Power Hour | Ep. 18 | Special Guest Jeremy Hocker | The Kind of Ministry That Changes Lives

What does it take to build a ministry that actually changes lives? 

In this Power Hour episode, Pastor Ty sit down with special guest Jeremy Hocker to unpack the power of reaching messy people, embracing imperfect environments, and creating a culture of real discipleship. Together, they discuss why effective ministry isn’t about being polished or trendy—it’s about preaching truth, building authentic relationships, and developing the kind of spiritual authority that transforms lives from the inside out.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to the very next episode of our hours. Today's episode is going to look a little different because Pastor Kyle is in the NOM. So I'm Pastor Ty, and I'm here with Pastor Jeremy. Many of you are familiar with him. If you've been at our church or listened to the podcast for any amount of time, you know that he is a father figure to me, a mentor, and still one of my pastors today. Grew up with him, and I thought it'd be a fun kind of opportunity to interview him. So Pastor Jeremy, say hi to the peoples.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Hello, peoples.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

There you go. Uh so I wanted to just, I know we had a few topics we wanted to discuss, and so we thought the easiest way would be to do this interview style, go from topic to topic. And so firstly, I guess I'd just say, hey, kind of give us a your story in a nutshell, you know, where you where you came from, where you've been, where you are, where you're going, all the good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

All right. I uh raised in church when I was young, but as soon as I could get a job, I asked to work Wednesdays and Sundays so I wouldn't have to go to church. Because uh we went to church when basically uh when it was a mess, that's why we didn't go to church when I was young. And so when I got old enough, I didn't want to have anything to do with church. And so then I started uh my cousin was in accident, kind of woke me up to how quickly life could really end. And so then I started going to a church in Redmond, Oregon. I volunteered because they didn't have a youth leader, and so I was a youth leader. Uh they asked me to do Sunday school class. Uh I started teaching Sunday school class for three junior high boys. It was awful. Let's go. Not because of them, but because my teaching was horrible because I had no training. Uh, I literally just read the Bible for like an hour to junior high boys. Hey, man. And I don't know how if that was bad or not, but it's what we did. Let's go. Uh and then uh started feeling like a real call on my life. Uh I got involved in preaching. Our youth pastor became our associate pastor, and so I volunteered for like nine months. Um, and then they hired somebody that was not me. And so uh I kind of stepped away, met my wife, got married. Uh a year and a half later, uh, they needed somebody to volunteer because that youth pastor had transitioned. Volunteered for another nine months. They asked me to be the youth pastor, and then I was the youth pastor there for 13 and a half years on staff, and then uh another seven years as an associate pastor. Um, a little over a year ago, I took my first lead pastor position in Terribon, Oregon, as the lead pastor. The big city, come on. Big city. Let's go. So, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. I I've done every kind of teaching from seniors to children's ministry. I have traveled all over Oregon and preached in camps. I've been on mission trips where I've preached in Nicaragua and in China. And um, now I get to hang out with people like you.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Man, so tell us a little bit about your worship leading career. How did that go?

SPEAKER_00 3:06

So uh actually, when I first started as a youth pastor, you're laughing because you know how bad I sing. But I literally had like a a it wasn't a discman, it was like a little boom box, but it was round that played CDs and had like one speaker on top.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

And I would put that in and lead five kids, my first like three weeks of uh being the youth pastor. It was awful.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

You talk about revival, man.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

We didn't even have YouTube, dude. Shut up. It was revival, dude.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

No, and uh that's good, man. I I think that's uh I think that's what led a lot of times to you, you walking through the mess, led maybe to part of you allowing people to be messy when they came, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

