Union Over Performance With The Guys From Living Beyond Sunday

The best parts of faith rarely happen under stage lights. They happen when somebody pulls up a chair, tells the truth, and stays when it gets uncomfortable. I’m joined at The Family Table by my friends from the Living Beyond Sunday podcast, and we go deep on the kind of Christian community most people say they want but rarely experience: friendship with history, loyalty, and enough trust to talk about the messy stuff without masking it. 

We trace how their connection formed through church life, ministry dreams, and years of real conversation, then we open up the chapters that many leaders try to hide: divorce, addiction, mental health collapse, and the fear that failure will cost you everyone. What surprised us wasn’t the chaos, it was the grace. We talk about church hurt and why judgment is common, but love is the actual proof of the gospel. 

The theological thread is clear and practical: union with Christ and beloved identity. We wrestle with legalism, performance-based preaching, and the idea that the law strengthens sin by keeping people trapped in shame and effort. We also connect spiritual warfare to what you behold, because what you focus on shapes what you become. Along the way we share their ongoing Africa missions work in Kenya, including building schools, caring for communities, and funding trips as family, not as a fundraising gimmick. 

If you’ve been deconstructing, rebuilding, or just tired of shallow answers, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share it with one person who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Follow Living Beyond Sunday:

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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/living-beyond-sunday/id1819331253

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Support Their Kenya Mission Trip (Goal: $15k)

https://gofund.me/36e74532c

Transcript

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Welcome And Why The Table Matters

SPEAKER_02 0:00

All right, everybody, welcome to the family table. I'm your host, Mark Casto. I'm pumped because like Disney's been on these episodes with me. Um, but she's upstairs, and I brought in there's no beauty on this podcast today. I hate to say it. I just hate to say it. But no, um, got some new friends that we've made here in Covington. So I'm bringing together the squad today from Living Beyond Sunday podcast. So we got the whole crew in here. Yeah. And we're finally utilizing the full table. Yeah. So I love it. Um, Caleb, we put him in the back corner. Just uh that's because Adrian started crying when you mentioned putting him over here.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

So I'll do it, dude. If you guys have seen our last episode with Mark, it's because Caleb ragged on Mark the whole time. Oh, I did not. Oh, he did. He did. It's all good. So this time he has to be close to him. So he needs to give him the elbow and sweet elbow.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

He's giving me the old knee treatment. Every time I act up, he squeezes my knee.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

As the old Moravians say, it's good for my prideful heart.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Yes. It's all love, baby.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

No, but I'm really excited uh to have these guys on the podcast today. One of the things that Desi and I said when we first moved back to Covington was, Lord, um, we're making no decisions based on ministry. Everybody has ministry ideas. We're making no decisions off of ministry. We're gonna make them all off relationships. And when I first moved back, um Adrian actually is the guy that reached out to me first. And um, and I was just so happy after being around white people for 14 months. I was just so happy that somebody with some melanin reached out to me in this season of life. So if it would have been some white person that reached out to me, I'm like, no, I'm not doing your Church of God podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

You know, okay. Can I tell you how divine that is, honestly? Because he was the one okay. So we had talked about obviously we we told you we had talked about you a good bit about having you on, but the time just we're like, uh, you know, we didn't know if the time was right. And um then one day he just randomly was like, Hey, uh, I think I'm gonna message Mark Castro. What do you guys think of it? And we're like, hey, shoot.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

We said we should message, and usually it's Garrett and I that do it.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah, and we were like, No, you do it that way. See, the Lord knew it.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

No, seriously.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

The Lord knew Mike, I've been around too many white people the past 14 months, and uh the Lord knew, but no, Adrian reached out to me and uh and we made a connection, ended up jumping on their podcast, and I told Destiny, I was like, I think we found some amazing people to to run with in the season. And so I was like, Well, I want to bring you all over to my place. Now, I don't have the man cave vibe, but you know, the attention I I didn't want to take away the attention from you all today. That's why, other than my picture back here, other than other than the old school mark on the screen.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Listen, we got we got young Pentecostal Mark Castro keeping us in line up here with every single look.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Hold on, hold on. Let me let me move out of the way.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

So listen, with every single with every single remark we make, we got him looking at us judging us. So bro, he's keeping us in line. Young Mark over there.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

But um excited to have him. And guys, I really just want to talk to you all today. Uh, the family table for me, uh the Lord put in my heart, he was like, listen, the next reformation happened, the church is gonna happen around the table. And I think that um church services are amazing. Don't get me wrong. I love the presence of God. I love great preaching, teaching, the ministry of the word. I love that. I would say though, since 2015, probably the most transforming moments were not what happened at a service. It's what I've talked about at the table with family and friends. And um, and so I told the Lord, I want to set up a table in Covington. I want to invite men and women to sit around this table and us talk about the things that, you know, are reforming our lives. I think reformation, sometimes we get these big, grandiose ideas of what reformation is supposed to look like, but we all know reformation takes place one person, yeah, one conversation, one table at a time.

How These Friendships Started

SPEAKER_02 4:20

And I think that's really been my heart. So I want our audience to be introduced to you guys and like, let's just talk about your all's relationship. Okay, how did how did you all get connected? How did that connection start? And we'll just kind of go from there. What does reformation mean? Well, I was like, wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Okay, just right into the deep end. So let me say this. So my dad, my dad has been a he's been a pastor since uh 95. Okay. He's called a preach 95. That was the year I was born. Um, he started living away in 20. I don't know. Anyways, he started the church, and uh Caleb ended up coming. Caleb and his or his parents started coming to the church when I was we were in what ninth grade? I was in tenth, yes. Okay, yeah. So yeah, you're a year older than me. Yeah, so I was in ninth grade, he was in tenth grade. So like me and him were just two heathens in the youth group, where like our youth group.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Well, you gotta you gotta paint the story of how how funny God is. And I say that all the time. Like, see, my my humor. No, I I'll let you go just because you left a important a really important part out. I was saying because I forgot. Yeah, the day, the day that I showed up was the last Sunday that his brother Tyler, who played the drums, was leaving to go to basic training. Oh yeah, we weren't gonna have a drummer. Yeah, yeah. Tyler tagged me in. So it was just the coolest thing because like I remember his dad being on the stage, and then Adam Calls, shout out Adam Calls, uh, was there. He's like, man, Caleb plays the drums. He's like, and Tyler's leaving. It's like this is so it's just really it was like it was divine.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

So me and him being like so close to the same age. I mean, he played football, I played baseball. We just hit it off. We became best friends. Once again, we gave our youth pastor a run for his money, especially like I told you on them youth trips to the ramp. Oh my god, we did. We did some wild on some stuff we aren't even gonna say on recording, yeah. But um so we got to grow up together, and it's like our parents were really good friends, they did ministry together. Um, they went to Africa together. And now we've had we've had times as brothers.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Wasn't it my dad and Joel and your dad that went that was Africa the first time, right? Yeah, the very first time, yep.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

So yep, and this was it was crazy because my dad, you know, now he's preaching pretty big crusades over there, and back then they were in like at this slaughter field, okay. Okay, it's like in the market. Yeah, this is where they bring the chickens, bring the goats, and they cut them up and then serve them. Oh they're in there. They put up the stage where the stage, my dad said when you get on it, it rocked from like side to side.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

I've been on those.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

His dad had to get up there on the podium and hold the podium together while he was preaching and hold and hold the Bible down because the wind was blowing through the street so hard that the pages were just turning.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

So, did your dads know each other before you all met or because you all met? Because yeah, I think because we met Adam.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yeah, because we met.

SPEAKER_04 7:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Wow. Because we met through Adam. Me and him met through Adam because uh he was he was a youth pastor at the time, and we would always go over to his house, and then he was friends with the bones, so they would always be over there, yeah, and then we just hit it off.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Weren't there people under the stage holding stage? Yeah, yeah. Crazy stuff, man.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

I crazy dude. Listen, I've done enough mission trips to know we went to India one time and we were doing a new moon crusade. Have you ever heard of these? No. So the new moon and the Hindu, the Hindus, they know that if you have somebody that is demon-possessed at the new moon, that's where they get the wildest. And they're like, we will take them to the Christians. And so they have a thing in India where they call them literal New Moon Crusades, and they set up like a stage on a city street. We were in Chennai, and dude, I'm telling you, as far as your eye could see, you could see people that had people legitimately chained to trees that were demon-possessed.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

So this is so so this would have this particular time I'm talking about would have been 2011. So I'm preparing myself for this, and at that time, Jake Hamilton had a song out called War Drums. And shout out to Jake. Jake's a good friend of mine.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

I remember I forgot about Jake. What was the big song he had?

