Here's what I'm gonna do. We're gonna do a do-over. I'm gonna go in the bedroom for about five minutes, and when I come out, I'm gonna be so happy, and you can decide if you're gonna join me or not. And so she walks and I was like, So stupid. What's she talking about? Do over. That doesn't make no sense. And I'm grumbling, and she goes in the bedroom, she comes out, she goes, Oh my god, good morning, how are you? Like so sweet. And I was like, I'm good. And it just it just changed. And so we we don't want to overdo this, but those times where I know I'm driving us over the ditch, you know, and I know it's me. Right. And instead of getting all into it and having a whole therapy session, we'll just go, Hey, can I get a do-over? Can we just start over and not ruin the day? Let me just get a do-over.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

Well, I like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

And it was her idea, and it's been a game changer for our marriage.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

I'm gonna share that with Tammy tonight. Uh, she called me today. She wants to have a date night, which is so rare for her. It's the strangest thing. Um, I married a homebody, um, you know, and I'll come in off the road and I'm only gonna be home for two days. I go, let's go to dinner. She goes, Why do you want to go out? I go, Look, I'm in road mode, you know. One more restaurant doesn't make a difference, but you've been cooped up in the house for five days. So today she calls me and she says, Um, I want to go, I want a date night tonight. And I said, You're in. I'm in. You know, I got uh a couple podcasts, I'll be done. Um where would you like to eat? And I'm thinking, great steakhouse or whatever. She goes, I want to eat it in and out burger.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Hard to beat.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Hard to beat that. 12 bucks, I'm out. 13, I'm you know, okay, you know. And she says, I want to go see a movie you probably don't want to watch. And she, I said, What is it? Devil wears Prada 2 or something. I don't know. Anyway, I said, I'll sit there if I can hold your hand, baby. If I can hold your hand, I'll watch the movie with you, you know.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

And um, yeah, we we prioritize date night. But I but but Gretchen would rather stay at home. She has a sweatshirt that I don't let her wear in public because it's embarrassing. Because it says, Sorry, I'm late. I didn't want to come. That's what it says. She just wants to like sit at the house. So whatever she wants to do. I just want to be with her.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Well, it's hard to get uh Tammy out of the house, but uh she um uh watching what uh God has done for her in the last five years of her life has been just nothing but phenomenal. Um we were um we went to the same church 15 years, and I remember asking her one Sunday as people were leaving, I said, point out two people we know that aren't the pastors. We didn't know anybody. We would just sit up in the balcony, we'd get the sermon, we go home. And uh 15 years. And um they um they changed pastors. Um and it's interesting. Um the new pastor comes out in the middle of 2020 and says we need to send some money to BLM, and that's when I I was watching it on YouTube. I said, Well, that's the last check I write to the church. I said obviously they didn't do their due diligence on the new pastor because it was a complete 180 from what was teaching before. You know, he certainly wasn't teaching Marxism. So, anyway, we uh we were churchless for a while, and then we got a new church. It literally opened up a quarter mile from our house, and um she plugged in immediately. Uh and we started small group on a Tuesday because we wanted to meet people. And she says, I'm not gonna talk, I'm not gonna do anything. I'll I'll feed them, you know. That's her love language, you know. She said, I'll I'll bake things. And she leads small group now, two years later. She uh she prints out the sheets, she leads the questions, she leads, she keeps everybody, keeps uh certainly keeps her husband from talking too much. You know, she goes, Yeah, we've heard enough from you, you know. Yeah, don't worry about me. I don't have any feelings.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Yeah, we need each other. I mean, yeah, right. Yeah, I mean, one of the things we talk about in the book is uh in that same passage, 1 Peter, he says the devil prowls around like a roaring lion asking someone to devour. And if you ever watch the Animal Planet, the the the lion always takes off, takes out that isolated one that's not in the middle of the herd.

unknown 33:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

And so if Jesus, on the night he was gonna be arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, if he felt like he needed three brothers to come and pray for him, then who in the world do we think we are to think we can do it without people?

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Yeah, we we need community, we need each other. It's a big part of it.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Yeah, I meet every Monday on a on a Zoom call with five or six guys uh for the last year and a half, I think, every Monday, one o'clock. Um you know, I'll do it while I'm driving in the car, you know. Um I love those guys, and um they know all the stink, you know, and uh they still call me friend. You can't you can't buy it and you can't will it. It's just a gift of grace. Um after 20 years of marriage, you're gonna love this question. What do you know about love now that your younger self couldn't have possibly understood?