I uh I know one of the things that I want to talk about is growing up in your ministry. That was really like I would say my first I not first church experience, but first time God really became real to me. Because, you know, at Tease, I grew up what I'd like to call Catholic Light. We went to Catholic church whenever um it suited us when I was a kid. And then I remember when I lived in Portland apartments, we'd get abducted by a Baptist church with a bus that said, we'll give you candy if you get on board. And then uh later on we um yeah, we moved. And I made a friend my first day of high school that invited me to youth group and was with was with you ever since. But man, I did everything from preach with you to lead worship to two small groups, and to say that it was messy, I think would be uh would be an understatement, but I don't really very, very powerful understatement. Well, and it's like I don't think the English language has a word appropriate for it, but uh I do remember my very first time leading worship. I had been on the worship team, but leading the worship band, and after I think halfway through a first song, you actually had to come up and say, Hey guys, let's uh let's call it quits.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I prayed for the rapture that day. I'm not exaggerating. I literally, because the drummer, do you remember this, had knocked the cymbal off the top of the hi-hat. I don't even know if that's possible, but he did. And remember he kept trying he kept trying to play the drums while trying to put the cymbal back on. And I was like, just go to the next song. And I was in the back knowing that there were people not saved, praying for God to come because it was so bad. But that's not the worst thing of walking through messy, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Um I think trying to think of what the worst thing would be. I know that, man, I I tell you this all the time, but I don't know if I'd ever be a Christian if it wasn't in your ministry. And a big part of that was, man, me and my friends were messy.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

And as much as it cracked me up that other youth pastors would be like, Man, I just wish I had kids like you have kids, and I was like, bro, you don't you don't know what you're asking for. Because you know, I think it's easy for people to look at my life now and be like, You're Pastor Ty, but they didn't know Tyler.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

But Ty uh it's funny that my wife kept calling you that today in front of your whole staff, by the way. Uh but the I think the thing, Tyler, with you is that and you and I've talked about this, is you didn't have a dad, if you will, until you were 15. And a stranger that you had met because your friend in high school brought you to church became a dad to you. Yeah. And that it was always weird because even though as a dad figure to you, um, I didn't go home with you every day. I didn't have 24-hour discipline or or control over you, and and you could leave and go do whatever you want. And so I had, you know, you were at the church a lot. But I think part of the reason that there was maybe a willingness to walk through messes, the reason why I started going to Redmond is because the youth pastor was there, let me come and be me. And I would show up in my skate clothes with wax all over them and sweaty and he didn't care. And and I felt like even now, as I'm a lead pastor, I feel like I'm still ministering to the people who maybe church wouldn't accept, right? But here's what I'll tell you they're the people that Jesus accepted. And they're the people that Jesus has asked me to love. And even though it's messy, well, if you know anybody, like it's messy. And and babies are messy.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

I in powerhouse we like to call them verse one people. Yeah. Luke 15, one. The tax collectors and other notorious sinners love to come to hear Jesus teach. And we talk about verse two people being uh the cautionary tale of churches. This caused the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the religious leaders to grumble. To grumble, yeah, to be upset. And so I think your ministry uh not only preluded, and I feel like mine's a very, very connected, you know, next, next iteration or next evolution of that. But man, I think that's that's where it really started for me was it wasn't just that I connected with you, but it's that all of my friends at the time, you know what I mean, all the people that were in similar circumstances had dad issues, had addiction issues, had brokenness, had all these things that would make us very challenging for other churches, other youth groups, other pastors. You seem to not only attract, but uh I'm trying to think of the word, like you would you would attract them, but you would also equip them and send them out. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 8:15

I had a youth pastor come and visit us once, and he he was scolding me because we had cliques in our youth group. And he's like, You let clicks exist? And I'm like, Yeah, watch. And I just let kids be the country kids, the athletic kids, the you kind of kids. I don't know what kind of would have called you as uh because you didn't do sports. I was punk rocker, bro. Yeah, kinda. I mean, you did wear your coat without your sleeves. That's right. Uh so but um, you know, we had all these kids that were different, like subgroups, but everybody moved in and out. Yeah, and and I think part of that was because in a family, you have people that are different, but you love them because you're a family. And even before that became like our value or our our culture as a motto, as a motto for our youth ministry, it was always the value of our youth ministry, of our of my ministry. And you had a big part of that too, is that we were family. We had people in our home, we had people out late. I mean, we would start youth group at seven o'clock, but doors open at five, and we'd have, you know, 10 to 15 kids there until 9:30, 10 o'clock.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Only one slice of pizza per person. Only one slice.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Yeah, unless you ask my wife. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