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Worshiping Warrior, um, this anthem. Like he had an anthem song. Yeah, I forget what it was called. Anyways, Jake's a good friend of mine. I like pop in my headphones at Wired by the way. It's 2011. Um, so I'm listening to war drums on my way there. I mean, this is a completely different season of life for me. So I'm like in the car, listen in our little van, listening to war drums. I'm like, we're about to cast the devil out of thousands of people. We're going up rip this city apart for Jesus, you know. And when I get out, I look and there's a dude literally legitimately chained to a tree, and he's like lunging and like crap, like crazy stuff. I felt my faith shrink a little bit once I saw the chained up dudes. So we get on this stage though, and when I step on the stage, I feel it move with my steps as I'm walking up. It made me think of it, and we're moving on with this the stage. And when we're up there, like we're seated, and when people would move or walk or whatever, you literally felt it sway the whole time. It wasn't a it wasn't a what do they call that D-box experience at the movie theater? It wasn't that it was a poorly um built stage, anyways. Beside of us was another platform, and it had all these girls on like beautifully dressed, younger girls, little tiny things, and probably you know, 15 to 20 years old or whatever. But and I thought, oh, these little girls are going to do like a choir special or whatever. No, they were the altar workers for this deliverance thing, and their platform is also swaying, and they've got about 150 of them up there, and their their whole thing is going like this. This preacher gets up and he starts the deliverance session, like this mass deliverance. When these when they start talking about the name of Jesus, it's so crazy. Literally, the people would manifest based upon the deity that they worshipped. So the monkey god or snake or whatever. Like you would see them literally manifesting after the deities. But this made me think about this whole thing mission trips and floppy stages. It was like these little girls jump off and they were smacking down the people. I'm awesome. Like, I'm like, not sure that's what laying on hands means, but for them, they were like literally riding and smacking and pushing them and holding them and like taking them captive. Dude, heck yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

You know what that reminds me of? That reminds me of a little Wicklesworth, man. Yeah, but no, on uh I heard stories from do you remember Lester Summerall? Oh, yeah, got one of my still to this day. I don't care if we agree on everything doctrinally, one of my favorite teachers of all time, and the most humble, soft-spoken person. But man, he was telling stories of like being in Nigeria where people would like turn into like that these demons would manifest, and he's like, I'm not kidding you. They would turn into birds, oh yeah, or just different stuff, or like snakes, yeah. Same thing. Yep. And I'm telling you, whether whether you believe in it or not, you can say you believe it or not, go over there and you see for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

You will see um in America. I always tell people, in America, we have civilized demons. Yes, and so like we know how to act over there. They don't have any cultural thing that goes you can't act that way. Right. And and so like they fully are whatever they are, they don't know how to mask it or hide it. But that's also those type of uh things going overseas also got to see the power of the name of Jesus because we would go into villages in India where people had never heard the gospel. I matter of fact, I was the first white person, our crew was the first white people some of these people had ever seen. So the little kids would come up to you and like pinch your skin and touch, touch your skin and stuff. It was wild. And um, but you mentioned the name of Jesus, and brother, you would watch people that were that were demonically possessed manifest at that name, yeah. And then you would watch deliverance come through that name, and uh pretty, pretty amazing um to see. So at some point, we are gonna talk about you guys. Are you gonna go back to Africa? So apparently Africa's been a big part of your all's journey, then something that y'all have consistently

Subscribe And Partners Gathering

SPEAKER_02 12:54

done. If this channel has been good for your soul, I want you to do two things for me. Subscribe. It's free, it only takes a second, and it's the single most useful thing that you can do to help this message reach somebody who really needs it. And then send it to a friend. Not everybody, one person. You already know who they are. The name came to mind when I mentioned it. So somebody sent it to you once. Now pass it on. Now, a quick word for our ministry partners before we begin. On Saturday, August the 22nd at 10 in the morning, we're gathering in person right here in Covington, Georgia, at the Courtyard by Marriott. This is a partners one day only gathering, and I want a room where I can be all the way honest and go into the deep end with the people who have been supporting this ministry and helping us make this happen. Guys, the gathering itself is free. The only cost is a meal ticket if you'd like to join us for lunch or dinner. And I hope you will, because the most transforming moments always happen around a table. The registration for this event, the link is below in the description. I hope you'll come join us.

Africa Missions And Building Schools

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Yeah, so my dad's been going for um probably 15. Right at 15 years, because 2011, wasn't it? 2011 was for some. Yeah. So right at 15 years now. So I mean, when we say like that's our family, that's our family. So it's so when we go over there to visit, it's not it's like we're coming to see you. That's amazing. And uh, I mean, we stay with the pastors. We've I mean, for every trip up until this one, we're actually getting a place this time because we have a big crew coming, but every other time we have stayed with the pastor. Um, he we have two schools over there. Uh Connect with a Child is how you can see what they are. We have one in Nairobi, um, and then we have one in Ci Aya. That's awesome. Yeah, and Ciaia is actually where Bishop Tom is from. And we're built when I say like there was no community there, but the whole community is now that school and that building. We actually had our uh our outreach team went and they didn't do like they didn't preach or do a bunch of that stuff, but they went and cooked, and uh this village hadn't had meat, hadn't had meat in like five or ten years. Oh my god. So they we first mission trip that we ever took up money to buy cows. Yeah, we bought cows to be slaughtered. Like that's awesome, and it was really cool because it's like uh okay, how much money do we need to do this? You know, like yeah, yeah, and it's just funny stuff that you have to navigate, but um seeing those pictures, we didn't go on that trip, but seeing those pictures and videos, you could just tell, man. Like, cows are expensive, yeah. It just are, yeah. And it's just amazing to see what God has done. And my dad's heart is completely with those people. He sees where they've been, where they're going. And I mean, when you go over there, it's just and you go to the school, it's like, my god, you can't help but I I wanted to take them all, I want to all bring them all home with me. Yeah, they have amazing. They have this cool thing too called uh Hukuna Matata Kids Choir. Yeah, they're awesome. And my dad helped them, uh helped them start it. So their first tour ever.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Like literally, like the Lion King Akuna matata. And they which means what? No worries. That literally is what it means. You know, you have seen the video where the guy gets in trouble because he I did. He's getting sued, apparently. Yeah, like big time. Um so I was like, does is akuna matata really mean no worries? Yeah, yeah, no, it does, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

So it's a lion. Oh my god. All right, geo, geo, it's a it's a lie, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:25

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

But um, no, seriously, like a lie, young. They they started so they came to our church for the first time ever, which getting visas for them was crazy. I'm sure. And my dad was uh to see what my dad does behind the scenes with all stuff, a lot of people don't see it, but he's got a big heart, man. He made sure to help write letters to anybody and everybody in government and is like, hey, please, like, come on, come. Whatever we need to do to get these kids over here. And from there, they started the first the first spot they came was Covington. Now they travel to Australia. They're everywhere, Europe, Joel Osteen's church. I'm telling you I got chills thinking about it because these kids, like, when I say they have nothing, like they have nothing. I took we took them soccer balls, and you would have thought that we brought bought them a new car.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

So so this Hakuna Matata choir, they now travel all over. Yeah. That's amazing. It's wild. It's crazy. That is wild. And yeah, and so your dad helped start that. Yeah. That's wild.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yep. That's so cool. Because see, Bishop Tom had a vision. He's like, hey, I have you know, I have this kid's choir. Who's Bishop Tom? So he is the pastor. Shout out Bishop Tom Abungu. Shout out to Bishop Tom Abungu. He's the pastor that we connect with out in Africa. Okay. Um my dad's been with him now for probably the past 10 years, and they've built a ton together. Wow. Like he's he's a man with vision. My dad actually worked with his father too. So then his father passed away, and all that went to his son.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

Yeah. So um relationships like that that transcend generations are like they're like few and far between, man. Yeah, yeah. I think that was one of the things that drew me to connect with you guys was the longevity of y'all's relationship. Because y'all have been walking together for a while.

SPEAKER_05 18:09

Yeah.

Adrian Finds His Place Again

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Like when I was talking to y'all, where did you come into the picture? He put cable in the house.

SPEAKER_05 18:14

Um yeah, I put literally, literally. I put cable in Caleb's house.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

What year would that have been?

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Oh gosh. I was still playing football. So it's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

I was on ministry hiatus when he came. I was on my sabbatical.

SPEAKER_05 18:32

I um at that point in time, I had just left from um my family's church. Um, my uncle, his dad. Um that's where I grew up at. And uh it came a point in time where God told me to get up and go, and he'll tell me where to go once I get up and go. And uh with that, it sent me to different places. I went to Brazilton, Georgia. Um, went to a church up there. I was like, eh-that's not it.

SPEAKER_03 19:04

I remember that.

SPEAKER_05 19:05

Yeah. Came uh back down to Covington. Um, and when I got to Covington, different people told me about two different churches. You had Living Way, and then there was another church called New Life. Well, um, I got the two mixed up, and so I thought. And um I ended up at Living Way, and when I got there, I kind of felt that that was it. And uh I told God, I said, God, um you're gonna have to tell me this is it. And also, too, I'm not doing anything. I'm not I'm not preaching, I'm not leading worship, I'm not doing nothing. Only way I'm gonna do it is if you tell me to come from the back and I'll do it. So literally, the second Sunday that I'm there, there's this worship leader, Darnell uh Butler.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Shout out uh shout out you, Darnell Butler from Florida. We love you, dude. We haven't heard from you in a while, but we love you. He man, sorry.

SPEAKER_05 20:09

So he he's up there and he does this altar call. And I was like, I don't know these people, I'm not going up there. But I just kept feeling the draw to go. I get up there, the first thing this man says, God says it's time to come from the back. And I'm like, no, I don't even go here. No, so he says that, and then two weeks later, um in 2010, I was just getting out of the military, and literally New Year's Eve, I have this dream, and in the dream, I'm walking through this hospital in Africa, and uh I enter into this room, there's this golden staircase, and there's an angel walking with me. I see Billy Graham go to the top of it, and once he gets to the top, he drops a mantle down, and I go to grab the mantle as he drops it, and I wake up. Well, two weeks later, after me being at the church, Billy Graham dies. When he dies that same night was Bible study. I go to Bible study, and his dad preaches on picking up the mantle. Golly. That's how I knew that I was at the right place. And what year was that again? That would have been had to have been 2017. Micah was three. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

So yeah, yeah, 2017's when Billy Graham passed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

That's right.

unknown 21:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Wow. And it was so crazy because I like when I was joking, but when I say I was on a sabbatical, I was in I was in a marriage and fighting between being at church and being hung, you know what I mean? That kind of tug of war thing. Yeah. And uh my dad was like, Man, you got hey, I got we got this new guy at the church, Adrian. Like, you need to talk to him. You know, I'm like, Man, I don't want to talk to nobody right now. Like, I don't want to be there, man. Like, I don't, you know, I show up every now and then, whatever, and uh, but man, like then once we got once we got to talking, like we started texting. And then from there, we all three, we we were all three on the worship team. So then you know we just connected

How Living Beyond Sunday Began

SPEAKER_00 22:10

and uh from there it just took off. Every so here's how the podcast started. So every single morning we were all working these like on let's be honest dead end jobs. Well I wasn't I'm still no I'm still there. Bro was he not no was he not in construction when we started okay you were in construction when we started you started Coes after I remember when you went for the interview. Okay anyways Mark whatever anyways listen I have no clue so I yeah we'll disagree on that but we'll we'll talk to you afterwards okay I'm gonna get you but I played football a long time they may be right yeah yeah that's too much head trauma for me they may be right so so what real quick pause on the story you played football and what position did you play?