SPEAKER_00 33:57

I didn't realize that like love is like an inexhaustible resource, and the more you give away, the more and more it grows. Oh wow. I mean, that's one of the biggest things I learned. Like when we had kids, when we had our second kid, you know, you have that first one. We're having a boy, it's most excited I've ever been in my life, right?

unknown 34:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

And then he pops out, and you just think there's a whole nother gear here. And then when you have another one, you can't ask anybody this, they'll think you're terrible. You think, oh no, am I gonna be able to love the second one like I love the first one? Because I don't think I did a good job of holding any back. I gave everything I had to the first one. Then we had a little girl, she was seven pounds on the dot. That's the number of perfection in the Bible, by the way. I remember holding Reagan Capri thinking I would die for you and I might make somebody die for you, you know. Then what I realized is even though I'd given all my love away to my son, I still had all the love to give to Reagan because God is love and love is an inexhaustible resource. If the day I got married, I didn't think I could love my wife anymore. You know, I was pretty obsessed with 26 years in. I'm I love her more, I'm in love with her more, I'm more infatuated, more attracted. Don't buy into this lie. Like the couple that you were talking about that never fights, you know, and they're walking on the beach and the wife is eight foot ahead, and the guy's just mumbling in the background. And people think that's what marriage is. You just you get married, it's commitment, you just suck it up until you die. That is not God's design for marriage. No, it is like a garden.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

That's I suppose it's better and better. Young guys there too. I go, well, if that's what you think marriage is, no wonder you're bailed, you know? Right. No, you lean into, you know, and um that's what you know, it was interesting. Uh, you know, and I'm not breaking any confidence as Tammy talked about this publicly, you know, when when our marriage hit its bottom, she she got involved with another guy. And um, I remember telling her, I said, um, you know what I hate about these guys that prey on bad marriages, you know, is they they get you uh they don't get you in the morning, they don't get you in the evening, they don't get you, you know, they they get you when you're you're when you don't want to feel like going out, you just call them and tell them you don't want to you don't want to meet today, you don't want to go out today, you don't want to get together. And um you know all of it good, bad, ugly, you know, and that's one of the reasons why I'm so committed to her today is that she has seen it all, man. You know, when we were on the side of the road with the divorce papers, and I said, we go home, you're in for the long haul. This is your one get out of jail free. Let's drive the 10 minutes, file the papers at the courthouse, and you you deserve better than me. I'm trying, but we go home, you're in. I don't want to hear six months from now, you know. And I think that was the best thing we ever did. We took divorce off the table. We just said this isn't an option anymore. So we better learn how to forgive, we better learn how to you know extend and all of that. And then when Christ captured me, it was it all made sense then that I'm to love her as he loved us. And um that's the process that's so difficult. Um, but you yeah, you uh just baptized 2,500 people. I mean, are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Was this yeah, it was all in one day. Uh if you clear our prison campuses that don't meet on the same day, it was 27-11, was our total number.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Listen, man, I don't, I don't, I'm just preaching the gospel. That's just what we do. I have no idea why God has decided to breathe his breath on us. We sing and talk like everybody else.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