No, I I love it. I think to me, it's what really brought the not just the gospel, but like the implication of the gospel alive to me is Jesus had his ragtag group of 12 who probably would not be chosen by any rabbi or any leader. These were not the religious elite, they were good old boys, you know what I mean? They were they were messy people, they were they were uh guys that would probably not be part of the church system of the day. But and Jesus used them to turn turn around the world.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

And not only even were they not that, they wouldn't have never related to each other. Uh Judas the is an a zealot, and there's another one that's a zealot also, and then you've got a fisherman, and then you got like two different political parties that are all part of Jesus' disciples, and yet Jesus brought them together as a family, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

No, I think it's beautiful. I I think one of the things that also, besides the mess, besides the discipleship piece of walking through life with people messy, like I've kind of alluded to. I think another big part of what made your service so powerful and honestly kind of anti-cultural to the time was your emphasis on scripture and preaching. I laughed. I remember as soon as I left for Bible college and did internships, I was really caught off guard because most youth groups were five, 10-minute devotionals, an hour worth of playing around, and maybe 15 minutes of singing. And we had for a long time an hour and a half youth group service every week where there'd be 45 minutes of worship and 45 minutes of sermon, and that's it. Yeah, there was nothing quote unquote attractional or fun about it. It was the it was the real deal. It was crazy. And it, I mean, it would give Sunday morning a run for its money. I think what we we grew to over a hundred students with that model there for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Well, so when I first started preaching, I felt like I had to preach for an hour. We only did 20 minutes of worship.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Because uh kids didn't read Bible, so I was gonna jam as much Bible down their throat.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

But if the only time somebody hears the Bible is on Wednesday at youth group or Sunday morning, they're they're anemic spiritually. Yeah. And it doesn't matter how much I throw down there, they're just gonna vomit it up anyways. Yeah, they're bulimic and they're not gonna actually get anything. So we transitioned it when you were in youth ministry to about 45, half and half. Yeah, and then I literally was convicted even more.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

And I felt like just hearing the word didn't cause kids to grow. So when we were running 100 students, that's not on the list. We had 100 students every single week, 18 youth leaders every single week. Yeah. And so, you know, on the list you have 150 kids that 100 show up at a time. Yeah. And when we did that, we did 30 minutes of worship, we did 30 minutes of preaching, and we did 30 minutes of small groups where there were relational built with their small group leaders, and then actually like accountability. Like, hey man, last week you said you were gonna do this. Did you do it? And so that's when actual discipleship started to happen and our numbers just grew because it wasn't we didn't play games. Wednesday nights, I mean 5:30 or 5 to 7, we threw balls at each other in the gym. We played dodgeball, you know, all kinds of things like this, buns up or whatever it was. But at seven o'clock, it was church, and there was no I talked to a guy today, literally. And he said, Yeah, one of the hardest things in youth ministry was that, hey guys, it's it's time to be spiritual, we can't have fun anymore. And I was like, Well, that's the problem, yeah. Like two twofold. Like, yeah, I I genuinely believe that studying the scripture is fun if you do it right because it's actually life-giving and practical for our lives. But you had to had uh Wednesday night, so if kids showed up at seven, we were doing church, yeah. And if they left at 8:30, they got church. And if they stuck around afterwards, we always had room to play. Yeah, but play wasn't during church.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