SPEAKER_02 22:54

I don't remember I played receiver receiver a fast boy he you're still fast right still fast still very fast but um he went to try out last week and they they put him at left guard guard and tackle guard the water and tackle every time the right mark yeah my my spiritual father he says you know because like all we had a group that was called the circuit riders back in the day and we all traveled together and stuff and we all were like skilled position players in high school and stuff we have pictures to prove it but um he was like I don't know how it is that all my spiritual sons were specialty players in high school and then by the time they're adults they're all linemen yeah that's funny no but yeah it was so keep telling your story oh yeah so anyways um would you say it was eight years ago huh would you say it was eight years ago that this was happening yeah I've been there eight years where where I'm at now no I I mean I don't know it's just well we'll figure it out later anyways that's not even important you split the line what happens on our podcast guys so if you don't know sorry sorry there's bunny trails but anyways we started talking every single morning on the way to work and uh one of us made the comment like man if we could just record these conversations like that help a lot of people because we're figuring stuff out we're f we're young and married trying to figure that out we were having kids so we were navigating that together like all the ups and downs so and I we've always said if there's in ministry my dad's always told me in ministry you need somebody that you you need friends you can confide in.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Yeah where you know if you're talking to them it's like you're talking to yourself. Yep and I know I I knew I had that with these two. That's awesome. So I was like we could go through each other and be real like they had we were Pentecostal charismatic you know but at the same time they had grace beyond that you know and they knew they could talk to me I knew I could talk to them. And uh long story short um you know he went through a divorce and he lived with me for about he lived with him for a little bit for a night for a day.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

One night only one night okay it's only because he can handle no it's only because the anointing that I carry I want you people to understand I carry a very high anointing and when he walked through the threshold of my front door it hit him harder than he's ever been hit. And he's like I can't live under this much anointing and so he left.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

So anyway the next night he comes to my house and I offer him his own room his own bed TV everything. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

And this guy's a liar so let's just go ahead and say that right now whatever he's a liar so listen uh we would go outside every single night and how real can we be on this podcast?

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Okay at that time in my life I was an avid uh I loved marijuana so every night I would go outside for that smoke session and me and him would go out there and talk about these deep things of God.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

I was not supposed to I will say this he was secondhand out let me say this he never never he would not touch it but anyways that's how I started and so we we're like man if we have a podcast let's call it porch light conversations because we wanted to porch light yeah because we would always sit under the porch light and light it up yeah also secondhand i'm gonna say I would say this I would say this I would say this in front of the throne of Jesus okay he would never and I'll admit one time I'm like hey man you're going through a lot like you can just hit this once just hit it once please he's not he's not doing anymore that was a line I used bro it's Friday and you got nothing to do you ain't going nowhere yeah he's like I'm not hurting nobody I'm just doing this at my house now he's not doing that anymore you're just on gummies now just just gummies no I work on elevators and escalators so uh that would not fly but so yeah so so so you guys have been the three of you have been walking together now since 20 was you say 16 17 2017 2017 so nine years that you guys have been walking together I I think it's really important I mean you guys have walked through with each other through like the ups and downs of life let's let's kind of do like um highs and lows uh of that like like I think people uh underestimate the value of like deep relational connection because most people didn't grow up in a house that even had that yeah you know like most people grew up in a home where f parents are working

Friendship Through Crisis And Grace

SPEAKER_02 27:31

they're busy um if you played sports then your world evolved around like mom and dad sent you to school they went to work they picked you up you went to sports you know like a lot of people grew up that way and they didn't have like these deep valuable connections relationships or conversations which I think is mostly why we deal with such terrible mental health issues in this generation because there's not that deep relational connection what what do you guys feel like what kind of value has that brought into your life to have like for the past nine years to know you can count on you you you all relationally um it's you I mean you can go I'll I was no it's I just okay so one big thing for me so I'll be on so back in 2021 just to show you what kind of impact these guys had in my life and I'm I'm not gonna cry because I guess I probably will but he's gonna cry I probably will so 2019 give me some walt 2019 I was in a you know just in a bad situation I was in give me some waltz there you go now you're gonna cry okay but 29 uh 20 I guess 2021 uh 2021 I was in a bad situation bad marriage um and I had made some bad choices like you know what I mean being a young man just made terrible choices and I had to uh terrible yeah shut up terrible had to uh I had to pay the piper you know what I mean because in that moment and I'll be honest my mindset was I want to be everything opposite from what the church expects me to be so every every expectation they put on me I want to tear it down and I want them to see me tear it down.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

You know what I mean? And that was really like you know what I mean the self-sabotage type pastor's kid man. Yeah exactly yeah yeah but um so like the weight of all that just finally got to me and I was like you know what now I'm everything everything they said I am I've become and that's fine you know and so I was I was bound into Terman one night uh he had called me and uh you know I was like dude listen I'm done like you'll you'll find me on a tree you know and uh he pulled up to my house my parents had just got to Florida so they had you know they didn't know well I guess they knew what was going on through him but uh my mom told him she was like hey take him to the hospital don't take him anywhere else take him to the hospital because she knew they would 1013 me because I'll seriously that night I couldn't see past that evening could not and I'm I and now looking back like I could seriously say like that was it for me. Like that was it. And then next thing I know this man shows up at my house pulls up in the driveway and I was drinking at the time and he's like pour that crap out and get my car and uh I did and he took me there stay stay yeah shut up and then he didn't tell me that Caleb was on the phone this whole time I'm going through this psychosis and like you know losing my mind. So then I get in the car and I hear Caleb say something I'm like oh and Caleb's here no that's how he said he said oh no Caleb's around he was I can't Caleb can't be around he couldn't no because okay Adrian's Adrian's a nurturer in this friendship you know what I mean yeah Caleb's the one was like you're an idiot you should probably get your pants up dust your shoulders off let's go dude that's meal's like man you weren't even man enough to go through with it get off the phone to the shield no no I did not I'm looking so bad no but no dude no but anyways uh so rub some dirt on it yeah exactly so went through that man and uh I expected when I got out man I expected these guys to be gone like didn't uh and this was during like pandemic so nobody I couldn't talk to nobody uh nobody could come and see me um it it was I didn't know I couldn't remember anybody's number so I couldn't call out I got one phone call a day and couldn't remember the number to call out so when I get out I'm like what world am I getting out to like what what am I walking into what world did I create in my psychosis you know and then I had to probably spend a year confronting that and working through that and uh just navigating and I honestly would not be here without these two and without shut up and without without their grace and their love because seriously what I expected what I expected when I got out was judgment and what I was met with was grace and love not only by them but by my parents wow I was expecting my parents to be like hey look you're done with this you're not gonna do this anymore you know my dad told me I said that I got out and I said dad I'm done I'm done with the church I'm I said no disrespect but I'm just I can't take anymore and I said I'm done done with the worship team and he said look he said you're gonna go Sunday morning you're gonna pick up your guitar and you're gonna play like nothing happened he said because I know he said if you don't go back today you'll never go back yeah wow he said if you don't confront it today you'll you'll never want to confront it yeah yeah and I knew because when I walked in that church I knew everybody knew what I'd done was very public you know what I mean yeah and uh but I I I decided myself I said I got four I got four people I know for sure that are there for me and I said they have stuck by me so if anything out of respect for them I'm gone.

SPEAKER_05 32:55

Yeah but I always say you should be um careful who you throw away you gotta be careful who you throw away um some relationships are only meant to last a season yeah and you will sooner or later enter a relationship that God intended to stay there and help sustain you getting where you need to get to and where they actually need to get to. I say that about both of them uh they they were there um in their own way for me when I was going through uh a very bad uh divorce where I was basically homeless and all I had was the the black bags in the back of my car Nissan Road and um yeah I was just just in a bad spot bad bad spot and um his dad was like look I understand what you're going through but come preach and I'm like no I I don't feel like it he's like uh uh you gotta do it and him driving me to continue helped me stay um in the church because I wanted to back off because I couldn't understand how God would allow this to happen. I just couldn't at that time but um moving moving past that um it was last year these two um had the message of beloved identity way before I did they would talk about it and I would find something to argue and be like you're wrong this says this says this and little by little um I went through this period where I was like okay God have I missed my time you've shown me all this stuff you've shown me preaching to the mess you've shown me

Beloved Identity And Union Awakening

SPEAKER_05 35:10

all this stuff and nothing has yet happened so I went on a fast for like two or three weeks and uh I was really seeking him out and I was like God uh like I need I need you to show up and I went to his dad and I was like Bishop I think it's time for me to go out and start traveling and and ministering and he was like I agree just make sure you're taking care of the things here at the house and you go do what you need to do and just be back. And I was like all right cool so in that time um I was still fasting and I was like all right God I don't even know what I'm gonna go out here and preach. What am I even preaching if I get out here and um I have this dream I I share with you the dream I have this dream where um I'm in an accident I die and I'm in this tunnel and at the end of the tunnel there's this huge eye looking at me. And as I'm walking through this tunnel I'm saying God I love you I love you so much because I could just feel overwhelming love. And as I got closer that eye turned into light and as I'm getting towards the end to where I'm able to and now embrace this light literally hug this light and all I could feel is love um I'm holding on tight I don't want to let go he's like you gotta let go it's time to go it's time to go and I was like no no no no no and finally I just felt something pull me and when I was pulled I ended up on a bus and on this bus I'm preaching on love riding from this bus preaching on love and um I go to my messages and my phone and Garrett sent me of all the videos he sent he sends me this video of Damon Thompson teaching on having singular vision.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