I mean, we sing all the Brandon Lake songs too, and we're all preaching out of the same Bible, but we preach, we preach the gospel and God saves.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Well, not everybody uh uh preaches the hard stuff, you know. And I I noticed I I called my pastor out. He's a young guy. Uh he's the associate pastor preached to the men on porn. Uh Ian was down in Florida vacationing on that week. He opens the sermon with I sent out an email to all the men in this church. If you're struggling with porn, uh contact me and uh we're gonna we're gonna preach on this this coming Sunday. I didn't get one email back. Come on, you're gonna tell me not one of you guys. And I text him after the sermon. I said, uh, I was watching it on YouTube. I was out of town. I said, well, had I gotten the email, I I don't open your emails up. Yeah, and you're you're the associate pastor. I don't I only open up the senior. So I said I would have responded to that as well. But uh he that one and then Ephesians 5, where the women have to submit to their husbands. He always farms that one out to someone as well. How do you handle that? Uh with with because I know you preached on it. Um, I heard it. Uh you know, it's uh by itself isolated, it sounds uh harsh to today's uh female. But um in context, it all makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Yeah, well, first I fundamentally have made the decision that I'm the mailman, not the editor, so I don't get to decide what the letter says, I just deliver it.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Um, context matters a lot. So the verse before it does say submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, but Jesus does not need a makeover. We don't have to feather his hair, we just need to present the truth of the word of God. Right. And I know the Bible says, wives submit to your own husbands. It doesn't say women submit to men, but it does say women submit wives submit to your own husbands as unto the Lord. And I know submit is not a popular word, but neither is staying married. And fundamentally, what it just means, the fundamental question in every man is, do I have what it takes? And every single one of us know the answer in and of ourselves is no way. We're just a bunch of posers and we're afraid of being found out. Now the gospel comes along and says his divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness. And so what we need from our wife is cheerleader and encourager, not a nager telling us everything that we're doing wrong. And so ultimately, what it means for a woman for a wife to submit to her own husband is to do whatever it takes to make him feel like the man. That's what it means. You don't have to correct every story, you don't have to point out all the wrong things that he does, but to have a little bit of gratitude, some encouragement. The best thing Gretchen's ever told me is not I love you. Everybody who doesn't, I mean, my dog loves me, but she'll say, Thank you for my life. That's what that means. There'll be times where we're trying to figure something out, and she'll say, I trust you. I know that you'll make the best decision for my for our family. That's what that means. And then and then it says, but here's the thing you gotta realize in the first century, that was not new news that women had to submit to men, they were property of men. They couldn't vote, they couldn't be in a court. I mean, you know, they did not have the same rights. The radical message when Paul says, Husbands, love your wife like Christ loved the church. And so when men stand up and act like men, when they lead in love well, everybody flourishes. So the reason my wife can submit to my headship is because I've tried I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but man, when when I die, I want her to think the best decision I've ever made other than following Jesus is being married to that man. Because he has cultivated a kind of environment where I could grow and flourish into who God has created me to be. So it's not about I don't, I don't, you know, submission doesn't mean you gotta stay at home and cook and clean and the man tells you what to do. That's that is not what a biblical marriage is. It's just rooted in a really good friendship. And what really good friends do for one another, they make the other person's deal a beggar a bigger deal than their own deal. And when you get that thing right, you'll find yourself on your knees at the foot of the cross together. And then the man will understand it is his responsibility. He's the head. And one day he'll give an account for his family before the Lord. And then if he's doing this thing right, it will be easier for his wife to come alongside him and to encourage him and to support him and to cheer him off instead of being an antagonist against what he's trying to do.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Oh, that's a beautiful picture. Um, you know, and I and I agree with you a hundred percent. Nothing nothing feeds me more than when she wraps her arms around me and says, Thank you. It's the best. You've done it, you've you you've paid for for the hard work, for the whatever, you know, um and the acknowledgement of it. Um, you know, it's you know, when you gr when I grew you know, I grew up in a you know, my father lobbed compliments around like manhall covers, you know. Um they didn't they didn't come off and they they were difficult for him to throw. Uh so you just kind of learn to fend for yourself. So when you bring a partner into your into your life, and initially that's we were both like that. Both of us grew up in homes like that. So we we weren't not we were not each other's cheerleaders uh for for years. And now I'm telling you, man, there's nothing that warms my heart more than seeing her grow uh in her faith and grow in her um uh these ministries that she's involved in. She crochets prayer shawls, um, and just absolutely um again, it's just it warms my heart to see what God has done for for the for my partner in in life and my you know my wife.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

I don't want to get caught in a new term with you. You're you're a lot like me. I mean, it's it's different, but we travel all over the place. We speak to rooms full of people, people cheer us on, tell us we're Great. And but they don't know. I mean, the best version of me is standing on stage preaching, you know? But when my wife uh she can't get the lid off the jelly jar and she hands it to me and I pop that thing off, she's like, Oh, you're so strong. I mean, I just feel like yeah, I'm a stud. Yeah. It means 10x more than what all the nice people think people say about me, about books and preaching and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Yeah, I heard Matt Chandler. Matt Chandler said, um, and it was a great picture. He he was he could read compliments or his uh his feed, you know, and somebody could say something insulting to him while he's eating lunch and he goes, Yeah, I just finished my sandwich and move on. My wife could say something to me on Monday that bothers me, and it's still eating at me on Thursday, you know, 100%. Because what she thinks and says really it it affects my soul. It affects my soul.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

Um, yeah, and one of your bits when you when you talk about getting waxed, you said, you know, there's eight billion people on the planet, but if that girl thinks it's sexy, that's it. That's all I care about.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

That's it. That's it, man. Yeah, and uh so Matt Chandler uh is a friend of yours. Um, I uh we we mentioned briefly off-air that uh I've been listening to him for years. Um I've kind of watched him grow up um uh and go through all the stuff that he went through. How did you guys meet?

