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When Common Sense Left the Building
There's something that needs to be said about the US men's Olympic hockey team — and the absolute morons who took so much static at them for winning gold.
If we can't rally around that, our country is lost without hope.
Think about it. Nobody actually knows those players' political leanings. Nobody knows how many of them are immigrants — and for the record, the immigrants on that team are playing for Sweden, playing for Russia, playing for Canada. Nobody knows how many of those hockey players vote Democrat. And it doesn't matter. The people rallying behind that team just wanted America to win.
Meanwhile, a certain crowd — the woke ideology left — couldn't bring themselves to cheer. Instead, they posted little grievance statements about how "disappointing" it is to see the president using athletes as pawns.
That's what that is.
There are lots of people on Olympic teams who lean left. We don't care. We still want you to do well. We still want you to win the gold. We don't hate you. That same basic posture just does not exist on the other side — and that's a sickness. Trump Derangement Syndrome gets laughed off as a punchline, but it's a real thing. It's a mental illness when you look down on someone for nothing they've done or said — people you don't even know.
And it doesn't stop at hockey. The Kash Patel pile-on over celebrating with a beer — popping a cork, some of it ending up on the floor the way it always does — while there are plenty of photos of plenty of presidents doing that same exact thing. That's not a moral failing. That's how people celebrate. And the breathless outrage about Trump needing congressional approval for action against Iran — while Obama ran an eight-month campaign in Libya? Y'all were cheering him on then. What's changed? The hypocrisy is the problem. It's wrong on every level.
What we're seeing is a "day in the life of a crazed liberal" playing out in real time:
- Tonight we'll go to the "nobody is above the law" protest
- Tomorrow we'll go to the "protect people who are here by breaking the law" protest
- After that, the "ICE needs to show their identity" protest
- And then the "you don't need an identity to vote" protest
The common sense is just gone. It's gone.
Take just the last few years of the Biden administration through today — just that window in all of human history — pitch it as a movie to a Hollywood producer ten years ago. It would've been rejected as not even plausible. Too dystopian. There's no way people could be this disengaged from reality, talking out of both sides of their mouth and thinking they're right with both things.
And through all of it, a left-leaning major network ran a poll claiming most Americans are not for "this war" — playing it like a finding, trying to use it against the administration. But who is raising their hand saying, "I'm for this war. Absolutely, more war, please"? Nobody is going to say that. Nobody takes that survey. They just twist things so subtly to lead you into making an assumption or an assessment that isn't accurate at all.
Now, the Iranians who live in the LA County area? Flooding the streets, celebrating the action taken against the Islamic Republic of Iran. And CNN had to cover it. There's comic relief in all these things, even in the midst of the disappointment.
California politics — it's completely corrupt. You look at a map of California painted red and blue and it's mostly red. But it's the urban centers, and there are a lot of them, that are blue. They have their supermajority of Democrats in the house, in the senate, and their governor. So they just run roughshod over the rest of it. Terrible policies that are not good for people. Neighborhoods burned to the ground, homeowners refused the right to rebuild, and nobody can seem to stop it.
Meanwhile, there are people in the streets of California — and in London and Paris and even in Canada — thanking the USA, thanking Israel for what they're doing.
You just can't deny it.
Salvaged by God Deep Dive: Awaken from Sleep
Romans 13:11-12
With all the chaos all around us and everything falling apart, the question is: how then should the Christian be?
We've got to accelerate our discipleship. We've got to accelerate being in truth. And in that truth, we have to be stronger — push more to be a lead servant of Christ for such a time as this — and then let the chips fall where they may.
It starts with a more serious view of sin. J.C. Ryle was a pastor who's long since passed away, but his words are as sharp today as they ever were. He said this:
"True repentance begins with knowledge of sin. It goes on to work sorrow for sin. It leads to confession of sin before God. It shows itself by a thorough breaking off from sin. And it results in producing a deep hatred for all sin."
Romans 13:11-12 frames the urgency of exactly that:
"Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep. For now salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is almost gone and the day is near. Therefore, let us rid ourselves of the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light."
Satan counterfeits everything — including going woke, right? The world has its version of awakening. This is the real one.
The night is far spent, as another translation puts it. It is not the hour for comfort. It's the hour for clarity. It's not the time to ask whether we enjoy the assignment. It is time to be faithful to it. There are days you'd choose quiet over exposure, simplicity over controversy, belonging over standing between two worlds. But that's exactly what we have to change our paradigm about — today, in my world, what can I do to serve Jesus?
