I'm convinced that hospitality is the only Christian practice that moves

towards the Great Commission and the Great Commandment at the same time.

Nothing else does it like that.

And so when I came to Jesus,

for me it was,

man, I'm either all in with Jesus or I'm not.

I can't play this game. I can't play

this game if I'm half in, half out.

And so for me,

I think passion is the

most contagious thing in the world. I just want Christians to live like

Christians.

Just live as a Christian. If you're saying you're a Christian,

then man,

live like one.

And so I want people to see our posture

and that we have a reputation as man, those Christians,

they're the most joyful,

you cannot offend them.

They are so content, they are not competing with anybody.

They're so merciful,

they're so kind and generous.

(upbeat music)

This is the Made to Advance Podcast.

I'm your host,

Brian Aulick.

And we're here to inspire and equip you for your best future.

Well hey everybody,

I am so excited to be with you today and we have got a great conversation

on the way.

But before we get to it, I want to ask that you would like,

comment and subscribe to

the podcast because that is a massive encouragement to our team.

Lets us know we're making a difference and we're encouraging you and it helps us get

out the pod to more and more people.

So today I've got with me Naroop Alphonse,

who is the lead pastor of LifeGate Church

in Denver,

Colorado.

Naroop and his wife Hannah have four boys, so they have got a full life.

But in the midst of all that,

Naroop has written his first book called Defiant Lights,

which is coming out later this month. And so, Naroop, welcome to the show.

Man, thanks for having me all the way in Denver,

Colorado,

joining you guys in Holland,

Michigan.

Let's go.

Let's go.

And I got some background knowledge on you that you don't know I have here.

One, I hear you're a shoe guy.

Is this true?

I am a shoe guy. I am a shoe guy.

I usually don't show this, but let me see if I can just

Yes, it's gonna be,

come on!

Like a whole wall that can have more.

I hear you're a Jordans guy.

Is that, are those all Jordans or not?

No, Jordans and Hirachis.

So I would say I got into Jordans in high school,

but I got into sneakers in middle school

because my favorite athlete was this guy named Andre Agassi.

Yeah, yeah.

And I loved his, I loved his Hirachis.

And so we lived in India at the time and I would beg,

I mean,

literally beg my dad to buy me a pair of Hirachis,

which he could never afford.

And so one year he bought me a fake pair.

But I rocked that fake pair,

man.

And I knew my kids were,

not my kids,

my friends were too dumb to know the difference.

But get this,

like two years ago at Christmas,

he felt so guilty that he confessed to me

that they were fake.

And my dad, I've known they were fake

for the past 30 years.

Like,

we're good.

He was carrying it.

Yeah, and then of course,

I got into Jordan's in high school and stuff.

And so I have,

man, it's not good.

Pray for me,

it's not good.

Is that your home office or work office?

Work office, I can't work at home.

I come to an actual office.

So you have got a sweet sneaker display right there

and you've inspired me to take my office game

to the next level.

Can we hit that shot one more time?

I mean, that was

Yeah, look at this.

So it's all here,

you know, there's more

and then there's more.

If I go left, it'll still follow me.

If I go down, it'll follow me.

There's more boxes down there.

There's boxes under the chair.

It's all over, man.

It's-- - So good.

You gotta pray for your boy.

(laughing)

I'm sure the church loves it though.

All right, here's the other thing

that I found out about you.

You're in Denver,

Colorado,

which is like the land of all kinds of goodness

when it comes to outdoor sports and adventures.

And the word I get is that you hate the outdoors.

Is this true?

(laughing)

Who's the insider giving you this insider information?

It's not that I

His name is Brian Bigger, man.

He was feeding me today.

You know Brian?

I don't know, Brian's my boy.

He's about to get a phone call after this.

It's not that I hate the outdoors.

It's that I don't get the outdoors.

Like, I look outside, and you know, I live west,

and I look at the mountains, I'm like,

yeah, that's beautiful,

but I'm not trying to spend

four days walking around there,

and just waiting to get a bear.

Like,

here's the thing, man.

If you have to go into the woods and buy bear spray,

that's just,

or if someone says,

"Hey, be careful of rattlesnakes,"

it's just not,

what part of my life experience

am I saying, like, yeah, that's how I wanna go out.

I wanna go out 'cause a bear ate me.

So I just don't get it.

I think it's beautiful, I just don't get it.

And I grew up in the city,

you know?

So I'm just a city guy, I'd rather be in the city.

So Brian-- - But every now and then

Brian stands correct. - If I go with the right person.

You don't hate it,

you just don't get it.

I don't hate it, I just don't get it.

I don't fully understand, you know?

I don't get it, I'm like,

people that are like,

be camping for nine weeks. Like why? There's no air condition,

there's no Wi-Fi,

there's

like why?

Why would you do that? You want to be in the sun?

Spoken like a city boy right there.

You want to be in the sun on purpose?

You want to get dark on purpose?

Like

okay,

go for it.

You had a really interesting growing up experience and I think before we even talk about the book

coming out and everything like that,

just for the sake of people getting context, tell us a

little bit about your growing up.

Yeah,

okay. So my parents are Indian.