And can can I be real about that so like I had so like I had been you know me and Adrian me Adrian and Caleb we're all when I say we're so connected and like let me say that I know when I one day when I die these two guys gonna be by me like that there's no question about that. You know what I mean? Like tried, tested and true. But um and I was asking the Holy Spirit I said you know I I want Adrian to understand this. And I said he he loves he loves deliverance he likes uh you know um like uh William Branham uh uh John G lake you know stuff like that he would and uh what's it or Roberts you know so I knew he was always watching video and I'm like Lord how can I like how how what will cause him to hear you know what I mean and uh I had been listening to Damon because I was I had not heard Damon for a while to be honest because I heard him at the ramp and then I had found back in 2019 I started reading from like John Crowder Bradley Jerzak um uh TF Torrents which is one of my favorites if you have not heard of TF Torrents please go look him up he has some of the greatest books out there but um I started reading from them and I'm like man like I can't I can't see this any other way you know so then like all the old like law performance based I'm like I can't hear that anymore that it just makes me it bothers me you know and so I was like Lord how do I how can I and on the way to Disney we were actually on the way to Disney World uh me and my family and uh I listened to that sermon in the car with my wife and kids and it just wrecked me. I'm like oh because I heard that oh Damon's preaching beloved identity now he's preaching union and I'm like and like oh he has a school called Union University. I'm like oh my gosh what so I started listening and I'm like this is it so then I just randomly sent these two guys a video I'm like hey check this message out and then I did not know let me say this I thought it was just one of those like it's gonna send them a video they're not gonna watch it you know kind of things it's a sermon you know what I mean and yeah no um yeah and I turned that video on that's what he's preaching on and then after talking about singular vision he started preaching on the light and love and I was like okay God you got my attention and from there some crazy stuff started happening I mean one night I'm laying next to my bed and I'm praying very specific things and God drops a verse in my spirit I go to this verse y'all remember me telling I go to this verse literally it says I see you laying on the side of your bed and then goes on basically saying verbatim what I was what I was saying in the prayer.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Good

Three Gifts One Team

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Lord and I mean it it it just kind of took off from there man wow so we haven't heard from you what what kind of what kind of he's scared he is scared of me so the value that that these the relationship you guys have had like what what has that meant to you uh I think they keep me level headed both both of them in their own way you're you're not level headed no sir no sir uh we we can look look at me no sir um he's been hit a few times what is it dude just call uh it should they both are unique in their own ways seriously and Garrett and I obviously have a heck of a lot more history than than uh Adrian and I do uh and we've gone toe to toe head to head wait wait I forgot to say dude he used to spend the night at my house as kids okay like that that's what kind of stuff we have yeah wow I I'm on I want to tell a story about that at the just when he's done finish finish you don't know the axe one yes okay um and so like Garrett and I already kind of had that true brother identity because um and I won't get too deep in the weeds but like I just had uh rough upbringing I guess is the best way to put it and uh family was something I really yearned for but didn't really I don't want to say I didn't get I just needed more love than I got I guess is the best way that that I put I can put it and uh so Gary and I really had that brotherhood and we picked on each other we swung on each other we laughed at each other we yelled at each other we cussed at each other right yeah that's just the brotherhood that we had uh had and uh then insert Adrian and one thing about Adrian I say this all the time man I told him and I'll say this because I feel glad to say it um well what was this a month ago we were on the phone and I said I told Adrian I said you need to get ready for an apostle role you know in this we call it a podcast but it's really it's our ministry man and um go check it out it's called Living Beyond Sunday um but no I told Adrian I said dude you really need to get ready for this apostle role and he's so very um oh what's the word I'm looking for uh you can't give him compliments Kylie humble humble thank you see there's there's great such an easy word uh he's so humble man he really is and and that's one thing I really honor and respect about this man he is so humble um he could be insert the blank and he's like uh you know just so humble about it and um he preached uh what a month maybe two months ago when's the last time two months ago at Living Way and shout out y'all that showed up because we put it out on the podcast and we packed the church out it was so cool. And it was the first time that I heard him preach on union. And even uh even after that man no matter how good you tell him that it was he's like yeah I'm doing what I do and he's so humble so I really respect the heck out of him for that because it takes it just takes a lot to be that humble um and one thing he's just been a consistent steady voice in my life don't get me wrong Garrett has to but Garrett and I really have that knuckleheaded true brother relationship and not saying that Adrian and I don't but he's like the big brother yeah and we're the we're the little brothers.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

Yeah I was gonna say that's what I picked up on the podcast I was like Adrian's the big brother he's the big brother yeah and and so you know and and I've and we've all done it to each other.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

I've spoken his life I've spoken his life and vice versa but it's it's it never fails like Adrian is just and he's very quiet and he only speaks when he feels like he should speak where me I don't think I just speak and yeah sometimes it gets me in trouble but sometimes it's exactly what these two knuckleheads need to hear. So as funny as I may be I say all the time I put the fun in funeral there are times that I have that I have put I have spoken things into their lives they're like man and you told me and I'm gonna my own horn matter of fact you tell people what you're saying and one thing that's beautiful about this is you know the the fivefold ministry gifts, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Yeah. They're different expressions of the character of Jesus. Sure So the thing and the thing is he works more in the prophetic, he works more like an evangelist. I work more like a teacher. So we all compliment each other. So that's right. Whereas sometimes I may not get vision for something, or I may not see something coming. He's got it.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

And whereas sometimes I'm not feeling as motivated. I'm like, I really don't want to do that. He's like, bro, we need to get fired up. Like that people are waiting to heal. I don't stop. And like his gift of faith, the thing is, if if I need healing, I was joking with him earlier. I'm like, hey, Kev, come pray for me. Because I know when you say like the gift of faith, he truly has it. He is not going to leave until you're healed. He's like, hey, you're either going to believe it or I'm going to punch you in the face. I'm going to punch you until you get it. No, but seriously, but you need someone like that who's like, no, Jesus said we're healed. You're going to be healed. And if you ain't walking in it, I'm going to hold you.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

I just believe what Jesus says.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

I'll say it. I'll say his famous line. I'm on you. I'm on you. I'm on you, boy. That's what you I'm on you, boy. That's what he always says.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

I love uh I love that you you bring up the the discerning the different manifestations of Christ in your relationship because I I feel like one of the I've always believed this that the church has been malnourished because we have always been led by one man, expecting one man to be the perfect representation of Christ. It's impossible. The early church never had a single man leading a church by himself. Never. There were there were apostolic fathers that were sending teams in or had teams that they built the church upon. So it was never like, oh, you know, this is the apostle Paul's church. It's like, no, Paul had spiritual sons and daughters that were leading this expression and they were doing it house to house. And there was a fivefold, I think, I think it's more of a fourfold expression because I think pastor teacher is like the same thing. But like that, well, that the Greek word there is it is one word. So it's like a fourfold expression. And in that expression, it is the fullness of Christ being manifested to us, so much so that Ephesians 4, it literally says, so that we can become a perfect man, plural in the Greek, a perfect man. And it takes

From Building To Body

SPEAKER_02 46:15

that multi-expression to bring us to maturity. But it really hit home for me when we went through the church fire here in Covington. And I said this word um to our kingdom family at that time, and and you know, that was a crazy season to have so much language, so much vision for family, and yet as a body, we still weren't ready for it. So, like when I use family language and we're talking about what we're talking about today, we have a long ways to go. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, but um, the Lord literally told me in that season of the church fire, he said, I'm delivering you from a building so you can discover the beauty of being in a body.

SPEAKER_00 47:01

Let me say something on that because that's one thing that so when we started our podcast, we or when we started our friendship, let me say this, when we started talking about doing ministry together, we thought we're gonna go to places like the ramp and preach youth conferences. And we had uh he went to the first trip we ever went on was to South Carolina, our preacher youth conference, and it was like our first taste of it, you know, and we're like, dude, this is our life, this is it. This is what we're conferences, baby. And he was like, bro, he's like, bro, listen, I'll just come carry your Bible. You remember that? Like, and it was like, and I had gifted him a Bible on that trip. It was just beautiful, you know. Just and it was it's what we thought ministry was gonna be.

SPEAKER_03 47:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

And then when we started this podcast and we started started seeing how many people we were reaching, we're like, holy crap.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

We really thought we were just gonna be famous in our church. Yeah, like that was it, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:46

With our podcast, you know what it was? Our heart behind it? Hey, we want our church to understand this gospel, we want our church to understand union. Yeah, and then from there, and Adrian made a he made a prophetic declaration, I guess, one day said, Hey, listen, it's gonna start here, it's gonna start in Covington, and then it's gonna spread out from Covington. And we've seen that our community, churches that hadn't talked to each other in years because of disagreements, we're now working with them. We're now in last year. I'm not being weird, we're now in their building preaching this gospel. And the thing is, and now we we all three of us have decided we're like, we're just gonna sit back and let God be God. Yeah, we're his body, and we're gonna allow just like we hands with no feet, you aren't gonna get as far.

SPEAKER_02 48:29

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

You know what I mean? We need absolutely everybody, and I think with us three working together, we've learned to sit back. I I'm speaking for myself. I've learned to sit back in a time where, hey, this isn't my this isn't my strong place. I'm not strong in this, but Adrian is. Yeah, I'm gonna sit back, let him take the charge. I'm not strong in this, but I know Caleb is, so he's in it. You know what I mean? Yeah, and leaning back, it's nothing about ego. You know what I mean? Like, I don't, I don't care. Jesus, Jesus is the one that we want to uplift. That's what we tell everybody.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

We say blur our face, take our names out. It's just Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

If you don't agree with our doctrine, our one of our most famous line is doctrine does not determine family. The main mission, the main name, Jesus, the main one, as long as we can agree on that, why can't we go help the community? Why can't we fill backpacks together? We aren't we aren't discussing doctrine. We can discuss all that later. Take the main thing, the main thing, take care of the widows and the orphans. I'll take care of the rest.