Here's what's powerful about what Ryle said: at the end, he talks about how true repentance creates a hatred toward sin. Because when you realize how sinful your sin really is, there is a tremendous amount of pain and sorrow that goes into that repentance. And so — yes, we are so happy, we are so glad that God forgives us. But we don't want to go back to that place of deep sorrow and regret. Therefore, we're going to strive toward the holiness of God. Not that we can accomplish it in and of ourselves — but in a surrendered life to Christ, he brings us there.
If repentance is not creating in you a deep contempt for sin, that's a problem.
God's goal in saving you is to make you more like Christ. That is the end goal. As you're going through the sanctification process, as you become more like his Son, you also will hate what he hates. You're being transformed, beholding God from glory to glory. It's becoming — letting the heart of Christ become our heart. And that really is the miracle. Because who else can take someone who's been thrown in prison because they murdered someone and change that heart? Who can do that? No one can do that except God. That is the true miracle. Not the behavior modification — the heart condition.
A lot of people want to twist that into "whatever Jesus did, we can do the same thing" — and they start getting into all these bad theologies and doctrines where they're putting self and earthly experience over the heart of Christ. But it's the heart condition. It's always the heart condition.
Paul says be imitators of me as I am of Christ — 1 Corinthians 11:1. Picture it like this: on one side, a majestic lion representing Christ. On the other side, a very bad sketch of an attempted lion saying, "Bro, I'm literally trying."
That's all of us. That's the whole Christian life right there.
We're going to have a hard time imitating the apostle Paul the way he imitated Christ — but that's not an excuse to stop trying. If you're in the kingdom, you have a job today. That job is to be like Paul imitating Christ, to the best of your ability, right now.
A Word on Legalism
Legalism is a word people love to slap on anyone they disagree with. So here's the measuring stick: no command of God is legalism. Encouraging people to adhere to the commands and desires of God is never legalism. But when you go outside of what God has said and impose your own standard — when you're telling someone they're not a real Christian because they showed up late to a meeting, or because they admitted they were doing 65 in a 55 — that's legalism. The Bible doesn't say that's a sin. Adding to what God said is the problem.
Don't let the pendulum swing too far in either direction. On one side, sin runs rampant and it doesn't matter because God loves you. On the other, someone is defacing the name of Christ because you wore jeans to church. Neither of those is the heart of Christ.
We have a sin problem in our bodies and it's not going to go away. But we don't accept it. We have the discipline to do better because God has standards and we know what they are and we try to adhere to them. We're going to fall short — so we give each other forgiveness, we cut ourselves some slack. But we don't just say "that's just me" and keep walking along like that. You are a new creature in Christ. You've been given new life. Let's focus on that.
Gramster Rant: The Church Growth Industrial Complex
Here's the fork in the road that will define a ministry.
On one side: growing your church. On the other: growing the kingdom. At the outset it looks like the path barely splits — just a couple of inches apart. But it's like a Y — you step off and think you've barely moved, keep walking and you're in a completely different direction.
The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren cost us thousands of churches. They took down crosses. They got rid of the hymnals. They said you need to be more about the seeker, you need these programs to grow your church — instead of: you need to be faithful to the word, you need to preach the word, sola scriptura, and let God grow his church. It might take you from 300 down to 200. But those 200 will be quite strong, rather than going from 50 to 5,000 on a foundation that won't hold.
Now, the interwebs know when you're a pastor. So the inbox gets pounded with stuff like this: "The 76-word church welcome email that works. For ministries of any size."
You don't even have to click it to know exactly where it goes — a long manipulation on how if you really love Jesus, you'd want more people in the seats, and for $99 a month or a one-time fee of $79.99, they'll give you all the cool words that make the human being respond like a robot.
How about we pray over it? How about when someone comes to our church and fills out a connection card, we just say — hey, thanks for coming, can we do anything for you? How about we do it in a real way that honors Christ?
Three words for the 76-word email company: step off, loser.
And it's not just the email. Go look at Christian broadcasting thumbnails on YouTube. For a lot of these channels, that YouTube account is the job — they make all their money there, posting every other day. And it's ad nauseam sensationalism. You're not going to believe this. They didn't want you to know this. You won't believe who's doing this bad thing. Someone blurred out in the thumbnail. You watch the whole video and it turns out it's some celebrity breaking his diet by having a Big Mac. Just lame. Completely lame.
Authenticity matters. Authentic Christianity is what is lacking. People just aren't like that — they're more complicated, more nuanced, more deep than an email is going to compensate for. Look at the people Jesus interacted with — all walks of life, all different backgrounds. He dealt with them in completely different ways. That is the key to being mature in Christ: who is this person in front of me, what's the best way to relate to them, what is it that they're really needing?