SPEAKER_00 45:35

Uh we met through church stuff, uh, but he he was just here last week. Um, but man, he's one of my dearest friends. Here's the cool thing about Chandler. So he might be the greatest preacher of our generation, and he's a better dude than he is a preacher. Oh, wow. He's just so genuine. He loves his family, loves his kids, loves Lauren. He's the best hang. You think he's funny on stage, you ought to hang out with him a little bit. Like, yeah, I'm just telling you, he's just one of my favorite dudes, and um, he's been so helpful, you know. He was a lead past he's been a lead pastor longer than I have. And when our church started blowing up and growing like crazy, I would call him all the time and he would, you know, share all of his experiences. And it's really cool in ministry to have a brother like that.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Yeah, and it's so cool that he's been in ministry for that long, and there's been those scandals, oddly enough, because he's uh he's surrounded himself with uh with good godly men to keep everything uh you know, again, it's it's it's almost cliche anymore when you see somebody explode in the ministry and you think, okay, when is it when is the shoe gonna drop? And um where do pastors go? Um the ones that are struggling with um with issues, where can they go? Because if you publicly go public with it, you know. Um Yeah, I I I I don't know. I've I've I've met a handful of them that over the years have left the ministry because um of um just their inability or or there's no place for them to go and heal. Um I I think it was Spurgeon that said when a pastor falls, you don't kick him out, you send him away, let his whiskers grow, and then uh when God heals, you bring them back, and then he shouts praises to God from the pulpit. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

Um, you know, I've got a group of pastors that we meet with a few times a year. I've got some pastors that I call mat carriers in Mark chapter two. There's a man paralyzed on a mat, and he's got four friends that pick up the corner and showed him to Jesus. And it is very, very key that you have those kind of men in your life that don't work for you, that you don't report to, that just, I mean, you need those guys too. You know, I've got a board of elders that I am accountable to, there's no doubt about it. But um, you know, there's a friend of mine in town right now, a guy named Josh Turner. He runs an organization called the 1010 Project, and it's it's kind of like prehab for pastors. It's to help them grow mentally and spiritually, emotionally so that they can stay in the game for the long haul. And they build it around groups of pastors that do some adventurous kind of things together. Um, and then like currently I'm I'm mentoring about 20 pastors, they're all about 10 years younger than me, and they've all got really big, fast-growing churches. And the biggest thing we I mean, we talk some shop, you know, we talk about things to do and hurdles to cross, but the biggest thing we do is get out in the woods and sit around a campfire and just create the kind of friendships, you know. Good Christian fellowship is like a retirement account. If you wait till you need it to start it, you missed it, bro. Right. So you gotta you want to build those that kind of community before you think you need it because somebody's gonna need it.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Yeah, it's um again, this is the guys I meet with for um and coming out of a 12-step program, I understand the need for community. Um, and nobody heals alone. We were never meant to be isolated and alone uh at all. We're a community, uh God created us to be in community, and it seems like with uh you know, how do you handle with the younger uh you know, even with your own children, with the devices, were you able to I mean do you have rules um and did they adhere to them? And you know, one of my favorite quotes is there's nothing more dangerous to a culture than bored young men. So you had a young man uh growing up in the age of the you know, my kids were almost 18, 17 before all of this uh computer stuff, so they were they were pretty much grown up, but um, I can't imagine today. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

We had our kids deeply involved in church and deeply involved in sports. That helped a lot. Um both of my children, I got a son that'll turn 21 this year, and a daughter at 16. They're both walking with the Lord. Uh, my son actually works for a a ministry called Fellowship Adventures that takes mostly pastors and ministry leaders on hunting and fishing trips. Oh, cool. To help them, yeah. So he's in Canada right now, living on a houseboat, um, just serving pastors. So we had rules like crazy when they were young. The more maturity they showed, the more we loosened about it up. And so, and they would always try to go around the rules. I mean, one of the things we tried to do is just sit around the table, look at each other in the eye with no phones, and we would just ask, what's the high and low of today? That's it. I tried to do a million devotionals with my family, it never went good.

SPEAKER_01 50:47

Yeah, that's what I wanted to ask you as a as a pastor, because as a layman, it didn't go well for me at all. But uh, so I abandoned it pretty quick, you know.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Yeah, they would fuss and fight, or they'd be like, Well, I think this is what it means. I was like, No, that's not what it means. Let me tell you what it means. And so it just never go went well, but way more was caught than taught, you know. And we worked really hard to make sure, especially when our kids were coming through student ministry, that they had adults in their life that we trusted that were godly. Right. So when our kids didn't feel like they could talk to us, they could talk to some godly people from church that weren't us.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

Yeah, my son took Ishnaru Karate uh from a uh a very um devout uh I I went to him, one of those men that was kind and gentle that could rip your heart out right through your chest. And uh I had said to him, I said, uh, you can discipline my son. I respect you enough and uh uh and the way you walk your life and live your life. You can discipline my son. You know, he said, Well, the the good news is your son really doesn't need any discipline. He's a he's a good kid. But um yeah, you see that. You know, Tommy Nelson, um, I don't know if you're familiar with Tommy, uh his tapes were the tapes I uh somebody sent me that um his series on ecclesiastes is what led me to to the Lord. And Tommy and I have become pretty good friends over the years, and he did a thing called Young Guns, and I share Tommy's name all over the country. You know, I give him credit for the tapes. And four or five times a year, some guy will come up to me and go, I went through Tommy's Young Gun program 25 years ago. And I say, How are you doing? He goes, Oh, great, got grandchildren now. And you know, I mean, but that's what Tommy said. When I die, I want a lot of I want a lot of young men carrying my casket. And I I sense that with you. I sense that your your heart is for the young man. And believe me, in this country, uh, we've we lost a generation of them. And I I kind of agree with you. I think COVID kind of woke up a bunch of them. Uh if if this is what you got for me, I'm not buying, you know.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