No. No, I I love that. And I mean, to make it, I guess to even drive a point home more. Not only were we doing were we modeling the ministry structurally, I'd say anti-cultural to youth group at the time, but also even your sermons were pretty anti-cultural at the time. You weren't preaching trendy, you know what I mean? Like three ways to make a friend. We were going through books of the Bible and we were going deep. Like we were learning Greek words. I remember I teased you after my first semester of Bible college. I went back to visited you at youth group, and I was like, bro, your sermon is exactly what I just learned in Bible college the last three months, like almost verbatim. And so what I always thought was kind of funny is especially at the time, I think things are probably changing for the better now, but at the time everyone thought, oh, they're in youth, they don't, they can't handle anything deep. They need shallow this, they need shallow that. And man, we were getting Bible college level sermons as 15, 16-year-olds.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

I I think that I watched this with even your daughter. She to the level that you approach them is the level that they'll grow to.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

I think youth are like lizards, man. If there's room to grow, they'll grow.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

And not everybody goes there. You still have to meet people at their level.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

I I we have a guy at our church that always is using biblical terms, and you know, Wednesday night we had a youth girl who goes, Can you tell me what that means in English? I think our job as ministers, as preachers, is to take the word of God and talk about esthetology and ecclesiology and all the ologies and things like this and turn them into mud and stick kinds of sermons so that a guy knows what it is with mud and stick kind of terms.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

No, that's I think I think that's great. It's something that's really impacted even the way that I like to preach, is it's easy to think, oh man, like people don't get it. But it's like, I think I was even telling your wife this as I really, really try to go as deep as I possibly can while still using words that everyday people don't understand. Is like, man, we can take, I feel like that's the mark of really a good preacher is you take deep theological content and you explain it in everyday man's terms. It's what Jesus did. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think that sadly you can find people that kind of get pulled one one pendulum swing too far or the other. Yeah, it's like either it's like, oh, because we want people to understand we're gonna be as shallow as possible, or I want to go as deep as possible, so I need to read six letters. Yes, six letters in Greek when it's like, man, maybe instead of telling them the Greek, you just tell them what it means for them, how it applies to their life.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

You don't need to enunciate it.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Yeah, it's like very rarely do I get someone coming up to me and saying, Man, I just need more Greek in my life. They're like, Man, how is the Bible gonna fix my marriage because my marriage is on fire? My you know, how is this gonna help me get over addiction because I'm I'm stuck? How is this gonna give me hope? Because I'm depressed, you know what I mean? It's never, I want to know more. It's like, hey, how do what what is this saying that will actually change my life?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

I always find that that really powerful. And you're exactly right, it's the way that Jesus taught. You know what I mean? It's mostly stories, and and when he breaks down the scripture, he breaks it down in a way that applies. We just went, I just preached through Mark chapter one, uh, verse 21 through 29 yesterday. And the big thing was we were talking about Jesus' sermons, and everyone that listened to him was shocked because we're like, this isn't like the religious folks, this isn't just authority, and never once did he raise his voice. Yeah, yeah. And they he, I mean, you really pull from that context, he wasn't just dryly reading something and saying, oh no, no, no. It wasn't some old granny's Baptist service. Like Jesus was bringing that passion and that fire and preaching in a way that they're like, oh man, like we gotta change how we live.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

And he wasn't just hype, he wasn't just flames and and sodas and things like this. He was he was practical and real.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Yeah, exactly. Every time Jesus spoke and taught, man, it was it was you were supposed to change the way you lived your life. Yep. And I love that. I mean, even to the point that uh, and I and this was another spot that you probably didn't know we're gonna go, but I'm just feeling it now, and I'm excited to talk about it. Is in that story we talked a little bit about facing spiritual attacks and how a demon interrupts his church service. And I know from growing up with you, we faced some of those things. Yeah. I remember we had a kid, um, I mean, they don't know him, his name was Diego, that would like ask me to go to Taco Bell. And at Taco Bell, he's like, Hey man, a demon's messing with me. What do I do? And I was like, Well, get your life right with Jesus and give it up. And he struggled with that. I remember we went to a youth conference where the pastor came, the youth pastor came and said, Hey, my uh my pastor's doing some, I don't want to get vulgar, but some things that he shouldn't be doing, and because of that, there's a demon in our church, and I was kind of like, oh, whatever. And in the middle of the night, chair like stacks of chairs were falling on us. Like, yeah, I remember and we were praying against and there's all kinds of crazy stuff. Do you want to talk a little bit about how Bible preaching not only affects us in how we walk the day-to-day life, but how it impacts us to handle spiritual conflict and spiritual issues? Because I think that's something that doesn't get talked about enough anymore.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