If your emails aren't working, one reason is that everybody is doing 76-word emails now. Every pizza restaurant, every real estate agent, every church in the country. The inbox is flooded and you don't want to click on any of them. Some months our church email open rate is 36%, other months 52% — it's never above 60%. People just don't function with email the way they used to.
Here's what's actually true: if you send a 76-word email and somebody shows up — you better have the authenticity when they walk through that door. Because that's what's really going to be different. That's what nobody can package into a $79.99 kit.
The Plan That Actually Works
So here's a really good plan that will grab people's attention and make them want to come to your church.
It's called prayer.
Every Sunday, before church, a group gathers — no sign-up requirement, no obligation. Come if you want, don't if you don't. We spend fifteen minutes praying for the service. Praying for every single person who's going to walk through that door. Praying for the people who are teaching and leading. Praying for the elders and leaders making decisions on behalf of the congregation. That happens every week, pretty much without fail.
That makes a difference. That makes a huge difference.
And you don't even have to do it that way. We went to a church once where a small group — maybe ten or eleven people — would gather every Tuesday night. They'd go to the church, go to the altar, and just pray for whatever the church needed. No program. No format. Small group. Just people on their knees.
And God is faithful.
So you can take your little brains off yourself for one moment, put them back on God where they belong, petition him for the things you want and need and care about — and you will see God work in a really amazing way. Even if your church remains only 100 people.
Do we want the broadcast to grow to where this could be a few people's full-time work, like other ministries? Of course. But we're not going to figure out 76 words of manipulation to get there. We're going to keep using the best practices that line up with scripture.
Because here's the thing — I don't need to grow my church to 600 people. We're full every Sunday and nobody here wants to go to more than one service. We love the fellowship we have. I can name four elders off the top of my head that I can't replace. I can preach on Sunday in a hoodie and everybody's cool with it. I've met businessmen, farmers, regular folks, executive types — and they are just a better cut of people than anywhere I've ever been. Why? Because God called me here and put me here.
If I got an offer to go pastor a church of 2,000 people in Indianapolis at $300,000 a year — my whole life is a lie. Contentment with godliness is great gain. That means there's no amount of money, no subscriber count, no seats filled that changes the assignment.
Just be faithful. See what God does. Let God lift you up. Praise him when you win. Praise him when you lose. Praise him when it rains. Praise him when it's drought.
Salvaged by God Deep Dive: Spiritual Warfare and the Three-Year-Old
Matthew 4:4 • Romans 12:2 • Ephesians 6 • James 4:7 • 1 Thessalonians 5:17
Counterfeit Christianity is everywhere. And one of the most dangerous counterfeits right now is how the American church has been taught to approach spiritual warfare.
Consumer Christianity gives us a version that looks like a lot of dramatic yelling at the devil — declarations, commands, warfare prayers performed with the confidence of someone who thinks they're bringing something significant to the fight.
Here's what that actually looks like.
Picture a three-year-old who's barely learned to speak, yelling at the intruder, while being held by her big, large father who has a gun pointed at the unarmed intruder. Does the child's yelling contribute to the outcome? Not one bit. Daddy's got it handled.
That's spiritual warfare. We were told to say "get behind me Satan" — just like the Lord said. That's the only time you ever really talk to the enemy directly. Otherwise, you just trust Jesus.
Here's another picture. The army is coming across the grass. All the men are fortified, armed to the teeth, ready to hold the fort. Somebody says, "Hey — here comes a three-year-old who just got out of diapers. Let's put a gun in his hand to help."
Said no one ever.
That's us trying to fight on our own strength. Recognizing our smallness in that equation is exactly the opposite of what consumer Christianity in America tries to teach us. It tries to make us feel like we're central to our own story. But when you get right down to it, if you are an authentic Christian who recognizes your sin and is genuinely trying to imitate Paul imitating Christ — you are going to realize that you're not much. And that is exactly what God is after.
How Scripture Says to Stand
So how do you actually combat spiritual attacks while walking in your calling? Here's what the word says:
Use scripture as your weapon (Matthew 4:4) — That's how Jesus himself answered the enemy, every single time. "Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." The word is the weapon.
Guard your heart and your mind (Romans 12:2) — "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Transform your thinking to align with God's. That's the second thing.
Rely on God's strength, not your own — Because again, you're not the armed soldier in that picture. You're the three-year-old.
Stay rooted in prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:17) — Pray without ceasing. You stay connected because you drift without it.
Submit to God and resist the devil (James 4:7) — "Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you." That's all you have to do. A lot of that resisting is "get behind me Satan" — and then turning all your attention to Jesus. Not engaging, not arguing, not commanding. Just turning to the Father.
