So on the one hand I see holiness as a purpose

thing, like what am I living my

life for? I think the other side of holiness that

you see a lot in the Bible

has to do with more your own personal, I'll say

personal morality, are either

what we call good kind of virtuous things or bad

things, unholy things, right?

The more you're walking closely with God, the

more he shows you the small stuff,

opens your eyes, and you've got to confess in

that moment. When people say

like, "Oh, I just want to hear from the Holy

Spirit. I want to be more connected

to the Holy Spirit," the number one thing I'm

going to say is going back to classic

spiritual disciplines.

This is the Made to Advance podcast. I'm your

host, Brian Aulick. We're here to

inspire and equip you for your best future. Well,

welcome everybody. It's so

good to be with you today. And before we get

started, I want to ask you a favor. If

you could rate and review Made to Advance, that

would be a massive help.

That helps get the word out about the podcast to

more and more people. And

today you're in for a treat. We're gonna do

something a little bit different. Today

I have my friend Kevin Rodrigo with me, and he

served as a Navy SEAL for 14

years and is now the co-founder of an investment

firm called Starfield Front.

Kevin is part of Vengeti Church, which is the

church I pastor, and I love having

conversations with Kevin about life and about

faith. And so we had this idea. What

if Kevin came in and he led a conversation that

unpacked one of our

Sunday teachings here at Vengeti? And so I let

him pick whichever teaching he

wanted, and so we're just gonna have some good

conversation about it together, and

I'm excited to do that. So Kevin, welcome. It's

your show, man. Take it

away. Thanks, Brian. I guess the first question,

just to be in themes of your

other podcast episodes, is just tell me as it's

getting colder, how do you and

your family think about getting out of the cold

in the wintertime? Yeah, that's a

good--it is--you got to manage the cold in

Michigan. That's right. It's new to us.

It's new. Yeah, you've been here for how long now?

A year? A year and a half. A year and a

half. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, so you don't have

strategies fully deployed yet, although

you just got back from surfing, so you're kind of

working on it. That's right. But we

a while ago, we're like, we got to try to get to

Florida at least

once, and I will say now, it's our goal as we've

gotten a little older, is like twice

during the winter months. So we usually hit once

January, and then spring break.

We've had times where it's been a third time as

well. I'm not proud of that

necessarily, but yeah, it's just--and even if it's

short, you know, just a little bit.

So are you guys doing anything--I mean, you just

got back from like a surfing--

how long was it? It was six days, five days of

surfing. Yeah, and perfect weather,

I'm guessing. It was great. Yeah, it was cold. I

mean, the water temperature was 55 to 60,

and the air temperature was similar, but we wore

wetsuits, and it was great.

Okay, that's like Lake Michigan temps right there,

man. That's right. I mean, for

us, so Aubrey, she's been talking the last couple

days. She loved the surf trip.

Yeah. And she's been looking at San Diego and

Central Coast California, again, to go

in fact long weekend in February with the kids,

because we loved it so much. We want

to get the kids into it. Yeah, that's cool. We're

excited about it. It's a bummer

that we're not closer to like easy access to

surfing, but you realize

people surf here in the fall, don't you? I was

watching videos when we came back

from California, because it's--when it's stormy,

specifically, you can get

some decent chop. Yeah, it's definitely nothing

compared to a proper place to

surf, but I've seen guys out there in like icicles

just hanging off their

face and whatnot. Beards. But they get after it,

so anyway, it's good for--

Awesome. Good to have you here today, though.

Yeah, and thanks for having me,

Brian, and I appreciate you asking me back. Yeah.

After doing it last time,

almost a year ago. Yeah, which people loved your

episode so much. If you haven't

listened to Kevin's episode, you got to go listen.

Look it up. It's one of

our highest listened to episodes. Okay. Namely

because Kevin's mom listens to it

over and over and over again. I'm kidding. She

did like it, though. She commented, I remember,

saying, "This was just great." I was like, "Oh,

she's so proud of her boy."

That's awesome. She sent it to all of our

relatives and everything. Yeah, so Brian, thanks

for asking me to do this, and today we're

talking about your sermon on October 5th. Yeah.

And specifically, you gave

your sermon on 1 Corinthians 1 and surrounding

Paul writing to the

Corinthians, and you described Corinth as a

combination between New York City and

Las Vegas. And the theme there was Paul telling

the Corinthians to live

and be among the holy people, and be the holy

people. And

three key points that I want to highlight from

your sermon is, be his holy people,

and second is the Corinthians identify it's a

calling from God, and then the

third is our identity is not in an individual

calling, rather it's a

corporate calling. And I'm gonna dive into a

bunch of questions. Yeah, let's do it.

On the sermon, but before I do, I want to, as you

were starting to talk about

the sermon, you first go into Awakened Knights

that happened a little over a

month ago, and you highlight a few stories from

those. So I want to just

touch on those briefly, and then dive into a few

questions on those as

well. So you mentioned a story about a woman who

comes to Engedi and serves

in Engedi Kids, and she was being prayerful and

praying about how the

Holy Spirit, how she should... things that she

should be doing through Engedi

Kids, and through that prayer realized that she

should be building a relationship

with one of the kids' families. And then she

ended up going home, and on her

kid's shoe... Right, her own kid's, right. Her

own kid's shoe, there was a sticker with the

family, their kid on her own kid's shoe. So what

I'm curious about is, on the

theme of listening to the Holy Spirit, and this

is something that I've struggled

with historically. It hasn't been easy for me to

hear the Holy Spirit's voice.

What are the ways that the Holy Spirit speaks to

us, and then how can we be

discerning of the Holy Spirit speaking to us

versus our own voice?

Yeah, that's such a great question, and I think,

I mean, so many of us wrestle with,

"Okay, is this me? Is this God? You know, what am

I hearing?" Yeah, so I mean, I

think one of the biggest principles on that whole

conversation is, and

people always say this, I think it's a good place

to start, sometimes people say

this as like an ending point, but they'll say, "Okay,

does that thing you've sensed

or prompting you might be considering, is it in

line with Scripture?" And of course,

that's a great question to ask, like, does it

agree with the Bible, or does it, and

in some ways, I almost like better, though, like,

does it disagree with Scripture

anywhere? And the reason why I say that is

because I feel like sometimes, you

know, what God might be asking us to do, it doesn't

have necessarily this clear...