I I think this is a really broad and deep topic. And so uh there's a couple things that if you would let me just kind of tell some stories about maybe to kind of clean it. So I think number one, we we should not be going and looking for things. We should not be um so if you'll let me tell just a couple stories to maybe elaborate on this. I think what I've experienced is this, is the the reality is is that we are in a spiritual war. Jesus says we battle not against flesh and blood or principalities, powers, and rulers of this dark age. And the reality is that we do have a spiritual war, but the problem I find is that sometimes people go looking for those things instead of and can I tell you, you'll find what you look for, right? And so if I'm looking for demons under every bush and every oil light is an engine demon, you're you're gonna start to find the things you look for. And we've got to start looking for Jesus. And the reality is you look at Jesus' own life, as Jesus began to minister, things started happening, spiritual things. And sometimes people brought him people, right? And sometimes people, sometimes they came like I I believe the demoniac at the Garriseans when he crosses the lake. I I believe genuinely that this man came with evil intent to attack Jesus. But when he got in Jesus' presence, he falls down and says, What are you here for? Right? Uh I think that because of the pattern of that nobody could even walk that way anymore. This guy was hostile. So I think that his intent was ill.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

And Jesus, when he came in Jesus' presence, it happened. And Jesus deals. I also believe that Jesus went there just to deal with this man.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Because he got in the bone right by the back.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

And so um, so there are seasons in our life where you have to go deal things. But this young man, even Diego, yeah, um, I had a youth leader approach me. He's like, hey man, there's a guy in your office that has a demon that's talking to him, but I'm not gonna cast it out. And I'm like, What? Like, no, we're supposed to because I read my Bible and Jesus gives us the authority to cast out demons, right? Yeah, and I go in the room, I start talking with the kid, but the kid doesn't want to actually be saved, is Diego. He wanted all of the blessings of having the spirit, but he just wanted it to shut out. That was his literal request. Is can you just make it stop talking? I don't want it to go away. I want the power it gives me, but I don't. And I think we have to come to a place like this is searching Jesus first, dealing with spirituality because it is spiritual, okay? Um, and then secondly, sin opens doors for those things. I don't think every sin allows a demon, but can I tell you every sin can allow a demon?

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

And um, so the first thing I would say is like we don't go looking for it.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Second thing I would say is like the reality is we have to deal with it. And if you let me, the third thing I would say is like when we do this, we we have to do it in a way that brings glory to the Lord, not to the thing that we're casting out.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

I have been in three of our fine arts Sonic of God events where uh a church brought a kid and they're praying for this kid in front of this entire conference of other kids. And I don't think that's how God did it. Yeah, okay. Um, I um I had an opportunity to to pray for somebody who had a demonic experience. And when I walked in, they're like, hey, its name is this, and I'm like, I don't care its name. And they're like, What do you mean? Like the Bible, Jesus has a name? No, it gets no glory. Like, and here's the thing is like, I'm not here to glorify the occult, the demonic, or anything. I'm here to pursue Jesus. And if you let me share one more thing, because I may go forth, here's what I would say is this is I had a dream once that our associate pastor was 150 feet away from me praying for this man who had a possess was possessed. And I remember in my dream, I was like, uh, this our associate pastor refused to pray for this man, wouldn't pray for him. And in my dream. I was like, that's that's crap. I'll pray for him. And I start to pray for this man. And when I prayed, that demon that was in this dream on that character jumped on me. And when I woke up, it was on me. And then I had to deal with this and pray and cast it out. Yeah. And I wake up and I'm like, and the Lord's like, yeah, this kind only comes out with fasting and prayer. And it's not a matter of like how often you're not eating food or how often you're praying. It has to do with the authority out of your relationship with Jesus. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Being prepared in season out.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Right. And here's what I'll tell you is like when I got the call to go pray for somebody in their home, like I'll tell you honestly, there's a little bit of a sketchy factor. Sure. And I'm driving out there and and you you want to drive fast, and you know what I just learned is like, no, no, no. God didn't give me a spirit of fear.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Like the greater is he that is in me than a he than this world. I didn't go looking for this. And this is how Jesus handled with it. He showed up, he prayed, and sometimes that takes a long time. But and I'll say something you said in in the service this morning. Jesus spoke with authority, not volume. Right? And so often we think if we pray louder, it gives us more authority. No, no, authority is authority, not volume.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yep. Right? Oh, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