SPEAKER_02 49:20

Yeah. I think I think in this hour we desperately need way more fruit than we do right doctrine. I mean, I I'm I agree, yeah, there are essential doctrines. I get it. I get it. But at the end of the day, I know a lot of people who have their essential doctrines in order and no fruit that they actually have been conformed into the image of Christ. Yeah. But I think a lot of um a lot of the fruit though can only be produced if you're walking in actual vital connection with other believers. This is this is the point. Like I think we have gone to church, we have not become the church. We go to a building and we learn how to raise our hands. And some of us learn how to do it with a little more passion. Yeah. And we um, you know, we sing the songs, we listen to the sermon, and we go home, and there's no real connection outside of the home with other believers, and nobody, no but you don't have connections that challenge you, you don't have connections that convict you, you don't have you don't have connections that encourage you, you don't have connections that give you another aspect, or I like to call it like another aspect of the diamond. The diamond has many angles and and um ways that you can look into it. That's the beauty of being connected to other people. And I think that was the biggest reason why I wanted you guys on the podcast. I mean, I I of course I want them to know about your L's podcast and what you guys are doing here in the city, but um I think it was more about I'm I walked into a room with you guys and realized that you all have a real connection to each other. You guys have actually walked through messy life situations together, and you've made it on the other side of that. That is very few and far between in uh church culture today. It's like as soon as a situation gets messy, people check out on you. And I thought that would be different as a leader. It's not, it's worse. Yeah, yeah. Um, when we walked through what we walked through in Covington, it was like I found out very quickly that some people only were connected to Desi and I because we had a position and a building. Yeah, and it really wasn't about their relationship to us. Yeah. And or when things got challenging for us, and Desi and I, excuse me, Desi and I walk through a season where think about this. We lose our side, like this is what we walk through when we move to Covington. We

Legalism Versus Union

SPEAKER_02 52:00

come to Covington, we are only here less than a year, and we get hit with COVID. 2021, my wife miscarries the child. 2022, we lose our salary. 2023, our church building burns down. And that's what we walk through. And on top of that, we're leading people, trying to lead people out of what they know, yeah, and realizing we've only built a little bit better version of the world we came out of, and then go, and then like we're trying to lead them into a whole new wineskin, and that's challenging.

SPEAKER_04 52:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:39

And what I learned in that though was you can like as a leader, anybody expecting perfection out of you while you're walking through the challenges of life and trying to lead people into something you don't even fully know what it is. Yeah, like we're we're on a journey, we don't fully know what this new wineskin is. We know that we're tasting new wine, but we don't fully know what the new wine skin is, and you're leading people into that. And I think there was a point in time where Dusty and I just were overwhelmed and we were like, we don't really know what to do. And I found out in that moment that people would have rather um be in a building and fulfill our duties than they would actually walk through life with us. And when things got tough, people just left. And you're just like, so it's so rare to see people go through hard things and come out on the other side and go, No, I'm still gonna walk with you. Yeah, we're still gonna process things together, we're still going to because we need each other's expression of Christ for us to become mature.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

Yeah, exactly. And that's let me say this, man, once again, in all in in everything I went through, I deserve judgment. And I expected them, and you know, I even told my parents, I'm like, hey, listen, if they don't have anything to do with me, I still love them. And but I understand, you know what I mean? Yeah, and um, that was a hard spot, and uh but man, they what I thought was you know, I deserved judgment, I knew that. But when I saw them, that's not what I received. You know what I mean? Uh what I'd found was that while I couldn't communicate, while I couldn't fight my battles, these two, yeah, and they're doing it for me.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

Yeah, and that and that's and that's why I think there's so much church hurt these days. Because, you know, what did Jesus say? Let thee without sin cast the first stone. Yeah. When when Garrett went through, he went through. You know how easy it would have been for him and I to say, nah, bro, don't associate. Because I'm gonna be honest and I'm not gonna give away too much, but we got thrown through the dirt a little bit during that whole situation. And uh regardless, we're like, man, we know who Garrett is. Right. I didn't see Garrett for who, or I didn't see Garrett for what he was doing. I saw Garrett for who he is. Yeah, and I knew the real Garrett through the map.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

That is actually the comment that you kept making. Hey, look, man, this ain't you. I know who you are. I know you know. That's what he kept telling me the whole thing. Hey, look, man, you're good. This ain't you. I know who you are. And that's for somebody out there, man. God keep telling me that.

SPEAKER_01 55:17

No matter where you're at right now in your season of life, God sees you for who you are. Not who you were, not who you're supposed to be. God sees you for who you are, who he created you to be. So the reality of I had that gospel, I had this gospel of union at the time um when Garrett was going through that. And so, like, for me to say knowing what I have done, because I have done some pretty crappy things in my life, to say, oh well, Garrett's an idiot. I'm done with him, you know. Like, Jesus didn't do that to me.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

And can I say this too? Like, let me tell you a weird part. So 2019, I found this gospel. Okay, I told you a little bit about this, and uh, these are my two closest friends, and like not being weird, but when I was telling them about it, I thought they were gonna be like, heck yeah, dude, that's freaking awesome. I thought I'm like, oh, whoa, no, no, that's too extreme, man. Like, no, whoa, take a step back. And then I, you know, preached she started. I went, I got my dad asked me to preach at the church. So I preached and I started tearing down like every every doctrine that was just garbage. I told you about penal substitution. I'm like, you think you're saying God killed a son? Nope, nothing didn't happen. But um, and then after that, like everybody's like, I was like, oh, I'm an idiot, I'm wrong. I'm the delusional one. No, because everybody's like, I was excited. No, listen, yeah. I was excited about the message, you know. Like when you get it and you wake up to you, like, oh my gosh, Jesus. And I read one verse You still lied to. Yeah. And one verse that wrecked me. I had so I had a my my first son, or my only son, I'll say my first son. I don't know why I do that. But uh your first child, first child, my first child is prophetic. Yeah, probably when he was born. The first thought I had was, man, this kid can never do anything to make me not love him.

SPEAKER_02 56:57

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

And I'm like, wait, but I'm worshiping a God where if I say a cuss word today, he'll slaughter me and burn me forever and take pleasure in it, from what we've been told. Yeah, you know, and I'm like, something's not adding up. Yeah, so then I started doing research and I read I read this one verse that wrecked me. If your earthly father being evil knows how to give good gifts to his children, how much more does your does your heavenly father want to bless you? And the Holy Spirit told me, He said, Hey, you see the way you love your son? That's evil compared to the way I love you. And it wrecked me. Oh, yeah. I'm like, if your ways are far above my ways, I've been doing spiritual gymnastics for years to make your ways far above my ways somehow morally less than my own ways. Yeah. And it made no sense. I'm like, I've been doing spirit mental gymnastics to believe these lies that religion has told me. And now I'm discovering all this truth. And once I realized it, I was so excited, and then everybody else, all my spiritual leaders are like, hey, listen, you need to settle down.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

Bibe down, by the way. Yeah, settle down.

SPEAKER_00 57:55

So I'm like, something's wrong with me. Like, I'm missing it, you know. Cause I always thought, like, if I read something, I can comprehend it pretty well. Sure. And so I'm like, okay, I'm off. You know what I mean? I'm mentally off. I'd already been told people were telling me I'm crazy, you know, all this stuff. So then you start believing it. I'm like, you know what, whatever. And then I went through what I went through, and then he picked it up, and I'm like, okay, you little butthole. I went through hell. And how are you gonna preach it?

SPEAKER_01 58:18

I had glimpses of it. It's just one thing I'd always I would always ask myself, because I grew up more in the Baptist side of things. God help me, God help me. Uh, but I just I always questioned, I used to ask my grandpa this. I'm like, man, if there's if there's one God, why is there so many different religions? And so as a young kid, like growing, going through, gosh, I'm not even lying, I had to have gone to at least 1,000 revivals at least. And I would always find myself, yeah. I'm like, how is it if there's one God, there's so many different religions, but you're telling me that this is the one that he's okay with being a Baptist, not Pentecostal, you know, not what insert the blank. I was like, how how is it that our God, who is all-knowing, all-loving, is only okay with being a Baptist? Only okay with this religion.

SPEAKER_00 59:05

Or, hey, love your enemies, but I'm gonna slaughter mine.

SPEAKER_01 59:07

I'm gonna slaughter mine. I'm gonna kill mine. And so I just I for years I couldn't wrap my head around that. And I'm like, man, I failed myself because I had anger issues. I was diagnosed with bipolar growing up. Then I get so mad at God, I'm like, man, why the freaking heck? And there were some other words used there. Would you like put me in this situation? This is your fault. And like I keep trying to live up to these standards that you set. I can't do that. And so you're gonna burn me for that. You're gonna burn me because you made these laws for me to follow, and I can't do it. And you made me this way. I have these thoughts because you created me in your image, but I gotta burn for that. Bump you. So I struggle with that for years, and then one day it just threw my other grandpa, Andrew Omac, I read a book, started reading up on Andrew Omac, and I found the grace movement. And it and it started some things started just to make sense. And I started digging more and digging more, digging more. I'm like, man, he's gotta be better than this.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:00

And real quick, because just to transition. So we started out word of faith. We all went to a Bible college that was a break off of Rama, Papa Hagen. He went there first. Adrian and I went to Bible college together. Yeah, so we all went through that. Uh we taught there for a little bit, and then um, and then we found Andrew Walmack. And then through Andrew Walmart, it was it's cool. And what I'm doing is I'm laying out how God laid this thing out because we had the ramp in our lives growing up. We found we found the power of the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit can't that you can be healed, that you know you can overcome your issues. We found that at the ramp. Then Word of Faith came in and got our doctrine, you know, the teaching. They were huge, yeah, huge on teaching. And then all of a sudden we picked up on Andrew Walmart, and it's like, oh, but Jesus is also better than you've been taught. And then you had Bill Johnson come in from Bethel with Jesus Christ is perfect theology, which wrecked me. Uh, if look, Moses didn't have an idea of who God was. I love what Damon says. Shout out Damon Thompson because he says the moment that you realize that Job didn't know who God was is the moment that you'll start understanding your Bible more. Because he didn't, you can't know you can't know God outside of the saving incarnation of Jesus Christ. Yep. You can't. Right. He is the invisible, he is the invisible image of the Father.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