He might say like, "Hey, you're supposed to drive

and go into that store and go to

lane six. You don't know why. Does that agree

with Scripture or not?" I mean, I

don't know if the Bible's really speaking to lane

six. So to me, it's a

great place to start with like, you know, does it

agree with Scripture or does it

disagree? Because that would be clearly, if I'm

sensing something that's like

right in line with God's heart, that's a good

pointer. If it's obviously not in

line with God's Word, then this is not a good

idea. But beyond that, to me, it's

like if I get a subjective prompt and I go, "Man,

I feel like in my heart I'm just

supposed to say something," what I've learned

over time is I want to just take

a risk and say it, and I feel like--do you know

how in Genesis when God's

calling Abraham to go to the promised land, and

Abraham's like, "Where am I

supposed to go? Where is the promised land?" And

he goes, "You'll like know when

you get there." And I kind of think about that

with the Holy Spirit sometimes

where you feel a prompt and you take a step and

afterwards you're like, "Yeah,

that was the right thing." And other times

afterwards I've been like, "Yeah, maybe

that just was me." And the more I've gone through

that process, the better I've

gotten now at discerning. So let me give you an

example. I was praying with

somebody that's having heart surgery--should be

today, actually--and a young

dude, 16. And we were kind of in this group

setting, and while we were

just praying over him, different people were

praying, I just sensed the Lord gave

me a very specific thing--I mean, I sensed a very

specific thing to pray over him.

Now, you know, there maybe would have been a day

in the past where I would have

been like, "I don't know, am I supposed to pray

that? Is it from God? Is it not?"

But now with a lot of time I just have sensed

like, "Hey, I'm

gonna assume that's from God." And so I prayed

that over him, and even as I did,

like, kind of more came as I was praying, and I

thought, "This is definitely

like, this is what the Lord had me to pray for

him right at this moment."

So yeah, I think you can ask some of those basic

questions of

alignment with God's Word or not, but ultimately

I just want to encourage

people to take risks. And you know, if you sense

something, if it's a high cost

kind of thing, take longer time for discernment,

but if it's something like

saying an encouraging word, inviting somebody to

church, buying a meal for

somebody, man, what do you got to lose? I think

God just loves to see faith.

So how do you feel like you most often hear from

the Holy Spirit?

Yeah, it's interesting. On the point that you

just mentioned, I feel like

sometimes in those moments for me, there's fear.

And

questioning myself, should I be doing this in

time pressures? If someone's

coming up to me asking for something in a moment

and I feel a prompting, or just

a prompting in general, generally it's something

that's out of my comfort zone.

And there's fear that's associated with that. As

you were talking, I

thought of an example that happened just last

week. So we went up

north to the Gaylord area for three days last

week with Aubrey and the kids,

and we were driving back down south on Saturday,

and Aubrey and I were

having an argument. And through that argument, I

said a quick

prayer, "Lord, just give me the guidance here in

this conversation." And

immediately it was, "This is...you're being prideful.

And this is not

on Aubrey. You're pointing fingers at her, but it's

on you." In that moment, I knew it

was the Holy Spirit because I didn't have the

wherewithal in that

conversation when I was not in a very good spot

to

recognize that. Man, I love that. I mean, just

what you just said,

though, about taking just even a beat--it doesn't

have to be rocket science--taking

a beat to pray is such a big deal, because even

that little move

is what kind of invited you to hear from God in

that moment. It's really cool.

And it's funny. I sat there for ten minutes in

silence after I heard that,

and eventually apologized, but I didn't want to.

That was my flesh,

because I didn't want to apologize, and I

eventually did. But that was

my feeling in the moment. Did it shift the

conversation then once you apologized?

Oh, it shifted everything. Yeah. The whole

context. Yeah. We had a guy that I was--the

other day I was actually getting ready for a

message, and

sometime when I'm kind of working it out, I'll

prayer walk in my yard or on my

driveway. I've been up in my room in my study

doing all

this work, but I just gotta get outside. So I go

outside, and I'm

walking the driveway, and almost never is there

anybody out there. And all of a

sudden, some dude starts walking down my street,

and so I quickly stop preaching

out loud, which I'm not like preaching preaching,

but I am talking out loud as

I'm kind of praying and talking it through. But I

don't know. I'm kind of

walking, and this dude goes, "Hey, are you Jared's

dad?" And I'm like, "Oh man." I was

like having this moment with the Lord and the

sermon and the whole bit. And so

I said, "Yeah." And he knows Jared because of

some work stuff. He's a client of my

son's firm. And so we have a good conversation.

It's really cool. And in the

process, he tells me about an injury he's dealing

with, a back injury. Okay. And it

was funny because, like as he--and I've just met

this guy, mind you--but as he's

walking away, I felt like the Lord was saying, "You

should have offered to pray

for him right there on your driveway. You've not

met with him." And I know for

some people that are listening, they might be

like, "I mean, what's the big

deal?" But I still... It's awkward. This is a

grown man, professional,

we just met on the driveway. I'm not in my

pajamas, but not far from

it because I haven't even left the house, so I've

been just

grinding on doing this message. And so I felt

like... And he's walking away,

and I thought... And then in my mind, this is

back to the flesh thing, in my mind, I'm

like, "If I go, 'Hey, bro, can I pray for you?'"

I just thought, "That's

gonna be awkward." So I let him go, and then I go

inside, and I'm like, "Man,

I missed that opportunity." So then I called

Jared, and I said, "Can you give me

the contact information for this guy?" And he

said, "Yeah, he'd be open to

that." So then I reached back out and circled the

wagons. Sometimes you don't

get that opportunity because you're like, "Man, I

just missed it." But I guess my

point is, I think we all have those things where

you just feel

something, and you're like, "I should say this."