So my parents are

So they moved to Singapore to be missionaries.

I was born in Singapore.

My older brother is born in India.

My little sister's born in India, but I was in the middle.

So I was born in Singapore.

So we were there for probably two, three years.

Then my dad went to get his PhD at Fuller's.

We were in LA from three to five.

And then right around six years old, we moved back to India.

And so my parents put us in a British boarding school

in this beautiful resort town in the mountains.

And so kind of first grade until high school,

I'm in a full boarding school.

I know kids from all over the world.

I mean,

literally an international school

with kids from all over the world.

So that's how I grew up.

So I love,

people always ask me how I do so many accents.

I'm like, man, I grew up in an international school.

So all my friends just had different accents from all over.

So I just picked up on all these

and it would be my little bit that I would do.

So I grew up international and then moved to Chicago,

which is very international.

You know, we lived in,

right outside of DC

for a little bit too.

So just grew up around a ton of people,

but predominantly in the cities.

So where I grew up in India was the southernmost city

called Chennai, which is 11 plus million people.

And we grew up in the heart,

like the heart of the city,

downtown in the city.

So I grew up all over and then lived in Chicago,

did high school Chicago, college Chicago,

post-college Chicago.

And then we had about a six year stint

in this town called Fort Wayne, Indiana,

which I know you're familiar with.

Let's go.

And then from Fort Wayne came to Denver.

So I've just had a pretty kind of exposed life

to so many different kinds of people

in different kinds of cultures from across the world.

How do you feel like that's affected how you lead

and how you pastor?

Yeah, it's really good.

So one,

our church is multi-ethnic.

We have 70 nations represented in our church.

And so coming from a cultural background,

a multi-ethnic background,

being adaptable,

being able to relate to people on different levels,

I think is really important.

And the benefit I have is I just grew up

around all kinds of people in different cultures.

So I understand,

man, parts of American culture,

parts of Asian culture, parts of African culture,

Even things like running a meeting

with people from different cultures.

Well, people relate differently in meetings.

And so knowing how to grow and adapt in those

and help other people see what's happening in the room.

So that's really beneficial.

Seeing that, man, not every culture has it right,

but not every culture has it wrong.

There's beauty and challenges in both.

And then I would say,

just from a personal standpoint,

the nuance of being able to see,

man,

the world isn't as black and white

as we'd like to make it.

And so trying to be nuanced in conversation.

And I think you can have strong conviction

and still be nuanced in approach.

I don't think those things are competing.

So being able to have that.

So it's sort of a cheat card that I got.

Remember we played a game Contra growing up?

I don't know if you've ever played Contra.

Oh yes, one of my favorite Nintendo games.

Yeah, come on, these kids don't know, man.

Up, up, down, down, left, right.

If you know the cheat code,

it helps you in the game.

So I think when you grow up in a place

with so many different kinds of people,

it gives you a cheat code of life,

of just learning how to navigate different situations

and stuff like that.

Now when you've got people on your staff team

who don't have that same background,

do you end up having to do some training

to sort of help them maybe pick up on some of the things

that come natural to you

but might not come naturally to them?

All the time,

all the time.

And I'll firstly say there's mutual training.

I grew up in a world where I was never encouraged.

No one ever said,

"Good job, buddy."

And so they helped me say,

"Hey,

one of your major roles in this church

is to be the chief encourager.

should encourage people.

And I'm like,

I paid you last week, didn't I? Is that not

enough encouragement?

Like, do you need more than this?

So it's mutual. I think

it's mutual learning.

But because our staff, I mean, we have, and our staff, we

have Indian,

South African,

Brazilian,

Guatemalan,

Burmese,

Korean,

Filipino. I

mean, we have so many different ethnicities.

Sierra Leone, so many. And so

I think we all kind of help each other

of having to learn conversations.

But a lot of times,

it's not mainly with our staff.

I'll find a lot of times with people in the church

who may have a conflict or an issue

where I'll come in and I'll say,

"Hey,

what you're facing right now,

"it feels personal,

it's not personal.

"It feels spiritual,

it's not spiritual.

"This is 100% a cultural issue,

a language issue."

And those are what's creating the barrier

and you're overreacting in many ways

to what feels spiritual personal, but it's not in any way.

It's just purely cultural.

I mean, even you think of conflict resolution.

Conflict resolution is very different in different cultures,

depending on where you're from and how old you are,

you know, what your role is in the relationship.

And so helping our staff and people navigate that,

I think is the beauty of a multi-ethnic expression

for church.

That's so good.

And even the idea that we interpret situations

that have nothing to do with spiritual issues whatsoever

because of cultural lenses,

then it all of a sudden gets laden

with all of this baggage of like,

man, it's like a deeper offense than it needs to be

and point of fact, hey, we just kind of do it differently.

That's really strong.

So you know, for example,

I got this young Asian kid,

phenomenal musician on our staff,

on our team,

and there's an older person on the worship team

saying something that this young man knows is wrong.

And he's saying,

"Pastor, how do I step in

"and correct him because I come from a culture

"where you don't correct your elders.

"And he's older than me, so I can't correct him,

"but I know he's wrong."