And what's incumbent upon my generation, like Tommy Nelson did, is to not beat down the upcoming young men, but to speak life into them, lift them up. Um, I've only met Tommy Nelson a couple of times, but I wore out his Song of Solomon tapes when I was in college and graduate school. And I'm writing a book on the Song of Solomon that'll come out next year, and I've asked him to do the forward. Oh, and he said, Yeah. And the reason is because I just said, hey man, I'm writing this thing, and I don't, I can't, what am I gonna do? Just give you credit every sentence. I feel like almost everything I know about this I learned from you. So would you just write the forward and I'll just tell everybody. I learned this in my 20s from listening to these tapes over and over and over. And I've been teaching them at my church for the last 12 years, and so yeah, and so it's he is he has agreed to write the forward, and and um that that man, because he he is the epitome of showing a man what it is to stand firm and act like a man and still be like to know how to be tough when it's time to be tough and tender when it's time to be tender.

SPEAKER_01 54:12

Absolutely. Uh, and it's funny when we listened to um Tommy's Song of Solomon, we had oh boy. We were married almost fifteen years. We were believers for seven or eight, maybe. We both sat there um and wept at what could have been what might have been had we known. That's what Tammy Tammy said to me. She said, I really wish I had done it right. What a beautiful picture of of waiting. And um, you know, and again, I mean you're not gonna wallow in it. You you you you know, thank God for the mercy that he showed us and revealed himself to us in a huge way, and we got a chance. But just that picture that he paints, um and and and to your list to my listeners, if you've if you've never uh heard Tommy Nelson preach the Song of Solomon, I highly recommend going to Denton Biblechurch.org, I think is the website and um and purchasing the set, or it may even be available under. But uh Tommy preached it to college kids for ten years, I mean a long time. But uh can't wait for your book. Um yeah. Um what's the process? Do you write it yourself? I mean, do you have editors? Do you have you know? I'm not gonna lie, my book. Uh I if I if I wrote it, it would have been a 900-page tomb because I had things to say, you know. So I needed someone to come in and go, that's irrelevant.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

It's not irrelevant. Yeah, I uh I write all my books with one of my best friends named Charles Martin. He's a multi New York Times best-selling author, writes novels and stuff, and he's a deacon and one of our uh it's like a lay pastor in our church and one of my Mac carriers. And so he helps me take all the content from the stage and put it on a page. And so we write them together. So we're working on the Song of Solomon for the next. It'll come out probably like next October.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

Are you going to preach the whole series? Uh uh, like, you know, um because this is one of the other reasons why I like following you is that you you you cover a topic exhaustively. You don't just pick a verse and and then hit it, and then next week you're on to something else. You know, our church, he we were in the book of John for over a year. Uh, and you know, he he got apologetic by the end of the year. He goes, All right, man, I said two more weeks. I promise we'll be done with you. You know, so why rush, man? Well, that's the point. It's like, no, man, that's what we're here to learn. You know, um, if if you can't absorb the word, you know, uh, then how do you how does it change your life? You know, it just becomes something you like a you know, a magazine you've read. No, you gotta and something you said in the in your book, um and and and I I probably I think I can't even paraphrase it. I it reminded me of like I used to say that the word comes to life when you can lay your life over the word. When when something changes or you uh happens in your life and and you you read the verse or you hear the verse, or you're in the middle of something, and the verse pops into your head, and it and it gives it shifts your your entire thought process. I forget how you said it, but um it is a living, breathing word.

SPEAKER_00 57:37

And uh yeah, the Bible's not just true, it is true, but it's more than that, it's trustworthy. Like, not only does it hold up to its claims, it will hold you up. You can you can lean your life on the promises of the word, and you will find that it is a solid rock that you can build your life on, on the gospel of Jesus. So, yeah, I mean we teach, we're in the book of Matthew right now for the whole year. And um, yeah, like when we do the Song of Solomon, we'll just teach every every word of the Song of Solomon. I'm not smart enough to make up, you know, a lot of preachers will just like have an idea and have a verse here. I'm uh uh I just teach what the Bible says because you know, Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the power of salvation, not my dumb thoughts about what everybody should be doing. So we just we just teach expositorily through the word.