And you gotta press through the

fear, I guess, and make the step, and hopefully

you're quicker the next

time. When the next stranger shows up in my

driveway, man, I'm gonna be like, "Anything I

need to pray for?" And sometimes too, it's a

split second. And we're like...

It's been with me before, I've hesitated for a

split second, and it's over.

You can't get that back. So yeah, I'm curious

your perspective on this too. So for me,

big decisions in my life. Aubrey and I have fasted

either together or separately,

and that has been either a day or two or three

where we have felt a very strong

connection and closeness with the Lord, and

hearing Him a lot through that

process, through the minor suffering that you

have with a lack of food. So I'm

curious your perspective on that. A discipline of

fasting? Well, a

discipline with fasting, specifically with

hearing the Holy Spirit. Yeah, yeah.

I just, I mean, any time, to me, when people say

like, "Oh, I just want to hear from the

Holy Spirit, I want to be more connected to the

Holy Spirit," and how specifically

do I do that? To me, the number one thing I'm

gonna say is going back to

classic spiritual disciplines. I think, you know,

honestly, the practice of prayer,

it feels, I hate it because it almost feels a

little cliche to say that, but that

little prayer that you gave in the car of like, "Lord,"

you know, just a simple

call out, I mean, that's a spiritual discipline

of inviting God to speak in

that moment. I think fasting is another

discipline that puts us in that place. I

think if I want to be open and ready for the Holy

Spirit, part of what I always

want to do is ask God, "Is there anything in me

that, like any sin, any compromise

that needs to be addressed?" because I really do

look at any kind of sin, I

always think about just like a, I've used this

illustration at church

before, like a pipe under your sink, and when you

have daughters, you end up

having these, what accumulate as these disgusting

hairballs with all kinds of

things that don't even look like they came from

this planet down there, and I

always think, though, like that nastiness, and

then the water, you know,

because all of a sudden the water's not draining

as fast from the sink, you know,

and I always think like that nastiness is what

sin is in terms of like the

pipeline of the Holy Spirit, so I always just

want to be like, "Is there anything

in me that needs to get pulled out?" But those

are really, I mean,

it's, I don't feel like I've got this, you know,

super secret formula.

It's, and worship, I mean, worship, prayer,

fasting, confession,

asking God, "Is there anything that I need?" And

then what I think continues to open

you up for more of the Holy Spirit is when you

are responsive to Him in the

little moments. Like, that's, I feel like God

goes, "There's somebody who's gonna

listen," so then, I don't know, does that

resonate with you, or do you feel

like, and I know it feels like it's pretty

standard, so to speak, no big

secrets there, but I don't know. - Definitely

resonates. I feel like in those, in the

times where I'm being more intentional are the

times that I hear the most

from Him. - Yeah, yeah, that's cool. - So, on to

the second story that you told in

your sermon, you mentioned a Hope College student

that wanted to take a step

forward to begin tithing, but as a student, you

don't have a ton of money,

and you said the math didn't necessarily add up,

but she did it

anyway. And as a result of that, it came weeks or

days later, was that

randomly a certain amount of money was given back

to her from the school.

- Right. - So, and that happened, and not

necessarily as a result, but it

happened thereafter. - Right. - So, I'm curious,

your perspective on this, on giving of

our finances, can you just, can you touch on our

heart posture as

believers when we're giving to the Church or

elsewhere, and specifically

around our motive with giving, and giving out of

obedience and trust versus

expectant of an outcome? - Yeah, I think that's

such a great question, and

I'll be interested to hear what you think about

what I'm about to say,

because I was thinking about that issue a little

bit,

and there's part of me that's like, first and

foremost, our giving has

to be as response to what God's done for us. I

mean, I just

through and through believe that's the case, just

this deep conviction that

says, okay, the first conviction, Psalm 24, that

everything I have is

actually the Lord's, and so it's me, I'm a steward

of His stuff, I'm not an owner

of my stuff, and so that's a conviction, and then

I think of what Paul says to

the Corinthians, actually, in 2 Corinthians 9,

where he's like, you know,

Jesus became poor so He could make you rich, and

that's really

gospel-driven generosity, is look at everything

Jesus did for me, and I

want to let that so transform my heart that I

want to be generous, and I

think it needs to start there, to be sure, but

the thing that, and this is

a tension, I don't know, maybe you can help me

with this, there are so many

passages in the Bible that talk about God delighting

to reward givers, and

I think that that is because I think God likes us

to be excited about what He is

going to do through our giving, and I wrote one

down thinking about that we

might be talking about this, which is 2

Corinthians 9, and Paul writes,

remember this, and it's very famous, "Whoever sows

sparingly will reap

sparingly, and whoever sows generously will reap

generously. God is able to

bless you abundantly, so that in all things, at

all times, having all you need,

you will abound in every good work." He even goes

on and says, "He who supplies

seed to the sower and bread for food will also

supply and increase your store

of seed and enlarge the harvest of your

righteousness." And I was just thinking

about those verses and so many others that talk

about reward and thinking

about, okay, where is this line, I think this is

what you're getting at, of like, not,

I'm just giving so I can get, and so here's my

thought. Foundationally, in my

heart, it's got to be, God, this is all your

stuff, so stewardship, it's got to be

grace, like, after all that you've done for me

through Jesus, this is my joyful and

willing response. But I think it's, in my view,

okay to be expectant about, man, what

God are you gonna do through this, too? Like, and

I think the danger zone is

Prosperity Gospel says, man, if I give a dollar,

I'm gonna get two back.

That kind of mentality. And, but I do feel like

every time I give, I'm like, God,

I'm opening a door here for something cool to

happen. It very likely

will happen, something will happen in my life. I

mean, I don't know how you read

those verses. I mean, I feel like some, now, I

don't know what. It could be that

I, you know, have a great conversation with

Christina or a breakthrough with

our kids or some other thing, it's non-material.

It could be material, I've

experienced that many times. It could be that

what God does through the giving is

in somebody else's life. But I guess I always

come with this, like, sense of

what's this gonna open up in my life and in

others as kind of God's response? How

do you take that? I mean, does that, how does

that hit you?