So you guys are the image of the invisible. So you guys grew up in church, all of you. And and you probably grew up under legalism before you met this. How could you hear such strong holiness teaching and then y'all do all the stupid stuff you did?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

Because that's what pushes you to it. You hear about sin so much. They tell you not to watch porn 50 times during a sermon. Your mind's going to be thinking about porn. Well, why not? The more that you try to avoid sin is the more that you fall into it. So the thing is not about avoiding sin, the thing is about being and enjoying. See, the reason that God tells you not to go out and sleep with someone else outside of your marriage is because he's given you every single bit of comfort. Everything you need is at home. And he's telling you, hey, this way is better than doing it that way because that way causes turmoil. That way causes so many more issues than staying within the confines of what I have given you. What I've given you is enough. And if you'll just yeah, if you'll just be and rest and trust him to be in your Monday, Tuesday, and that's what our whole podcast is about living beyond Sunday. Well, we've always said our first ministry is at home. If things aren't good at home, things aren't good anywhere else. So I want to make sure my wife is taken care of. I want to make sure my kids are taken care of. Because when I'm when I'm outside riding my skateboard with my son, I'm riding it with Jesus. Like that's worship to him. When I'm going to the movies or going on a date night with my wife, and I'm loving on her, that's Jesus. He's there. He is all enveloped in that. But we we've made it to where he's there on Sundays, and then once we leave service, he's gone. Yeah, you gotta wait till next week.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:50

So you all had strong legalistic teaching. So you weren't absent of like, you gotta live right, you gotta and yet you found yourself having to walk through really difficult situations. So then you get introduced to the message of beloved identity, you get introduced to union. Did that lower your standard of living? Did that give you permission to stay in sin? How did that impact you?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:19

I realized I was gonna say it's an identity crisis, is all that is. And that's and that's what I realized. And it all goes back to the garden. Adam and Eve were just like God, were they not? Yeah, just like God. And we always tell this story, you know, it's it's Eve's fault, it's Eve's fault, it's Eve's fault, hogwash. Okay. The issue was is Eve was lied to. That's it. And so the serpent slothers his way up and tricks Eve and says, Hey, surely he's not gonna kill you. He just doesn't want you to eat that apple because when you eat that apple, you'll be just like God. She didn't eat the apple because she's like, oh, out of spite, I want to be like God. She ate the apple because she was wrecked. She's like, What do you mean? Then I'll be just like God. Adam Adam's been telling me, God's told me he's been walking with us every day for however many years at least. We're already just like him. Just just like him. And you're telling me that I'm not? That I have to do something else. I she had to eat the apple to become, you know, and so you have to do this to get the grace. You have to do this to get the love. She was wrecked, man. Her identity was already in Christ, apart from the foundations of the world. She was already in Christ, she was already just like God. Yeah, can I let me say this? But she was wrecked because she was lied to.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:41

On that, Western Christianity now has the only thing it's done, you got to think Satan isn't a created being. Lucifer isn't a created being. He can only distort what God's already created. Right. So think about this. Western Christianity, look at the message. They're preaching the same message it was preached in the garden. 100%. The performance-based message. Hey, do this to become like God. Do this, try harder. But the thing is, the more the religious systems that you're building to bring you closer to God are the pushing you further away. Pushing you mentally further away. And you don't even realize it. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:10

It's just it's frustrating. And so through through all of that, you know, it that's when I finally found this gospel, that's when it made sense because, like Gary just said, the harder I tried to be like God, the more I was, I felt more distant. And the thing is, is you've never been distant from God. Yeah. You're you're the next breath. Like you're literally pneuma. And so um, shout out my buddy Bobby Shane Brooks. He used to say, man, back when he was in his addiction, he would just wake up because religion taught him, he's like, I'm gonna go ahead and wake up and just start repenting now. God, I'm gonna screw up today. God, please, God don't scribe, don't smite me, blah, blah, blah. And just so people would think he's crazy and high on drugs, you know. And sometimes he was, but most of the time he's like, No, I'm just over here repenting because I'm gonna sin today. And so, like, it's so bass awkwards, you know, when you talk about the 30 fold or the 60 fold, and it's like you're basically, they say that our gospel of union, you're giving people People are licensed to sin, right? Well, technically, so are you because your gospel says, if I do it, as long as I'm repent, I'm good. So that actually, me and Garrett have discussed this on the podcast. That that gospel actually made me sin more. Yeah. Because I'm like, well, he's looking at Jesus. God's God's blocking me out right here. I'm blocking Mark out and I'm looking at Garrett because Garrett's Jesus. So I'm over here doing whatever I want to do, right? And he's cool, yeah. And he's cool with it because he's looking at Jesus. But in reality, he's looking right at you. Right at you.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:33

Let me say this. I I use this analogy a lot with union because people have come to us and said, Oh, well, if you're preaching this stuff, you're just giving people a license of sin. Uh let me ask you, let me ask you.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:41

They were already sinning before. Exactly. And let me ask you this. You just but they didn't tell you because you would have thrown them to the wool, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:50

Thank you. And how many all of us are married? And how many of us men got together with our wives? We chose to get with our wives because she pulled out a cool rule book and said, Hey, if you don't meet all these standards, Mark, my dad's gonna kill you. Yeah, that's what we tell people. Hey, here, come into this relationship. So we introduce come into this relationship. Here's this rule book. If you don't follow every single one of these rules, he's gonna burn you for all of eternity. And he's gonna smile about it. None of us got with our wives because of that. You know what drew me in? Her love. Yeah. And that booty. As I always say, it's my wife, guys. Don't be mature. But listen, no, it was no, but for real, it was love that drew me in, and it's the love that keeps me. Yeah. It's not because she tells me, hey, you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't do this, you can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

But it's also the love of God that leads a man to metanomial.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:37

The kindness of God. I I told somebody said, Mark, you know, like, what do you think is really causing the moral decline in America? And, you know, everybody says they're going to talk about universities and indoctrination and the different movements and the two big sins of abortion and and the and homosexuality and all the things. And I said, No, I said, I can tell you what is I can tell you what's fueling the moral decline in our nation. It's the American pulpit. Yeah, yes. Because Paul said the strength of sin is the law. Yeah. Yes. So like Paul literally said, if you want to strengthen sin and awaken sin, he he literally said sin was awakened by the law. Yeah. And then sin is strengthened by the law. So people think that when we start preaching this message, like you guys heard some of their stories. Walk through divorce, walk through addiction. Anything else you want to add to it? Fill the blank. We're good with it. Yeah, we're good. Whatever. These are terrible people. We're trying to second guessing this relationship. No, no, but seriously, like they walk through this while hearing powerful voices. Yeah, that we would, you know, I call them the roaring reformers. Like some of the greatest preachers that have ever existed on the planet have been in our lifetime. And moral preachers, like preaching morality gospel, and going promise keepers, uh, promise rings, the purity, purity movement, purity culture. And yet the statistics prove that during that season, we did not get better, we got worse. Yeah. And we started going to these prayer meetings where we would fill stadiums. And I'm like, how many times are we going to divorce Jezebel? Right. Like, but and so literally I look back and I go, Paul was right. The strength of sin is the law. And people are like, when they hear us preaching this message of love, when they hear us preaching this message of union, they're like, you're giving people a license to sin. No, friend, preaching the law is the license to sin. Yeah, it's literally preaching the law, telling people how to live morally and making that the basis of their relationship with Jesus. I'm not saying that you shouldn't look at somebody sometime when they're acting stupid and go, hey, we don't, that's not correct. I'm not saying because Jesus even rebuked churches in the in the book of Revelation. We've done that to each other. So like the reminding each other who you are and saying, no, that's not how we do things here. Paul was like that with the church of Corinth. Paul was, you know, challenging things and going, like, I mean, if you think sin wasn't an issue, I mean, dude, there was somebody sleeping with their their stepmom or mother-in-law, or and like there were some things happening. So, but literally bringing the the gospel of morality and preaching the law and mingling law with grace is the reason why sin is being empowered in our nation. Yeah, yes. And the the message of union, the message of beloved identity, this message is so important because it gives us permission to believe that we can live as Christ Jesus actually lived. He gave us permission to live. And so it doesn't lower the standard, it actually raises the standard without effort on our part, because now that's just who I am. Yeah.

Supporting The Family Table

SPEAKER_02 1:11:38

There you go. I want to tell you about something that we call the family table. Almost everything we make here, we give away. The teaching, the resources, the tools that we put in the hands of pastors and church leaders who are running on empty. It's free because we believe it should be free. And it's free because a group of people quietly decided to pay for it. Friend, that's the family table. Monthly partners who fund this work so that somebody who could never afford it can walk in wholeness, anyways. Your giving does three things. It gets free resources into the hands of individuals and churches. It plants family table communities all across the country, and it helps pastors and church leaders find the wholeness that they've been handing to everybody but themselves. Friend, family table members get exclusive content, early access to new resources, and a monthly Zoom call with me and my wife, a real one where we talk about what we're actually doing, a little behind the scenes and casting vision for the future. So if that's you, you want to be a part of the family table, want you to go to marcasto.co backslash donate, set up your recurring gift, and we'll send you the details shortly. We'd love to have you at the family table.