SPEAKER_01 58:31

Yeah, and unapologetically, uh, you're a gun owner. I know that. Um that's a fact. Yeah, I uh I know you know, I was the dog. I probably never got into hunting because I was the dog. When my father took me out to hunt, I was eight or nine years old, and I would flush all these things out while eight drunken lunatics fired 12 gauges over my head. I probably had PTSD before there was a name for it.

SPEAKER_00 58:59

Yeah, yeah. So everybody that I know that doesn't like to hunt, they've got that story. Yeah. Like it was I was in Ohio, it was minus three degrees, sideways sleet, and my dad put me on a bucket for six days. I'm like, yeah, well, I wouldn't like that either. But yeah, these animals over my shoulder, I did not sing them to sleep. Yeah, that's a fact.

SPEAKER_01 59:18

James Robinson, who uh was a friend who just passed away, um, took me down to Texas somewhere, one of those ranches. And he says, So you don't hunt? I go, nah, not really. So they put a 45 in my hand, uh, pistol, and I I shot a jackrabbit and I mean just dissipated the thing. And I looked at all these men, you know, all tatted up and everything, and I said, you know, a Lester man would feel bad about that. He was just minding his own business, watching the traffic go by, you know, didn't think it was his last day on earth. But I'll tell you the coolest thing about that whole trip there was a young man there. Uh, you couldn't go to the ranch unless you were 15 or 16. And the kid, his dad took his three brothers and he passed away before he could take the youngest son. So his brothers took him on the hunt. And the last day we were there, that kid pulls up in the back of that truck with the blood, you know, and the and the antlers, and uh there wasn't a dry eye in the house, man. Everybody said, you know, dad'd be so proud of you, man. He got his first buck, you know, and and uh part of me uh thinks that that's the only way I'm gonna heal the relationship between my sons. Is uh my one son lives in Montana, and I asked him because I met a guy that takes uh uh high-profile CEOs and pastors out on uh uh fishing things up in Montana. And uh I said, if I got my sons to go, would you would you be willing to take me on a trip up there? And he goes, Oh, in a heartbeat. Yeah, we'd love it. And I don't know if you ever read the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but um I I don't I couldn't even tell you what the book was about. I just remember it was a father-son on a motorcycle. And I said, if there ever comes a point where I need to have my kids yell at me, I'll just put them, you know, get a sidecar, take all both of them up to the mountains somewhere you can yell at me for a weekend. Just get it out of your system and let's move on. You know.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

I raised my son in the woods, and uh it was just to get time together. Yeah, um, for his for his graduation present from high school, I took him to South Africa to bow hunt and watched him shoot uh a blessbach, an impala, a wildebeest, and a zebra all with a bow. Oh my goodness. So those times, and then now today, but what I did though as a dad, when he was little, I didn't make him suffer through it. If the weather was bad, we would just punt and go to Waffle House. I'd always let him pick where we were gonna eat. No, no matter we weren't really hunting, we would just sit in the woods for a little while, and I'd take every call, I hey be calling ducks and we'd be deer hunting. I didn't care, whatever. I just wanted to do it together and I wanted to enjoy it. And now he's a hunting-fishing guide for serving pastors. Yeah. So I I treasure those moments. Treasure those moments.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

And uh is he dating anybody? I mean, does it um look like you're gonna be a grandfather anytime soon?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:26

Or not anytime soon, but he definitely has hopes of uh kids and all of that. So he's got his head on straight. He he understands you know what God's put him on this planet for. And uh he did he did college where he went to Tallahassee for about a a semester and a half, and he called us and he said, This ain't it. Um there's not good things here, I'm not doing good things, and if I don't get off this train, it's going to the wrong place. And so we were so grateful that he learned that at 20, 19 years old, where so he came home, got an internship with this ministry, and he's working harder than he's ever worked. I mean, he works 14 hour days every day. Um, and the biggest thing that he's he says, he's like, I learned how to, I know I can work hard, I know I'm smart, I know God's got a purpose and a plan for me. And uh, you know, he's really excited to get back home and begin to live out that the rest of his life.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:23

Man, how cool is that, man? Well, you should be a proud papa. You really should be.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

We are, yeah. And then my daughter is uh if anybody could qualify to go to heaven without Jesus, it'd be her. She's almost perfect, not not quite. Sometimes her mom makes her mad, but she's she's just a dream, man. She wants to go into ministry. In fact, we're homeschooling her the last two years so that she can travel with me and just preach you know when I go to conferences and stuff like that. Just so that and the the the main she's at a great little Christian school here. Um, I'm probably like you, I was at the government school right now, but um, but I just when she's 30 years old and she looks back at her junior and senior year, I want her to have a whole bunch of memories with mom and dad on the road. So we were in Texas last week doing a bunch of stuff, and so we went a day early, we stayed an extra day, we stayed down in Fort Worth at the stockyards and just did cowboy stuff. And same ministry impact. I let a Bible study, I did some devotionals with Shane and Shane, and I preached at the porch at Watermark, a bunch of like a young adults thing. So same ministry impact, but instead of being away from my girls, right? We you know, and I'm I'm the dad, dude. I'll I spoil the heck out of her. Like got her cowboy boots and some little cowgirl dresses and whatever she wants. I don't care. Yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