- Definitely resonates. I think a pitfall of Prosperity

Gospel is on the timing and

what that does if we're expectant on our faith.

And if we don't see that outcome

as a result of our giving, then the Lord, God

wasn't being faithful. And that's not

what He's saying here. And on the timing of it,

it could be next week, like in

the story that you told, or it could be 75 years

from now. That's not for us to

understand or know. - Yeah, which is good. I

guess that's where the faith part does

come in on just, you know, I can have faithful

expectation but not really

know exactly how it's gonna turn out, but just

know something is gonna come out of

this. Yeah, yeah. I do think, though, like,

sometimes, have you ever had it where

you feel like you've maybe gotten your

perspective slightly more dialed into

the what's God gonna do, what's gonna come out of

this, than having your heart

in good stewardship and response to grace?

Because I do think that's where,

when I've gotten in that place, I go, that feels

like maybe it's, I'm

getting out of whack a little bit here. I don't

know. - It's about balance. - Yeah, the

balance thing, yeah, exactly. - That's great. All

right, jumping into the

sermon, specifically on 1 Corinthians. You

mentioned multiple times

throughout your sermon that we're called to

represent Jesus Christ in

this world and then make His name known and then

be amongst His people. Can you

just go into more detail? So, be amongst His holy

people. Can you just go

into more detail on what holy means, what it

means to be holy, and then

how can we become more holy throughout our life

as a result of the relationship

that we're building with Jesus? - Yeah, yeah,

that's a great question. That word

holy is like a hard one sometimes for people. I

mean, we, and partially it is

like when we think of God being holy, there is a

sense in where it's like God

is other than and He's so other than, but how do

you define other than when we're

talking about holiness? I think when it comes to

holiness as applied to

followers of Jesus, you see holiness in a couple

of different ways. The holy, the

idea of holy itself literally means to be set

apart. So, on the one hand, I read

holiness as we are set apart as a people of God,

as people who follow Jesus for

God's purpose. So, on the one hand, I see

holiness as a purpose thing, like what am

I living my life for? I think the other side of

holiness that you see a lot in

the Bible has to do with more your own personal,

I'll say personal morality. Are

you up to behaviors specifically that are either

what we'd call good kind of

virtuous things or bad things, unholy things,

right? And so, I think that

sometimes people think actually of holiness

primarily as

that latter category. Like, to be holy is I'm not

cussing, I'm not partying,

I'm not doing this, I'm not sleeping around,

whatever, and it is that. That's

like the moral purity part of holiness, you know?

And side note, it's not

just not doing negative things, it's doing

positive things. Like Paul says in

Ephesians, I believe it's Ephesians, where he

says, "Hey, you know, I don't want you

to steal anymore, but I want you to use your

hands for profitable work."

So, that's that idea of not just the not negative,

but the

positive. But then, but yeah, in a broader

context, I think holiness is just

this idea of my life has been set apart for God.

How do you think of

holiness? Yes, one thing that I was just thinking

about as you were

talking was sin puts a wedge between me and my

relationship with Jesus.

Yeah. And recognition of, and this is a constant,

it's going to be a constant

struggle unto our heaven throughout our lives,

and the depth of it I

imagine as we strengthen our relationship with

the Lord and recognize

the nature or the depth of our depravity, we're

working through that,

becoming more holy and developing that

relationship with Jesus. But how this

has worked in my life is recognition of depravity

over time, and in recognition

of sin specifically as a synonym to depravity,

lifting that up to the

Lord in repentance, and that naturally builds,

continues to build the

relationship with Jesus. Yeah, that's good. And a

quick story that I

think is applicable here that I was thinking

about earlier as we were

talking, so in the SEAL teams, gone for 200 days

plus a year, and that was the

case for me for almost a decade. In 2019, coming

home from a deployment, our

marriage just wasn't in a good spot. I mean, we

were physically apart a lot, and

even when I was home, mentally and emotionally

was not present. And

coming home from that deployment, realizing that

was not in a good place,

scheduling pretty intensive Christian marital

counseling, knowing that we

needed it. I mean, the marriage was the point

where divorce was on the table, and

through that counseling, recognizing the level of

my selfishness. A lot of the... I'd

say most of the decisions up to that point I was

making for Kevin, and that's

SEAL team decisions, family decisions, personal

decisions, friend decisions, and

through a lot of the difficulties in those

conversations with Aubrey and this

Christian counselor, that came out. And something

I didn't realize until

recently, we were telling our testimonies in

small group through

Engedi, and Aubrey was actually telling her

portion of our testimony,

and telling that portion of what this looked like

in 2019. And what I didn't

realize until I heard her verbally telling her

side of this is what that

did of me recognizing my sinfulness and selfishness,

is that strengthened my

relationship with the Lord and really set my

faith on a new trajectory. So I

want to highlight that in relation to holiness,

because I think that that was a

key point in my life where recognition of sin and

depravity, lifting that

up to the Lord in repentance, it strengthened my

relationship with the

Lord through that, and became more holy as a

result of it.

- Yeah, that's really, really good, man. And as

you were talking, it made me think

of a book I read once, Pete Skizzero book. He

lined up all of the places where the

Apostle Paul talks about himself. And it's so

interesting, and then he

lined them up in chronological order. And what he

made note of was every

time Paul talked about himself, the older he got,

the more he talked about his

failures and his fallenness. So like earlier on,

it was like, "I'm the least of

all the Apostles," something like that. But then

by the end, and I don't have

them all in front of me from memory, but it was

like, "I'm the worst, I'm the chief

of all sinners." And so it's an interesting idea.