Put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6) — Believe the biblical truths. Declare victory in Christ. Pray with boldness. Stand firm against the enemy.
Those are the basics. It's like basketball camp — three-man weave, dribbling drills, free throws, layups again. You do them as a beginner because they're foundational, and you do them as a seasoned pro because they're still true. Even veteran players run the same drills. We veer off the basics without even realizing it — the way someone who learned proper handwriting in elementary school, stopped practicing, and finds their penmanship barely recognizable years later. The drift is gradual and almost invisible.
That's why we read the word every day. That's why we sit under teaching week after week. That's why we hang out in fellowship. We drift without it.
The Violinist and the Everything
A young man walked up to a concert violinist and said, "I would do anything. I would do anything to play like you."
The old man said simply, "I have done everything to play like me."
Some people say I would do anything, I would give anything for the Lord to use me. Well then — do the anything. Throw yourself into the scriptures until they get into your being, until you're absorbed into them. Throw yourself on your knees and ask God to help you spend more time with him. The more you discover the scriptures, the more you will discover that God hates sin and God loves you. And then you will start to hate the sin that is already in you. And when that happens, you will want to see it eradicated — day by day, hour by hour.
One of the greatest things that can happen in a Christian life is crossing over from "I don't want to sin so I lose the blessings of God" to "I don't want to sin against my God." Learn that from David. He didn't want to let God down. So he kept trying to do everything he thought God would want him to do — not out of fear, but out of love. In that cave, when Saul was right there — instead of taking him down, he cut off the hem of the robe. That's the fruit of a heart genuinely reshaped.
Surrounding yourself with a godly community is worth more than gold. That community is what keeps the drift from happening. It's what keeps you going back to the fundamentals.
Right On or Way Off?
Three statements. Either right on or way off. You decide.
Statement One
"Bad theology will only pay this side of eternity. Be assured of that."
RIGHT ON.
Here's the best straight-up conversational argument against the prosperity gospel — name it and claim it, God wants you healthy and wealthy — that's ever been put together simply. It goes like this:
So what you're telling me is the God of the universe — the God who created the mountains and the oceans, every cell, every living being, everything that swims in the sea and walks upon the earth — he created all that. In fact, he knit me in my mother's womb. I am his creation, made in his image. And if I accept the work of Jesus, I become his child. And you're telling me the only way I unlock his blessings is by giving you my money?
How stupid is that on the surface of it?
Yes, there's a principle of seed time and harvest. There's a principle of the joyful, cheerful giver walking in the blessings of God. Malachi says trust God and he will open the windows of heaven and bless you. But that doesn't necessarily mean pennies from heaven, or tens from heaven, or Benjamins from heaven. That's a spiritual blessing. It's a relationship. That's it. This isn't a casino.
And you don't need a mediator between you and God. You have one. His name is Jesus. Simple. It really is.
Here's a measuring stick for bad theology: it is almost always focused on this life — what you get, what you have, what you can do. Good theology is focused on what God has done. The one focused on the one sheep is bad theology. Focus on the shepherd. That's good theology. It's always about the king. The entire Bible is not written about us — it's written about God.
God will not be mocked. You will reap what you sow. If you have the Holy Spirit sealed with your spirit at salvation — how could you continue to take advantage of God's people? That's the biggest disconnect. You might get some money on this side. But repent before it's too late, because you don't want to be on the wrong side on the other side.
Contentment with godliness is great gain. That means you can have less money, a smaller house, used cars instead of new, all kinds of issues — but you will know that God's sovereignty is over it. And if it's up to you, you're going to do right by God. Not because you're afraid of losing blessings, but because you don't want to sin against the God who saved you.
Statement Two
"Beware of the pastor who has a big podcast and a small church."
WAY OFF.
Podcast size and church size have no bearing on each other. None. This podcast has 12,000 subscribers. The church is about 250 people. Both are small, really. We know pastors with 1,500 people coming to their church who can't get 100 listens on their podcast. These numbers have nothing to do with each other — it's like saying the guy with a large TV will always drive a four-cylinder car. They just don't correlate.
A pastor in a small rural town is naturally going to have a small church — not because he's ineffective, but because there aren't as many people within driving distance. Get into a big metro area and you can pass three churches on your way to work every single day.
Now, here's who actually said this: Mark Driscoll.
Mark Driscoll back in the day — when he first started coming up — was a kind of truth-talker that a lot of guys like us liked and appreciated. There's a handful of his early teaching that was genuinely encouraging. And then we started watching how he got so full of himself at Mars Hill, started losing touch with authentic Christianity. What he did to Grace Church and John MacArthur's church — the book situation, all on video, you can't deny it. Then the whole Spirit of Jezebel game — a rigged, contrived little thing to sell books and try to be relevant again. When he set up shop in Arizona, he listed reputable leaders on his website as board members and overseers. They publicly said they had nothing to do with him.