And name-calling is not authority, and name dropping is not authority. Depth of relationship as I walk in it, because there are things like my dream that I just shared. The reality is I didn't have the authority to get rid of that because I hadn't even asked Jesus if I should.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Yeah, no, that's good. I I remember the story in Acts where those those Jewish leaders are casting out demons. Seven sons of Satan. And they're yeah, and they're saying, you know, in the name of Jesus. And it says they added this to their other incantations, like their Jewish witchcraft and stuff. And the demon jumps on them and says, I know Jesus, I know Paul, and beats them up so bad that they're naked and bleeding and running to the streets. And uh it's always cracks me up. And it really reminds us that there it's not so much a yelling or an incantation or a magic spell, it's man who has authority over your life.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

So let me speak to that for one more second. If you of course what I'd say is you asked me about the spirituality, there's another scripture in there where it says, and many of the Christians burned their uh I can't remember the exact words, but it's basically their spell books. Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah. And it and I was appalled, I'm not appalled, but like the reality is I did I just did a top of the dome the other day, about three months ago about this.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

For those of you that don't know, that's Jeremy's podcast. You can find it on Facebook, Adam on Facebook.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

But uh it's just random thoughts. But I read this and I was like, dude, why did the church people have spell books? And then I went back to this, like, how what what's a spell book in my life? Like sometimes I had a friend that like every time he would have success in ministry, he would go look at porn because he felt like he earned it. Right? And and I was like, is that a spell book? Is it like okay, like no, I'm not an alcoholic anymore, but you know what? I really did good, so I'm gonna go have a beer. And I'm not saying uh that's a whole other topic, but what I'm getting at is like, what is my spell book? Yeah, maybe that's a video game, maybe that's running, maybe that's you know, I'm I'm saying, like, what is that thing that actually instead of running back to Jesus, I run to, and that Jesus is maybe asking.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Yeah, your false sense of security. I remember uh when we do youth camps, man, every I mean we're you're pretty much if you're going to summer camp as a youth, you're you're either Christian or Christian adjacent, right? Like you're a church kid, and the amount of times that they would do altar calls, and there's kids from churches dropping drugs, you know what I mean, dropping pornography, dropping. It came up on the uh it's right up there with their Pokemon cards and their secular CDs. Now, the fact that I would wait for them to leave and grab their secular CDs and slip in my backpack has nothing to do with anything, but and the Pokemon cards. That's right, and the Pokemon cards, they're worth money now, man. But uh, but no, it's it's really true, is like each of us have levels of compromise in our life that we need to constantly be fighting against. And um it's man, if we want real authority, it only comes from one place, it only comes from Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

That's the spiritual you you asked this question coming back to like the the levels of spirituality or attacks or what we face and all of this. I think it boils down to is like like if I am not trained, yeah, I'm not capable. It's we did martial arts with Dave on Tuesday nights. Yeah. And remember that dude that showed up that was the the BJJ guy? Yeah. And he showed up and he's like, Yeah, I'll take anyone here. And Dave was like, Who wants to go? And everybody's like, Nope. Right?