Like, here's Paul, on

the one hand, you would say, growing in faith,

growing in spiritual maturity

based on what we know is Paul's life, but also

perhaps more aware of his own sin

and brokenness the older he was. Tim Keller's got

a great

statement where he says, part of why the gospel

is so important is because if we

didn't know the full extent of the love of God,

there's no way we could be open

to us seeing our sin without being just totally

dismantled, undone, I want to quit,

there's no point. Because we couldn't even take

looking at how much brokenness

is in us. And so what I hear you saying, and I

think that's so good, is it's like

the more in touch we are with brokenness, the

more we're able to bring that to

light in the context of God's love and grace, and

really experience freedom and

step into greater and greater Christlikeness. But

it's kind of

paradoxical because that does mean we've got to

really get comfortable looking in

the mirror and saying there are some things that

need to go. I said this in a

sermon not long ago, but I was like, you know, it's

funny, I was like, I went

through this summer of going, God, I want you

just to show me anything that I

need to pay attention to. And one day I was

scrolling on social media,

and I don't remember what it was, but it wasn't

like anything anyone would

call "inappropriate." But I remember I just lingered

on this one

post a little long, and it was, yeah, and I just

thought, and later on the

Holy Spirit was like, "That's it right there."

And I think a lot of guys would

like laugh at, if I would say that out loud and

would have shown other people

like, "Yeah, the Lord really convicted me on this,"

they'd be like, "What? You know, why?

Bro, it's nothing." You know, I remember one guy

saying, "Yeah, I'm not even gonna go there in

that story." Anyway, but you know, it's just like,

I think that the more

you're walking closely with God, the more He

shows you the small stuff opens your

eyes, and you've got to confess in that moment.

Yeah. Yeah, and it's almost in the way

that you described Paul in him verbalizing his

level of depravity more

and more as he got older. Yeah. I don't know, it's

almost depressing to think

that as we get older and as our relationship with

the Lord deepens,

that we recognize the level of our sinfulness

more and more and more,

versus the opposite, that we hope for, that we

become less and less sinful.

But that's not really the case. Well, you know

what's interesting? I mean, two

thoughts come to my mind. One is where sin abounds,

grace abounds all the more.

So on the one hand, the more we're seeing our

brokenness, the more we're in touch

with the full riches of God's grace. And so there

is a part of you that it's like,

"Well, that's, it's cool in a way that I'm more

in touch with Jesus' love for me

when I'm aware of that brokenness than any other

time." So that, and I don't know,

I mean, we do, we are sanctified, so it's weird.

How do you celebrate, how do you,

it's back to what you said at the beginning. It's

like we are growing, but we're,

like this side of the grave, there's always gonna

be more. Yes. So I don't know,

I want to say, "Hey, I think you're making

progress and I'm making progress." Yes.

We just don't realize the finish line is probably

further out than what we

realize as far as, and he's showing us a little

bit, and you know, it's further

out there, but that's okay, man. I mean, you know,

we got the Holy Spirit kind of

helping us, so I'm guessing you look in the

mirror and you're more

pleased with what, with the Kevin that's looking

back at you now than like, say,

ten years ago based on what the Holy Spirit's

done in your life, right? Yeah.

That's right. So let's celebrate that. Yes. Yeah,

thanks, Brian. Good perspective.

Yeah. All right, and next question, you talk

through how our calling is a

corporate calling and not an individual one. For

me, when you mentioned that, it

was almost a change in mindset for me. I think

historically it's been, "Lord, you

call me to the SEAL teams," or "You call me to

this specific thing with

building our family," or so on and so forth. That's

very much individual. Sure.

That's not corporate. Can you go into detail on

how God's

calling is a corporate calling and the difference

between that, God's calling

on the corporate calling side and then the

individual assignment side? Yeah.

You know, this is funny. I thought of, literally,

I thought of you when I wrote

that message, that point in the message, and I'll

tell you why in just a second,

but it's funny you would particularly pull out

that thing because I think

that our ability to think in terms of corporate

calling, we are, you know,

like if you ask, the old, "If you ask a fish to

describe water," you know, he's not

gonna know what to say because, like, water is

all he knows. Radical individualism

is so fully the culture we live in, we can't even

imagine, like, I had a

professor in school that was from an Asian

culture and he was saying, I forget

about what the subject was, but he said, "The

first question I ask is not, like, 'Is

this gonna be good for me?' or 'Is this what I

want to do?' or 'I'm passionate

about it.' First question I ask is, 'How is this

going to make my family look?'" I was

like, "What?" Never even heard of such a thing,

you know? But it just showed me how

different my background is. So, your question on

corporate calling, yes. So,

1 Corinthians 1, and throughout, I mean, I think

of 1 Peter, I think many

other passages, it's like we're called to be a

holy priesthood, the people of God.

And I don't think we really are used to thinking

in those terms, we're used to

thinking exactly what you said. Now, here's why I

thought of you, though, and

I'll expand on this too, but I thought of you

because I thought when I

hear guys talk about their time in the teams, it's

all about the teams. It's like,

it's truly, it feels like this corporate identity,

and each person

has a role, but it just feels like when I read or

watch interviews or whatever,

it's team, team, team, team, team. It's not about

me, the superstar on the team. Now,

I don't know how it is behind the scenes, maybe

it's still like super

individualistic, but when I think of what my

perception is of guys who are

serving in the teams, it very much is like, "We're

a corporate calling," kind of a

thing. That's how I think, and it's tough because

we don't all have this, like, the

thing that makes almost like the teams, I feel

like, easier is you're like

right up in each other's business, functioning as

a very close-knit group.

When it comes to our corporate calling in the

church, there's a little bit

more of being dispersed in the world, and so I

feel like that's what makes it

a little bit harder. I got a couple more things

to say, but I don't

want to talk too long, so let me just ask you

first off, when you think of the

teams, I mean, do you feel like that kind of

corporate calling aspect is accurate?

Does that shoe fit, or am I misreading that? So

the way you

described it fits, but I'm gonna add one

additional thing. You

have to be very good on an individual level in

order to be good as a group.

So in a way, you have to be selfish in certain

aspects of your life in

order to still be good in that setting. Okay, gotcha.

Would you say the guys

identify as, do they primarily identify as by

their role or by the team?