He lies. He's a deceiver. He's very, very dangerous.
And now he claims to receive graphic, photographic visions of his congregation members' private lives and discusses them from the pulpit. That's not prophetic ministry. That's a cult leader. And he left a trail of tears at Mars Hill — people have come out in more recent years saying what really went on. If you want a long listen, look up The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill — it is a tragedy.
If Mark Driscoll was told by Jesus himself that he had to be a little bit irrelevant and just be faithful in a smaller community, he would walk away from Christianity altogether and claim he was deconstructing. That is how full of himself this guy is.
The statement "beware of the pastor who has a big podcast and a small church" is a defense mechanism — aimed specifically at guys like Justin Peters and Chris Rosebrough, who don't have large churches, who have sizable audiences, and who have been warning their flocks not to follow false teachers. It's not discernment. It's a tactic to squash the little church.
And in reality? The little church is the church.
Here's a question for the big churches: you've got 20,000 members in your congregation. Is there not one in there you can equip to send out and start another church? I don't get that. The elder board alone at a healthy small church — along with about 20 solid volunteers — is worth more than any huge platform. Those people can't be replaced.
Statement Three
"If standing up for sound doctrine burns a bridge, I have matches. We ride at dawn."
RIGHT ON.
The key to that whole sentence is "sound doctrine" — and the key test for whether doctrine is actually sound is whether, when you lay it next to scripture, it's indisputable. The problem is plenty of people think their false doctrine is indisputable too. So you can't skip the step of actually checking it against the word.
Jesus said narrow is the way. Hard is the path. Few find it. And those who do find the journey to be very difficult. That's what sound doctrine looks like — the narrow road, not the broad one. And if someone can no longer be around you because you won't move off that road, don't let the door hit them on the backside on the way out.
2 Corinthians 10:5 frames what we're called to:
"We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."
Some translations say tearing down arguments. This is aggressive. This is an aggressive look at what is being said in the name of God — and whatever is not accurate is decisively put aside. That's what we're called to do as Christians.
Titus 1:10-11 goes further:
"For there are many rebellious people, empty talkers and deceivers... who must be silenced, because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of dishonest gain."
That's a pretty good description of a lot of what we see today. The instruction isn't to tolerate it or coexist alongside it. The instruction is to silence it — not crush the person, but tear down the argument. And it says you need elders who are able to distinguish between false and true doctrine, and strong enough to stand up against the false. That's not optional. That's a qualification for eldership.
Revelation 2:20-22 shows the stakes:
"I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads my bond-servants astray so that they commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds."
That's shocking. If there's someone speaking on behalf of God and God didn't say that — doesn't that make you think maybe we better warn them? Maybe we better stop them from doing that, because it's not going to end well for them?
What is it when someone says "God said this" and God didn't say that? That's called taking God's name in vain. We think of that commandment as just about profanity and casual cursing. But there's way more to it. Exodus 20:7 doesn't mince words:
"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes his name in vain."
You will not be held guiltless. On the other side, that is going to matter.
Joel Osteen has helped a lot of people. But he is a false teacher. This whole best-life-now, everyday-a-Friday stuff flies in the face of contentment with godliness being great gain, regardless of circumstances. Joni Erickson Tada said it well: I thank God in all things, not for all things. That's straight from 1 Thessalonians. That's the posture we've got to get back to.
The good foundation is worth defending: original sin, virgin birth, the atoning sacrificial death of Christ, victory over death, the resurrection. Get down to those foundations and you can have fellowship across a lot of disagreements. But when someone is so far outside of authentic Christianity and biblical truth — when they're operating the way Mark Driscoll operates, the way Joel Osteen operates — you have to say goodbye. You can't let it sit because someone taught you some good things once. Still go. The good things don't neutralize the bad ones.
If someone is going to burn the bridge over your refusal to soften sound doctrine — let them. Stand on the truth and let the chips fall where they may.
Final Thoughts
Get into God's word. Memorize it to your heart — because when God brings you into a situation to help you understand it more clearly, he will use what's already in you. You don't have to have all the answers right now.
Find yourself a good teacher. Make sure they're not part of the NAR hyper-charismatic movement, not peddling a version of Christianity that promises earthly results for spiritual compliance. Make sure the Bible is the final authority. Make sure they're actually preaching it.
And stay in God's word.
Praise him when you win. Praise him when you lose. Praise him when it rains. Praise him when it's drought.
That's the whole assignment. Just be faithful.