SPEAKER_02 26:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

And then Dave was like, Oh, I was like, I'll do it. I mean, worst that can happen is I get smoked, right? Yeah, I can tap.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

And if you remember, I wrestled that guy and Dave let us go for two full minutes before, and the guy just laid on his back and I held him and he trapped me, so I couldn't do anything, but I just held him and held him and held him, and we got done. We're talking, he's like, I was like, There's no way these guys can stand, they'll burn out, they'll burn out, they'll burn out. But because I had been training, I wasn't even a BJJ guy. But because David had equipped us to handle stuff with BJJ, not fully trained, but because we were equipped and and disciplined every week, doing all of the other things, the training, the conditioning, that I could hold out for the two minutes and he never won. I didn't beat him, but he never won. And I didn't have to tap out because, and here's the thing uh make this spiritual is my instructor knew what was going on when he put us in the contest, right? And our instructor, Jesus, God the Father, knows our capacity and isn't gonna put us, allow us if we're in uh the Bible says that when faced in temptation, we're we're God provides a way out. He never says that he never gives us more than we can handle, he always gives us more than we can handle. And we can't handle much. No, and but he always gives us the way out. Well, the way out is always Jesus. Yeah, it's not, you know, whatever else, spell book or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

I laugh. It's like what it says, resist the devil, flee from temptation. It's like we get backwards. Yeah. It's like it literally tells us like if you want to fight Satan, the best thing you do is run away. You know what I mean? Run away from not from temptation, not from temptation, because what is he gonna do? He's gonna show up, he's gonna put something in front of you that you really like, and you gotta just book it out of there.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

And I I love those verses because I think Christianity gets it backwards. Yeah, the devil shows up and we run scared. Yeah, but temptation shows up and we're like, nah, I can handle it. Yeah, and that's backwards. Uh, you run it. You can run from temptation, yeah, resist the devil.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Yep. No, that's good. That's good. Well, we're getting ready to wrap up, but I just wanted to give one last chance. Is there anything that you wanted to say? I know uh for those listening that it I'm somehow in your life, whether you go to our church or just a podcast listener, I have some influence over your life, and this is a man who has influenced me and shaped my life like no other. Do you have anything that you would like to just share with everyone that's listening? An encouragement, an exhortation, a challenge, just anything that comes to your heart?

SPEAKER_00 28:51

So we didn't prepare this at all, and then I didn't know you were gonna ask this question. That's how I like to do it. I know, I love that. Um learn to dig your own well. Right? I had a guy a couple weeks ago in a sermon, he said this he said, Don't dip, dig. And so often we want to get into something to get clean, and that doesn't actually cause freshness in life. Is when you dig down into the deep and when you can have your own well. And secondly, teach people around you to dig their own wells. There's that dumb saying that goes, teach a man fish and he'll eat for a day, right? But teaching give a man fish, he'll eat for a day. But teach him how to fish will eat forever, right? Well, it's the same thing in our spirituality. So often we're so willing to just give somebody part of the gospel. But I think what Jesus teaches specifically in Matthew chapter 28, right? He says, Go and make disciples. Yeah, but that wasn't written to pastors, yeah, that was written to followers of Jesus. Yeah, and so if you want to call yourself a follower of Jesus, then you should have a disciple. Well, what does that look like? Well, the person sitting next to you, I heard a great sermon today that talked about that people were watching your life and they're not looking for what you're saying, they're looking for what you're living.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Um and I appreciate that. So here's the thing he says, teach them to obey everything that I'm teaching you. And so we have to, one of my life verses is out of Ezekiel, and it says that Ezekiel was blessed by the Lord because he devoted himself to studying the word, to teaching the word, and teaching others to do the same. And I and we have to, if you let me have any voice in your life, like learn to dig your own well, teach other people how to do that.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Okay. That's good. Well, Pastor Jamie, thanks for being on the podcast today. Uh, for those of you that are missing Pastor Cal, don't worry, you just gotta a little bit longer until he comes back from the great metropolis of Vietnam Island, wherever he is right now. But I just want to say thanks for joining us for another power hour under the petroleum uh,