Team. By the team, yeah. So your question's so

good, and it happens to be

that this Sunday, I'm gonna go to the passage

actually, it happens to be this

Sunday we're gonna get after exactly this

specific issue because even though

1 Corinthians 1 starts all about the corporate

calling, we're called to be the

people of God. By the time you get to 1

Corinthians 3, we get to this verse

where Paul writes, this is 1 Corinthians 3 verse

5, "What after all is

Apollos? What is Paul? Only servants," I'd say

only team members, right? "Through whom

you came to believe, as the Lord has assigned to

each his task." And then if

you go on through the rest of 1 Corinthians 3, it's

interesting, that

word "each" comes up multiple times. So I feel

like in 1 Corinthians 1, we're

getting a high sense of the corporate side, and

then in 1 Corinthians 3,

we're getting more of the individual kind of

angle. When I was... I was part of a

church in Chicago that was probably at the time

about 20,000 people met on

Sundays, okay? It was a big church, right? And I

was a seminary student, and I had

some piddly role within the church. I was not

important, I was not on staff, most

people would not have known my name. But I felt

like, "Man, what I'm doing matters

because I'm part of this much bigger thing." And

I just was not worried

about that my thing was not that important. And I

guess that to me is how

it works in my mind's eye with this corporate

calling thing. Like, the person

who's out there in business, they're leading a

company, they're doing great,

they're building up God's kingdom with the church

in their own way, both in

business and through their financial means to be

able to help fund ministry

and whatnot. But it's like we're all part of this

much bigger thing, it's not just

about your business or his business. It's about

how is this business part of a

bigger story? That's how I think of the corporate

calling thing, and I think we

usually start... instead of we say, instead of

starting with, "What's God doing and

how does my business fit into it?" We start with,

"What are my dreams, what are

my visions, what are my goals, and would you God

bless it?" And maybe I'll like

throw some money to the side of the church or

something, and I guess that

doesn't feel as much like the corporate identity.

So how's that hit you? Does that

does that, I don't know, does that feel like it

helps or not really?

It does, and I'm curious, a follow-up question to

something that you said too in relation to

my story. So my story in the SEAL teams, the way

that I viewed it up

until I got out a year and a half ago, was that

the SEAL teams were an

assignment for me to live out God's calling of

being his disciple here

on earth and spreading his word. Is that how you

see it as well, as in the

form of assignment versus like the overarching

calling? Yeah, I think that's

just a great way to put it. I think God's got

this big thing he's working on,

he calls his people to advance it, and within

that calling he gives us each our

individual assignments, or as that 1 Corinthians

3 passage said, he

gave us each a task to do. And I love that. I

think for you it's like,

"Okay, my platform as a SEAL is how I'm living

out this calling."

But it's weird, I mean, because again, it's like

you're part of the

people of God that are dispersed in all different

places over time, over

geography, but I think that's great. I wish

everyone would have that

perspective with their job or if they're a stay-at-home

parent or whatever,

or student. This is my platform to be part of the

people of God to advance

God's purposes. That's good, man. Yes, awesome.

Awesome, Brian. All right, and then I

thought this was perceptive of Paul when he

voiced this to the

Corinthians, but he essentially realized that

there was going to be fear or a

feeling of inadequacy when he was writing to the

Corinthians in Corinth,

of asking them to do something bigger that was

not of themselves. And as a

result of the conversation we were just having, I

think this

resonates with me, because a lot of times, both

in the SEAL teams and elsewhere, I

do feel inadequate in situations that I feel like

the Lord's

asking me to do or situations that He puts me in.

I think a lot of times, too,

people think of SEALs and everything we've been

through, the things we've

done and seen, that in fear that we've overcome,

that we no longer feel

fear anymore. For me, that has not been the case.

Yeah, so you're human. That's

good to know. That's right. You've gone through

the whole SEAL experience. Yeah. Have you, by

the way, have you talked to any other guys who

have been through the

similar experiences, professionally speaking, and

would say, "Yeah, I still

deal with stuff"? I mean, yeah. I've talked to

guys where they don't admit it,

but either that they're not being honest with

themselves or they're not being

introspective enough to realize it. And I

specifically feel that now when I

have to relinquish control, and I struggle with

that. But through that, it

would be great to hear your perspective on what

it should look like

practically to live a life out of trust and not

fear, and then also how this has

looked in your own life as well. Yeah. Well, I

think that to me, fear is

probably the number one thing that holds us back

from fully living into what

God calls us to, even though it's a little bit

cliche to point out.

Many have pointed out that there are about 365 "do

not fears" in the

Bible, and the idea that there's one for

basically every day of the week,

numerically speaking. And anytime you see a theme

like that, it

just shows you what a big deal it is that God has

to say to us over and

over again, "Do not fear." I think it's super--one

thing I love about

you, Kevin, is you're just a very real person who's

both introspective and

then you're real about, "This is what's going on

in my heart." I love

that you're that transparent, because I think it

helps give the rest of us,

"Hey, let's just be honest about that we're

wrestling with

things." Fear has been--if I had one theme of

something I've had to fight to

overcome in my life, hands down, it would be fear.

Hands down. And I realized it way

back when I was in seminary and I started having,

I would say,

irrational--something difficult would happen, and

I would have irrational

levels of, "Oh my gosh, my life's gonna be over"

moments. And I realized, "I've got a

real battle with fear here. It's doing something

inside me that's causing me to

not think straight, at times pull back from

things when I should be

engaging," stuff like that. And I say all that to

say, I honestly think a big

part of the battle with fear is just naming, "I've

got a battle with fear."