Absolutely, because they grow so fast, you know. So fast. Looking at my granddaughters, the oldest is 13 now. And we we got them for this summer. We got all four of them coming in for two weeks. It was very funny. Growing up, I was uh when my kids were young, I was just, you know, I was an angry, bitter guy. And I didn't, you know, children should be seen, not heard, you know, shut up, leave, you know, leave me alone, get out of here. And uh a couple summers ago, the kids were over and we got this big open concept in our house, the kitchen and everything. We opened it up because we wanted to spend time together with the family. So we just gutted the entire upstairs. It looked like a bowling alley for the longest time. So, anyway, at one point, all four kids are running laps, the dogs are chasing them around, and I'm just sitting there reading a book, and Tammy walks over and kisses me on the top of the head, and she goes, My, how things have changed. And I said, Yeah, and I said, Yeah, isn't this noise beautiful? Listen to that.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:38

You know, and how many there's a guy to our church that got saved late, uh, like mid 50s, late fifties, and big time CEO of a national bank, you know. Um, and he comes and so we get saved, and then a few years later, his oldest son gets married and has some grandbabies. And I'm talking to him, I was like Hey man, how are things going? He's like, you know what? I've done everything this world has to offer. I've climbed mountains and flown in helicopters and ski, whatever this world offers. I've been on every yacht and every beach, you know, whatever it offers. And he says, the only two things in my life that have lived up to the billing is Jesus and grandbabies. And I was like, dude, that sounds like a country song.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:21

It is, it does, yeah. That was so funny. Speaking of country songs, I've been watching, I live in Nashville, and for 30 years I've been trying to write a country song. And I realized God actually said, I mean, I don't hear his voice often. I always said it would be so much better for me if he God spoke to me in a Spanish accent than I know it was him. You know, hola, Jeff. Oh, it's you, Lord. So anyway, it came to me. Your motive, my motive was mailbox money. That was it. I just wanted to write a song so I'd have mailbox money. And God said, Well, you got a terrible motive, man. You know, I'm not going to tell you what the motive is, but that's really not, I'm not going to bless that, you know. So anyway, I would love it. Tammy said to me, I was shooting a movie. By the way, my movie's out. Um, you can sit with your family and watch it. Um, called My Seven Grandmas. Uh, it's on Amazon Prime. Anyway, uh, she we were on the phone, and I'd I've been on location for a couple weeks or whatever, and I'd been out of town probably for almost a month uh at that point. And uh she's getting kind of snippy, and I'm getting snippy, and I said, What is your problem? And she says to me, Don't hate me for missing you. I go, Holy cow, that's a country lyric. We could I could get my mailbox really good. I could get my mailbox money now. So I couldn't follow up on it though. But isn't that a great line? Don't hate me for missing you. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:48

So there's a guy that lives in Nashville named Drew Parker. He uh he writes a lot, writes a lot of Luke Combs stuff, and Blake Shelton's last number one hit is uh is one of his songs he wrote, and God got a hold of him lately, and he got out of his record deal. He was touring stadiums and got because he just wants to make Jesus music. Oh great song called Blame Jesus. And so he is basically like if you don't like who I am now, blame Jesus. But it's like hard-hitting 90s country is what it sounds like. Oh, how cool. So I asked him, I'm like, dude, how do you write songs? And he starts with that. He starts with a title like that, yeah. And then he builds everything else around it. So it sounds like you got the hardest part done, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

Well, I just uh I got again, I think I need a new motive. I think I think uh uh glorifying him, if that's my motive, I think he'll bless that. I really do. Joby Martin, um, I know you got you're a busy guy, and I didn't want to keep you too long, but uh I gotta tell you, I don't get nervous often uh anymore, but uh uh just meeting you isn't uh just a bucketless thing. I uh you know when you follow somebody and you admire somebody, you're always a little hesitant to meet them because you don't know if they'll live up to the expectations that you've created. Meeting you, Tommy Nelson, um it just um it just warms my heart to know that there's men like you in the pulpit week after week. Uh I worry, like a lot of guys do, um the state of the country, and until men step up and um adopt their role, take their role of um protection, protecting and providing the people in their lives. And uh and you know uh I think we're gonna be in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:36