Law Gentiles And Greek Context

SPEAKER_00 1:12:55

And I want to ask your listeners a question, but how did we become bound to a law that was never written for us? Unless you were born Jewish, that law was never written for you. Even the death that Jesus died for you was not sacrificial.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:08

It's Passover.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:09

It was Passover blood. Yeah. Because you weren't Jewish, you were Gentile. Yeah. So the law was never written for you. And you've put yourself in bondage to a law that was never made out for you to even read, much less live under. And Jesus, and they even said in the new covenant, it says where there is no law, there is no sin.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:24

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:25

And did he not do away the first to establish the second? Yeah. Was not the handwriting of ordinances that were against you, were they not blotted out on the cross?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:32

They were hung on the tree.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:34

Which the coolest part is if you look in, so I believe that a lot of Christians they get weirded out by reading other stuff, but I I read a lot of like Greek mythology. The reason being is because you can see uh like you know, Platoism all throughout the new covenant. Oh, yeah. Let me say this. So Hades is not a Jewish reference, Hades is a Greek reference. And when Paul is talking about Hades, Hades is a god. Hades was a god that you would go and pay your account to once you died. So once you died, you would go to Hades, the God, and he would, you know, the balancing scales, he'd weigh out the good and the bad, and then it would determine by the weighing of the scales which which level of hell you would go into. There were three levels of hell.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:14

So what he's saying is those handwriting of ordinances that were against you, Hades. So when he said this to a Greek listener, they fully understood exactly what he was saying. That's right. So that's what I'm saying. Like to read like the Greek stuff, to understand that it brings more understanding to the new covenant because he was speaking to a Greek audience. Two-thirds of everyone says, Oh, you know, Paul was called to the Gentiles, but you don't under you don't want to understand anything about the Gentile culture that he was talking to, which Paul is a masterful teacher. He's going to use references from what there's from what they study, what they know. So the more we understand that, the more our Bible opened up to us. Because he's saying the God, the the the God where he would take every wrong you've done, Jesus has done away with that. The God, even in Acts, I think 17 or 19, he says to the the he walks into a city and it says to the unknown God. Yep. And he says, Hey, listen, the God that you worship is Yahweh. You don't even know who you're worshiping, but he's receiving your praise for it. People don't want to hear that. But he is. You call him a different name, he understands it. He knows nobody else is getting that glory. He is. That's true, man. And it awakens them to the true gospel. Hey, even before you knew you were worshiping him, he was the one accepting it. He was the one blessing.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:24

What are you strewing up on over there, Adrian? How'd you know?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:29

No, um,

You Become What You Eat

SPEAKER_05 1:15:30

I mean, really, everything y'all just said really lined up with what I was about to say. Um, I always say you are what you eat. So if you're consistently consuming law, you're gonna produce the fruit of law. That's right. If you continue to focus on union and oneness with God, you're gonna produce love.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:56

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:57

You're gonna produce light.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:59

That's good.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:00

So it when that the question that you presented to us, I believe, is lack of consuming the correct product. Even in our natural eating, you eat on the wrong thing, you're gonna reap the repercussions of eating on that wrong thing. True, it's true. So if you're constantly consuming junk, which some people might get mad at me calling the law junk, but if you look at it, it's really not good for you.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:31

No, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:16:32

So if you consistently consume junk and you never decide to focus on your true identity, you're gonna produce junk, and your life is gonna continue to go from the highs to low, from the high to low. When if you just focus on these things, Jesus and your union and you being in the dance, if you focus on that, you can't help but produce the same things that Jesus produced. And I was just talking about this the other week how um love produces every single miracle, whatever it is, love produces it. We went to um Daytona uh maybe four years ago, maybe now, and I told them, I was like, man, you know, when I was around these addicts and um homeless people, I was like, it was so easy for gifts and everything to just flow. It was effortless. But when I stepped out of that and I came back into the church, I felt restricted again. And I was like, What what is that? And I I figured it out. There was so much love that I was able to give because I had compassion upon these people versus in the church. There was a certain standard that I was looking for.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:11

So because of those certain standards, I was restricted as to what I could do because the fruits of the spirit can only be produced through love. Through love.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:21

Faith works through love.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:25

So um yeah, I I say the more you consume and eat on Jesus, Jesus said, unless you eat upon my flesh and drink of my blood, you can't follow me. So if I continue to eat the daily bread, Jesus, if I continue to eat on that, I can't help but produce love. And as I produce love, I become the light, I become that lighthouse.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:55

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:56

And now I'm able to draw men to me from the darkness because I'm producing love, which in return is generating the light.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:06

Yeah. You become what you behold. Yeah. And

Beholding Jesus As Warfare

SPEAKER_02 1:19:10

yeah, it's like, you know, I used to say one of the first things that I wrote when I came out of the system in 2015, I wrote a book on spiritual warfare. It's called Liar, Exposing Myths in Spiritual Warfare. And in that book, I I said 90% of the people who preach on the spirit of Jezebel have her.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:31

Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:33

Because, and like all the people that focus on demonology, the demonic, you always notice they're under another attack. Yeah, they're under, you know, they're dealing with warfare, blah, blah, blah. It's because you are digesting their world, you're giving them attention. Yes, you are battling because you are staring at the wrong thing. I love what Bill Johnson used to say. He was like, the way spiritual warfare works for us is we aim at Jesus. And if the enemy ever gets in the crosshairs of that, we just pull the trigger. So true. Like that, that's it. And um, but becoming what you behold and the law, literally, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3, he said, When the law of Moses is read, a veil lays upon your eyes. And so the law veils people. Yeah. It veils them from who they are, it veils them from seeing who God is, it veils them from seeing the Trinity, it veils them from their union. But he said, But the moment that a person sees Christ, hears Christ, the veil is taken away. And we all with unveiled faces are beholding in them as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. And then we are being transformed into that same image with ever-increasing glory.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:52

Isn't that Greek word right there, pros? Face to face face to face with the divine. You pull the veil back and realize you know what it is? It's pulling the veil back and you realize that you look so much like them. It's not that it is a mirror, but you look so much like them that you're like, holy crap. That's what happens when this union message. And then nobody has to sit here and go.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:12

Like, like, since 2015, 2016, that I really heard the gospel. Like, I mean, I walk through the season where I'm like, oh my God, I haven't prayed the sinner's prayer in a while and felt convicted for that. And like, oh my God. And and um, you know, and walk through all of that. Because I mean, legalism is bondage, man. But without going deep into that, because I know we get other things to do today, but I I feel like um, you know, coming out of such legalism and dealing with all of that, um, like, oh my God, I didn't pray the sinner's prayer. Oh my god, like I I hadn't thought about sin in a while. Like that was strange to me. But then I realized like the more I beheld him, the less struggles, temptations, different things that I had. I can't, I am foolproof that um because the sin for me wasn't just behavior, it was thoughts of I'm not I'm just not good enough. That's sin too. That's faithlessness. Like that's no faith. Yeah, for sure. It's it's like I'm just never good enough. I'd I never add up. And then all of a sudden, man, I just started beholding Jesus, and then that's when Romans 8 comes up, and it's like there's now therefore no condemnation to the mirror in Christ Jesus. It's amazing that as long as you look in the law, you can't understand Romans. No, you can't as long as you look at the law. The only book that you'll really get anything out of in the New Testament is the book of James, and I'm gonna throw something out there. I don't even think James is a New Testament book. No, it was you know it was written prior, it was written before um we had the the the meeting uh with the Church of Antioch, yeah, where they decided to know what to do with the Gentiles. So that was written prior to the gospel being open to the Council of Nicaea.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:11

Almost did not let that book in. So at one of the councils of Nicaea, the that was a so the book of Revelation was one sticky one they didn't that a lot of people couldn't agree on, and the book of James. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:24

Because yeah, it's a whole thing that might be a whole nother. And I don't want to people already accuse me of like people get so mad when you talk about this stuff, but it's like it's there, it's true, it's just historical.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:36

You're just trying to throw the whole Bible out. I'm like, no, no, no, I'm just trying to be honest.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:41

This is this is why we don't have any cultural influence with mainstream Christianity, is because we're not willing to lean into the tension, and there's real tension there about translations, there's real tension there about what was added to in your in your King James version of the Bible. There like I know people that legitimately still believe Jesus spoke in King James.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:04

Yeah, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:05

I I know people that legitimately believe like King James is the only Bible, and it's like so. What do what do the Indians do in India? Because their Bible's in Tamil. Um, what do Hispanic people do when their Bible is in Spanish? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:23

Well, brother, you just ain't gonna make it.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:25

I know, right? It's like how how ridiculous um the the thought processes, but I love that God's restoring the beauty of the gospel. Yes, and the beauty of the gospel is helping

Flowers On The Table

SPEAKER_02 1:24:40

us create more beauty in the relationships, yeah. Yeah, and that's what I I feel. I have a friend that's coming in um from Ireland this month. Um, I'm doing a birthday, I turned 40 this month, and um, so I'm getting up there. I'm getting up there, man. Um I'm already there.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:59

I'm waiting for you. You're there.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:01

You're waiting. You're waiting for waiting million.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:03

Listen, I I get called out now. It's crazy, man. Yeah, that's wild. I'm 31.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:08

I will punch you. So no. Um turn 40. We're doing a birthday celebration, but the next day we're having our first like partners' gathering. So we got people coming from all over. We had a family coming in from Ireland, and Craig is one of the, I believe he's an apostle. He's one of the greatest revelators of the word I've ever heard in my life. Wow. And he's getting this message um in a in a crazy way. And so I'm probably gonna have him share some when he when he's in. And uh, if you guys are free, you guys need to work out. I'd love for y'all to be there.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:42