Seriously, putting it on the table and saying, "I

feel

afraid," because that's hard for people to do. I

mean, you said it very

comfortably, but I think it's hard for people to

name that. And then,

I feel like, in fact, if I write another book

beyond the one that I just

finished, it's probably--I'd love to write on

fear at some point. I started

one, I didn't get it all the way done. But what I

realized a long time ago is,

one, I just saw so clearly, one, I'm battling

with fear. Two, I started

realizing the cost of fear. I'm like, "Man, I'm

gonna miss so many opportunities. I'm

not gonna be who God calls me to be. I'm not

gonna be proud of myself, honestly, if

I keep cowering, and I know I'm cowering, even if

no one else does." And so, I just

started really appreciating the cost of fear, and

then I just resolved,

"I've got to do whatever it takes to overcome

fear." Now, that overcoming fear,

that almost is, for me, like a--I mean, literally,

that could be a book. But I

would say, if I was just putting it in short

order, I said, one, I'm gonna fear

God more than I'm gonna fear the things that I

tend to be afraid of. And then, two,

I'm just gonna start to take risks. And even if

they're small, I'm gonna try to

start getting a little bit more comfortable with

being uncomfortable. And

then you do that once, and one story--I actually

have this in the book that I

just got in writing--is, and it's gonna sound

embarrassing, especially, I can't

even believe I'm saying it in front of the Navy

SEAL, but I'm gonna say it out loud,

alright, everybody? I'm getting real, because

Kevin inspired me. So, I

remember sitting in class once, and I never would--I

was totally out of my

league in seminary. I mean, these guys all were

way smarter, knew way more,

and I felt like I had something to contribute to

the discussion, but I never,

ever raised my hand, because I was like, "I'm

gonna look like an idiot." And I kid--

there was one time I was like, "I'm done cowering.

I'm gonna raise my hand and

participate in this class." And it sounds stupid,

but it was a starting place. I put

my hand up--probably shouldn't put it so high up,

because I was totally sweated

through under my shirt, because I've been sitting

there thinking about how nervous I was. But I

said my thing. It was probably three

sentences long. The professor's like, "Oh, good

thought. Thanks." Everybody else was like,

you know, no re--it was like everybody else

talked. No reactions. Not like

people were like, "Oh my goodness, that was

amazing," nor were they like throwing

stones at me. But what happened inside me was,

after that little risk, it was like,

"I did it. I chose to not let fear stop me." I

don't think fear

necessarily goes away. I--you know, the idea of

courage is like you still do the

thing even though you feel afraid, right? And so

I did it, and all of a sudden that

muscle of courage just got a little bit stronger.

So having--with you having

wrestled with fear and whatnot, do you have any

common, like, strategies per se

that you deal with to try to not let fear stop

you? Or, yeah, how does it work?

Yeah, I was thinking about that exact thing as

you were talking as well. And I

don't have this--it's never been perfected, or it

hasn't even been a

conscious thought for me of something that I was

doing intentionally for this.

But having a group of godly men around me, and

being willing--of, I should say,

safe godly men, people that I trusted and built

trust with over time, to share fear

with, has really helped me. How's it helped? What

did that do? And I say

safe because, you know, for me it only works if I

feel comfortable sharing

fears with them. And if I can verbalize it, and--well,

recognize it first, and then

call it out, and have a conversation around it

with safe men, it then--it makes

it so much easier, and they're encouraging with

me to overcome that

fear, or to take a step forward in faith to be

able to overcome it. Yeah, that's

good. It reminds me of sin in general, where it's

so much of these things that

we deal with on the inside, once we take them out

of the inside and kind of put

them on the outside, and especially in community

like that, where you're able to

just really name it, there is a sense where it

just loses its power, some of it.

I mean, the moment you say it, and people are

able to encourage you,

and all of a sudden you're like, "Yeah, maybe

raising my hand wouldn't be such a

big deal." I don't know, yeah. Yeah, that's

really good. So, just the idea of Christian

community, I love that. That's right. And failure.

I feel like recognition,

introspection and recognition of past failures,

and how I can improve, and well,

instead of explaining, I'll just give an example.

This is a recent example that I

think would be--I'll highlight it. Twice a week

right now, I go downtown Holland, and

I'll work out of a coffee shop for half the day.

So it's a way to get out of the

house, because I work mostly at home. And over

the course of the past six weeks,

there's been--six weeks ago, and then four weeks

ago, there's two separate

instances where a homeless guy came up to me. He

just wanted to have a conversation.

And just one of those times, he asked me for

coffee. And in that

instant, what was going through my head was my to-do

list, and all the

different things that I had to do. And I said

some along the lines of,

"I appreciate you asking, but no, I can't do that

right now." And I'd walk the other

way. And both times, I sat down in my car

afterwards, or in the coffee shop, and was

like, "Why did I just do that, and not just have

a meaningful

conversation?" So, knowing that it would probably

happen again, mentally and

physically prepping for it. And it's just one

example of that.

There's been many others, but praying through it,

and actually physically

having a conversation with myself of what that's

gonna sound like. It'll sound

like the next time, what I'm gonna do physically.

And then just last week, it

happened again. And I think your sermon probably

had a lot to do with this. I

think it was around four weeks ago. But I said, "Hey,

let's go in the

coffee shop and grab some coffee. And I would

love to grab a coffee with you, if

you're willing to sit down and have a

conversation with me." Yeah, that's cool.

How'd it go? Oh, it was great. And it was just

cool to hear his story as well.

But I also just said, "Hey, you go to church

around here, and do you

know Jesus?" And had a conversation surrounding

that as well. Man, that's

really, really cool. I love the idea of just that

idea of preparing in

advance. I think that's the thing that even when

we fail to step out the way we

want to, or like earlier I was talking about

failing to hear the Holy Spirit,

or I should say being responsive to the Holy

Spirit, it's like

that idea of failing forward and saying, "I'm not

gonna just sit here and let a

moment I missed be end there. I'm going to ask

God, 'What do you

want to do to help me be ready for the next one,

be more responsive?' I mean, truly, I

believe if that guy shows up or a guy like him on

my street again, I'm gonna be

quicker to pray next time. I'm gonna be like, 'Okay,

I just need to say, 'Hey, can I pray

for you?'" For you, mentally going through what

that looks like, preparing a

little bit, and I think about that with sharing

the gospel sometimes where

people are so nervous, just think through it in

advance and

process it. I think that's just a great example,

man. Well done.

- Thanks, Brian. Uncomfortable. It was really

uncomfortable in the moment, but

through even a few seconds and a few words that

were spoken, it was like,

"Okay, there's no pressure here, and we're just

having a conversation."