But um uh listen, it's an o absolute honor to meet you. Uh JP's in Canada, but me and the girls will watch your movie this weekend for sure. I was so pumped to talk to you because listen, man, I watch guys like you more than I do preachers. I do because I mean I laugh, but but I I think about it, like, because you're you're like a good storyteller, you know, just talk about getting waxed, but and it just it's incredible. But you're standing in front of a group of people that is a hard bunch, man. I mean, they just come in and they're like, All right, you better be good. And you're really not even talking about anything. Like, there's not a like and and people are thoroughly engaged for an hour, an hour. And I get up on a Sunday and I've got the Holy Spirit and the Bible and truth and heaven and hell and hanging in the if I can't keep people engaged for an hour, then what the heck am I doing? Right. And so I watch I watch more stand-up comics that help me deliver than boring preachers.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:42

Yeah, obviously, one of the reasons I was attracted to Matt Chandler was I I got the impression. I've never if you ever if you ask him if he was ever influenced by Brian Regan, the comedian, because uh back in 03 or whatever, I got the impression that he was uh his rhythm and cadence kind of reminded me of Brian's. But I'll tell you this last weekend, um I you know, I went to New Mexico for a fundraiser, and in the audience was Reggie Jackson, and I was thrilled, and he fell asleep twice while I was working. So Reggie, we didn't connect, uh, me and Reggie but he's 80, you know, and it was late. It was nine, it was late for me, nine o'clock. It's so funny when I'm ready to get on stage and I get a notification when Tammy sets the alarm. So I say, Oh, babe's in bed already, you know. Uh, you'll love this because you travel. I got a rule, I told her, don't ever shut your cell phone off. We live alone. You're old. And uh, so I'm driving home from Missouri. Um, I was gonna get about three hours in and then get a room and then come home so I didn't waste the whole day driving. So I call her at 8:40. I got off stage at 8:30, get to the car, 8:40, no answer. Call her at 9, no answer. 9.15, no answer. Now I'm starting to freak out a bit. Call my pastor who lives around the corner from me. I go, Jeff, could you go check in? I left him a voicemail. You know, could you go check on Tammy and uh make sure she's okay? I don't hear anything. Now it's 10 o'clock. Now I got her at the bottom of the stairs. She fell down the stairs. The dogs are eating her. You know, I'm not kidding you, Joby. I was I was freaking out. And then half the time she takes, she takes so many stinking vitamins, she chokes on them like three times a week. I'll hear her in the kitchen. I go, babe, you know, slow down. Take them two at a time, not 12 at a time. Anyway, now I got her in the living room frothing at the mouth because she choked on her vitamins. Anyway, she my pastor calls me about 10:15. He says, I just got your voice. I went up to take, I got it to take a pee and I saw you called. I'll go check on her. Five minutes later, the phone rings, it's her. She goes, What in the hell is your problem? I said, What are you talking about? I told you never shut your phone off. She goes, I shut it off at church. I never turned it back on. What are you calling, Pastor over here? I'm in my pajamas. Like, you know. I said, just don't ever shut your phone off. You know? Yeah, and you tell her, don't hate me for missing you. Don't that's it? That's it. I should, if I'd thought of that, if I was a thinker, I would have thought of that. But uh I'm almost brain dead. So anyway, I hope to see you. I'm gonna be in Murray Hill uh Theater in Jacksonville coming up. Um, Carolyn, do you know when I'm there?

unknown 1:13:27

I don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:28

Oh, okay. Yes, you will get tickets. I'd love to have you and uh Gretchen come out and say hi. Oh, I would love that. Whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

Because as funny as you or any comedian is like on YouTube in the room is 10X.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:45

Yeah, we ran a promotion, it's better live, you know. And I feel that way, you know, about sermons as well. You know, when you're in in the building with hearts changing and people moving, you know. And it's so funny, my grandson, who God bless him, we we hope that he's he's a nine-year-old. Oh, he's 10 now. He's he's uh he's his own unique little human. But um, he was sitting with us during baptism Sunday one one uh Sunday, and he all the applause and all the stuff, and he goes, Papa, I want to go get baptized. Why don't we give it a week? Yeah. I think I think your motives are wrong. You want mailbox money. That's what you want. All right, man. God bless you. And uh keep on keeping on, man. And uh know there's people out there that have never met you that love you. And uh to all my listeners out there, please, Joby Martin. Uh I that's all you gotta do is go to Instagram and plug it in. And uh it's everything's available online uh in Jacksonville. Uh, if you want, if you're visiting on a vacation and you're looking for a place to go to church, 1122. Um, uh highly recommend it, man. And uh love the work you do, man. And God bless you.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:01

Thank you. I'll see you at Mary Hill. All right, man.

unknown 1:15:04

Bye.