Just consider us there.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:44

So, so like it it's crazy. But he told me this. He said, Mark, he said, when I first got into this message, he said, um, the first 20 minutes of my preaching, he was like, it was so great. And he said, all of a sudden, it would go from this grace-filled union message that changes your life to all of a sudden now I'm just bashing the church and just tearing, like you were talking about. I just start tearing stuff down. Yeah, and I get that because I was the same way. 2015, 2016, I came out, I got that sort of systemic exodus. I was flipping it, dude. You guys are wrong, you know, like you because you I think that's natural because you feel lied to. You feel like yeah, they kept you from something. And the reality is, guys, they didn't know any better. Exactly. And and and so that shows that we were getting this message, but we still lack the fruit of love. Yeah, you know, but that's your immaturity and you're you're lashing out. So he would he was like 20 minutes, it would be all this grace-filled union stuff. And he's like, then after that, he was like, I would just be like, This is what's wrong with the church, and we need to change this. And he so long story short, the Lord like invites him into this process of inner healing. He starts going to counseling, he starts like really going deep. He basically ends up in this encounter where the Lord has him like shows him what his preaching's like. And I can't remember what he said. He tells this story so beautifully, but it's not a Molotov cocktail, but there's a particular type of bomb that you can throw with your hand. And you have to be real careful how you throw it, because if you try to throw it like a baseball, you can actually explode on yourself and catch yourself on fire. So you have to kind of toss it like full hand extension so it doesn't have that resistance. And so he's like, he sees himself doing this, and when he's doing it in his preaching, he realizes he's throwing bombs at the church and it's but it's exploding on himself. That's good. Well, when he gets this revelation, he said, Mark, when this revelation starts happening, he said, I would go to preach, and he's like, All of a sudden, my immune system he developed an autoimmune response and like eczema broke out on his legs and his body. And the Lord said, This is how bad. This is you're you're continu like you're getting this new message, but you're actually triggering your nervous system and evoking an immune response because you're still warring with the right message. Wow. Wow. And he said, so he's through so he sees himself throwing, but he's catching himself on fire. And the Lord was like, that's what's happening in your body. So he said, the Lord said, I want to show you something different. And he said he he in the dream or in the vision, he said, he's sees himself with that bomb in his hand, like this, and he's going to throw it. And when he looks back, the bomb turns into flowers. And he said, All of a sudden, the Holy Spirit guides his hands instead of throwing the bomb, he said, all of a sudden he saw the flowers and then he sees the Holy Spirit guide his hands and he set down flowers at the table. Wow. And he said, the Lord spoke to him and said, if you want to throw bombs and try to reform the church that way, you'll be the only person to pay for it. He said, But if you want real transformation to happen, he said, instead of asking where should I throw a bomb, he said, you need to be asking me where can I set some flowers on the table? Wow. And so I believe that becomes a big piece of DNA for what I'm even doing with this podcast with the family table is I'm literally going, God, bring people around this table and let's put flowers on the table so people can look in and go, beauty is what's going to save the world. Like the beauty of the gospel. And I think you guys have a really cool relationship that has withstood the test of time. And not just the challenges of life, but then the challenges of coming into a new message. Yeah. And coming into it's one thing to wrestle through life, it's another thing to wrestle through theology. People kill each other over this stuff. No, seriously, like in the world, people are still killing each other over theology. And um, and it's it's a real war. You guys have walked through that. Yeah. And I think that if you can come out on the other side of that intact, that just displays the beauty of the gospel. And that's why I invited you guys to be here today was like to go. These guys have walked through stuff. Like these are not guys that are just like, oh, well, we're just good church kids. It's like, no, grew up in the church, experienced some really crappy stuff in life. Yeah. But the gospel is what rescued us. The gospel is what restored our identity. The gospel is the reason why we have amazing marriages now, have relationship with our kids that's valuable. Is the gospel. And the gospel didn't lower the standard. It was legalism that lowered the standard. It was the gospel that raised you all up out of that stuff. And uh, I think it's a beautiful thing. So I

Practical Fruit And Final Invitations

SPEAKER_02 1:30:45

really appreciate you guys being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:46

And last testament, let me say this, man. From this message, the fruit that's grown is exactly what you said. We've become better fathers, we've become better husbands because we're more intentional about it. Because honestly, in the in the old thing, it's Chase, make sure the church is taken care of. Because if if the if you aren't taking care of his sheep, things at home, he ain't gonna take care of you. If you ain't paying your tithe, he's gonna make your house suffer. So you we've been hearing stuff like this, and man, just even when you're talking about spiritual warfare earlier, the only reference to spiritual warfare in the new covenant, every every reference to it says to stand, to be, or to rest. Yep. Doesn't tell you to fight, it tells you to rest. Hey, cast your cares on me for I care for you. I'm gonna let God, I'm gonna let God deal with it. I'm gonna let Jesus, I'm gonna let my dad deal with it. You know, you come you come after me, you can deal with my dad. Yeah, yeah, you know, and uh that's I think that's the most beautiful thing is we've all our values are in the right place now because we've made Jesus the main thing and we understand our union with him. Now I'm able to freely have union with my wife and not feel bad about it. Come on, man. I'm able to have freely have union with my kids and not feel like I'm taking away from God, I'm worshiping him in that moment. And it's just a way more beautiful gospel. And we believe this is the true gospel. Union is the true gospel.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:54

And I just have like just one more thing to say. The another reason why relationships are so important is because the Bible says, give and it shall be given unto you. Pressed down, shaken together. Shall men pour into your bosom? Yeah. Your prosperity is tied to the relationships that you have. Yeah, that's right. He didn't say, I'm going to magically open a portal and give you the prosperity.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:18

Yeah. Oh, you want to open portals again?

SPEAKER_05 1:32:21

Come on, God, there's strange over here. Uh that's not what he said. He said, men shall pour into your bosom. Which means at some point the Bible says, in order to gain a friend, you gotta show yourself friendly. So in order for you to gain the prosperity that you were meant to gain, I'm not just talking about money.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:42

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:43

But in order for you to get to that prosperous, prop, prosperous point, in order for you to get there, you gotta make the right relationships. That's right. So if you uh look down upon a man because you don't feel that he has much to give you, you never know what God has tied in that man.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:03

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:04

You don't know. That's right. So like he said, he's his dad always says you treat the janitor as if he was the CEO.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:12

Correct.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:13

Yeah, that's right. That's how you treat. So you you gotta be careful because you can have this gospel, but still lack love. 100% you can have it. Like I tell everybody when you go and read the book of John, it says in there that the commandment that was left for us is really that he said, I'm giving you a new commandment, but he wasn't saying a new law.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:38

He says, Love your brother. That's your that's that's the law I'm leaving you with. That's the law I want you to understand.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:45

It's the only proof that you have the gospel. Yeah, yes. That's I mean, that's the only proof you have. Yeah, is he said, John, the apostle of beloved identity. Come on. He's like, um, yeah, it's great. You say you have a relationship with God. You prove it though by how you treat people.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:03

It's so good, man. Yeah. And I'll just say this really quick because you said that story and kind of really resonated with me because when I really filmed this gospel, I basically was shaking people saying, Wake up, you idiot. Because this is it. And I can't shake you and wake you up. So this is for somebody out there. I can't shake you and wake you up and hope that you're gonna get this gospel. It has to be revealed to you. But also don't feel bad if you don't, because God is not gonna hold you responsible for revelation that you do not have. So um, it'll come. So in all that getting, get understanding. So it's good, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:33

Yeah, understanding's important. Yeah, understanding is very important. A lack of understanding costs Israel 40 more years. They were only supposed to be in Egyptian captivity 400 years, they were in at 440. Yep. And Stephen said in Acts 7 the reason why that they spent 40 more years is because when Moses struck that Egyptian, he was telling them it's time to get out of here. And people said, Well, Moses had to go on the backside of the desert and they had to spend 40 more years because Moses rose before his time. That is not true. Moses rose in the exact time, in the year he turned 40, it was 400 years that they were in captivity, and he was saying, if you understand, it's time to get out. They failed to understand, it cost them 40 years. So understanding is a big, big key. Yeah, two things. Number one, I'd love for you guys to follow these guys, Living Beyond Sunday podcast. Um, they're gonna have me on all the time, so it's gonna be great. Oh, yes, and um this is and they're they're like trying to get their last word in, like they're never gonna do another podcast with me, but we're gonna bring them back and do another podcast here. So, number one, go follow them there. Number two, you guys have a trip coming up to Africa that you're trying to raise money for, plane tickets, um stay just where we're staying, food, uh yeah, food, lodging, yeah, and then um you guys obviously pour in and support whatever works are going on there. So I think you guys told me that you need like 15,000, just like baseline to get the trip. There's somebody watching this, no manipulation in this. You've been looking for a place to sew, you could pay for this whole trip. So go check out the Living Beyond So where would they go to donate or for your trip or whatever?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:15

Okay, so we have a GoFundMe right now. Um, so you can see exactly where all your funds are going, where we're at on it. We'll share that with you if you put it in, whatever, or you can add it to it. Um and if you want to find our socials, we also have a link tree. So you can find us on Facebook, uh, Instagram. Yep. Um any of our socials.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:32

If you go to Instagram, yeah. If you go to Instagram, our link tree is linked at the top, and it'll take you to every everything living beyond that.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:38

And if you need it, we have the uh tax forms that we can.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:43

Yeah, we have tax forms, yeah, all that.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:44

So nice. So 15k. I'd love for everybody in our audience, or even if it's just one person, take care of the whole thing and let's send them to Africa. So, guys, thank y'all so much for being a part of this. And um, thank you for sharing your story. And I think that what's so valuable in this hour, there's so many people that are posers online that literally are trying to impress everybody with their Superman cape. I think that this is the hour where people need the vulnerability, the transparency, and and uh for leaders to take the cape off and go, I've walked through hell. Yeah, and I've walked through some stuff that wasn't fun, but it has revealed the beauty of the gospel to me. So I really appreciate you guys like sharing your heart and sharing the journey and the messy parts too, I think is really important. And man, I just I'm looking forward to building this relationship with you guys. I cannot believe I was here for like five years and you guys never knew it. That's wild, yeah. And um, and but I but I always tell people when you try to rush the purposes of God, you'll produce an Ishmael every time. Yeah, you can have the right seed in the wrong womb. Yes, and like I believe that there are things that the Lord had to do in me. Us too. Us two. But when I was here the first time, I still think that I had a my church vision when I was first here. Yeah. And I think what I can truly say now is there's just a kingdom vision here to go. Yes, um, let's build the kingdom of God. And like I would have said that I was that way when I had my church, but you know how it is. When you have your thing, it's your thing. Yeah, and um, it's really hard to get out of your thing because you feel all the responsibility and all the things. And I I just realizing, like, man, this is his thing, it's always been his thing. I may play a part in that, but um, I'm just thankful that this time back, God is making those connections with people like yourself. And so I I got a feeling that if you come to Covington, when we start having these gatherings in the fall and and any kind of events, you're probably gonna see these guys here. So go follow them, go check out what they're doing, and uh really appreciate you guys joining us at the family table today. Love you.