- Yeah, and honestly, I mean, how possible is it

really to live out of a place of

faith and not be uncomfortable? I mean, I just

feel like, I'm just like, I don't

know, man. The more I follow Jesus, the more I'm

like, any time I feel

fearful or anxious or uncomfortable, I actually

almost look like that as a

tell that this is probably God calling me to do

something, because it just feels

like so often when God calls people to do stuff,

they're like, "I'm afraid," and He

has to say, "Don't be afraid, be encouraged, be

strong," you know, all that. So I think

it's cool. Pressing into fear and pressing into

discomfort is awesome.

- Yes. Well, I have a few more questions, but

this will be the last one.

- Okay. All right, cool. This has been fun,

though.

- This last question is great. So if you were

giving a pre-mission brief or maybe a

pump-up speech going into battle, and

specifically if you were giving this to

the Corinthians to live out their calling, what

would the message be?

- This is definitely a question that I have never

thought of before, and I want to know

what a pre-mission brief looks like in the SEAL

context, but I'll give you what I

thought of.

- That sounds great.

- So what I would do, and I don't know how much

this would be different based on

the Corinthians or anybody else, because I would

say any time I was trying to help

people live into their calling, I would almost

always come back to the gospel.

- Yeah.

- The part that would be tweaked for me would be

what their experience was of coming

to Christ. And I think, if I'm recalling

correctly, I think Paul even does this, he

goes, "Think of what you were like when you were

first called."

- Oh, yes.

- Like he's trying to take them back to that

place.

- Yes.

- And so that's the part of me that I might

tailor to the person. "Think, when you

were... Back when you were first starting as a SEAL

and you were all about yourself

and you were all this, and then Jesus came in,

and finally you broke, and finally you

realized this, and then how this changed, and da-da-da-da-da."

So that would be the

part I'd probably tailor it to is what their

specific journey was.

- Yes.

- And so for the Corinthians, I would look back

and say, "Think about where you were

before Jesus. Think about when I first had a

conversation with you, you were doing this,

you were doing that."

- That's so good.

- And like we said earlier, Corinth, it's like

New York City and Vegas had a baby.

People were up to some crazy stuff. And there

were no doubt people in the listening or

reading audience for Paul that had some wild

stories.

- Yes.

- And so if I was speaking to them at a group

level, I'd probably start referencing some

of them. If I was speaking to individuals and I

knew their story, I would really point

out like, "Hey, I remember when I first ran into

you, you were just coming from

worshiping at that false temple where there are

prostitutes all over, and that was your life,

and you thought it would make you happy, and you

told me this just doesn't seem to be doing

anything. And do you remember what happened, what

it felt like when I told you, 'Hey, Jesus

sets you free from all this. None of this is

gonna bring you happiness.'" But somebody else

who is really like the kind of the New York City

financier version that was real, "Hey,

remember when I found you? You thought the next

thing, it's gonna be the next thing, it's gonna

be the next raise, it's gonna be the next

promotion, it's gonna be the next sale." And you're

like, "But I just feel like no matter what, I'm

just always waiting for the next thing."

And I said, "You know what? You can't earn what

you're looking to find, you can only receive it."

- Yes.

- And I told you the gospel.

- Yes.

- And I shared the gospel with you, and you

finally received Christ, and you finally were

freed from this constant hamster wheel of

accomplishment, trying to get to the place

that you can't get to of happiness and peace and

purpose.

- That's so good.

- And I would take 'em all back there, and then I

would say, "Now, remember, right now in this city

as you look around, the vast majority of people

you're gonna meet eyes with have never

experienced

the freedom that you've been living in." And we

serve in a world that is dying to experience

redemption and freedom like the kind you've

experienced, and so let's go, let's get after it.

- I'd love to.

- So there's my...

- That's so good!

- My attempt right there.

- That's so good.

- But take it to the gospel and try to tie it to

their story specifically,

and then connect it to the need in the world.

- Yes.

- Now, you tell me, I've never heard...

- Oh, you crushed it.

- I've never heard a pre-mission brief. And I was

thinking the closest thing I'd have to this,

or many people would have, would be like their

high school football coach did like the...

But I was part of the swim team, man. I'm telling

you, we didn't get any pump-ups.

It was none of that. It was just we show up and

pre-mission brief looks like, and are they trying

to get you pumped up?

- No, for the most part, no. And that's why I

voiced the question in the way that I did,

but I love how you tied the individuals to your

pre-mission brief, because I feel like that's so

important to speak to them directly. Yeah, so

thanks for kind of doing that fun question.

- Well, it's like in many ways, it's funny as a

person who preaches regularly,

a lot of the truths that we're communicating, it's

figuring out how to say things that people

have oftentimes heard before in a fresh way. And

so I feel like that pre-mission brief,

in some ways, that's my call every single Sunday

of the year, is like, "I want you

to feel encouraged like going out."

- That's a great point.

- That yes, there are aspects of the message I

hope convict of where we're broken and we have

to deal with sin like we talked about earlier. I

hope there are parts of the message that are

speaking promise and hope towards people. But at

the end of the message, and definitely in the

closing prayer of the day, we actually ask our

team to let the closing prayer, when we end the

service, the closing prayer, to be on the outward

side of things, 'cause I want you to feel like,

"Okay, having heard all of this, now we're going

out there to live it and to live in God's kingdom."

- Love it.

- So anyway, as you're listening this Sunday, you'll

have to see if it feels like a pre-mission

brief.

- Yeah, that sounds great.

- I think it's gonna be, this one, I think you're

gonna feel like this Sunday, that is,

I think you're gonna sense that it hits the nail

on the head. So man, thank you for doing this,

Kev.

- Thanks for having me, Brian.

- Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with

my friend, Kevin. That is the first time

I have debriefed a sermon with a Navy SEAL, and

man, that was really, really fun to just chat

with him and hear his perspective and unpack the

text together in a deeper way. So if you

appreciated

this conversation, please rate and review us.

This has been a production of Engedi Church,

and we've got more great conversations on the way.

And so until next time, know God made you

to advance.

we swim. So yeah, tell me what a