So those are cultural issues.

Those aren't spiritual issues.

Those are cultural issues.

And so helping our team and staff and church grow

in language and in kindness and in patience with each other.

I think that's why,

this is my theory.

I think when Paul says,

or when Jesus says

in the scriptures that love is patient,

I think that it starts with patience.

Like let's be really patient with each other

because trying to get a group of people,

or even just think about your own marriage,

trying to get two different people in the same house

requires a ton of patience to learn

and grow in each other.

So I've always just been fascinated

by the first description of love is that it's patient,

or the evidence of love is that it's patient.

Yeah,

that's so good.

And it's, I mean, it's interesting in a church family

staff for that matter because I've told our staff many times like I can barely

get my family of five to agree on the same movie to watch together out of

everybody's preferences and wiring and whatnot so let alone we're trying to

work together from all you know diverse backgrounds coming together try to try

to yeah exactly unify around something we just got to be patient with each

other and patient yeah be willing to process now I process through stuff now

I think life gate from what I understand man I just hear great things about your

church and what God's doing through it.

What, when, and it's,

you guys are how old now?

11, we just turned 11 a couple months ago.

Okay, I gotcha.

Yeah,

what, when you think about why LifeGate

is flourishing so much in Denver,

what do you think is like,

you know,

obviously there's part of it's just

supernatural favor from God,

but are there aspects of church culture

that people go, man, this just is so connecting for me?

Yeah, I would say a couple of things.

You know, one is,

yes, I mean,

this God's hand is on this place.

one thing that we do is that we,

I mean,

the people in this church are just hungry for God.

They're hungry for God's presence,

hungry for God's truth.

I think we have an insane amount of young people.

You know, our average age is probably 25,

you know, 3,000 plus people, 25.

And young people are looking for something transcendent,

something that feels ancient,

but still draws them into and moves them into a future.

And so our church is really unique.

If you come to our church,

we,

I mean, we are very charismatic

in terms of passionate expression of worship,

contemplative, as in deep thinking,

teach the scriptures,

say what the Bible says,

teach through it,

but we do a black gospel song to open up,

and then we do songs in multiple different languages.

We do scripture reading in different languages.

We do a corporate call to worship,

a corporate call to confession,

corporate communion together.

We do communion every Sunday,

and we do them differently based on the series we're in

or how we wanna do it.

We have prayers together that we say as a church.

We stand up to read God's word, we read God's word,

then we recite a collective prayer after it.

We always recite the doxology, we always recite

the glory of Patria.

So our Sunday experience itself is incredibly unique.

And then I'd say we thrive on hospitality.

Our ministry that we really focus on is hospitality,

of teaching people to be hospitable.

I'm convinced that hospitality is the only Christian

practice that moves towards the Great Commission

and the great commandment at the same time.

Nothing else does it like that.

And so we really moved to become a very hospitable people.

We preach a lot, teach a lot about,

hey, nothing you own is yours,

your home, your table, your time, none of it's yours.

So bring people into your home.

The table is the most sacred room in the house.

And so we talk a lot about that.

And then our uniqueness,

you know,

there's certain things we don't do.

And this,

if I'm just gonna say it,

but this could be a whole other podcast on its own.

We don't do small groups.

we don't sign people up for their spiritual play dates.

We raise people up to create their own fellowship,

we encourage them to do it, we equip them to do it,

but we don't manage it,

we don't sign people up and say,

hey,

small groups kick off this week,

you guys should sign up for it.

We just don't believe in that formation,

and I don't believe in it,

and so that's a unique thing about our church,

is the kind of people we draw

are people that are self-starters,

that wanna take stewardship for their own faith

and responsibility for the faith of others,

and not be,

you know, have a different expression

than what maybe they've grown up in

or what they've heard about.

And so I think that would be our uniqueness

of what we would say in what God is doing.

But ultimately,

man,

you already said it.

It's,

you can do whatever you want.

And if God's hand is on it,

it'll grow.

If God's hand is not on it,

it won't for whatever season God doesn't want it to.

But I think God's hand is just on this place.

So that's what I would say.

Yeah,

amazing.

I love hearing that.

And it's just,

I mean, for anybody who I know

who's seeing God do a good thing in their church,

you just recognize this is way bigger

than any programming decision or strategic model

or any of that stuff.

How'd you guys decide Denver of all places?

You're in Fort Wayne and you're at a church

that cares about church planting,

but then how's Denver be the destination?

Yeah, so my wife and I got together one time

and we just said, "Hey, if we could live in any city,

"where would we live?"

And so we took out one of those legal patents

and just wrote down every city,

stuff we'd never even heard of,

but Toronto sounds nice, Miami,

just all these cities.

And then I made a second list of,

I called it my Forbes list.

It was fastest growing,

young adults,

just things about the city,

wrote those things down.

And then I did a third list

of what I would call the spiritual list.

And we wanted to go to a place that was agnostic,

atheistic,

unchurched, de-churched, post-churched,

anti-Christian, all those things.

And so we wrote those cities down.

And then anything that kind of matched all three,

we just circled.

And so we had Denver,

Boston,

Portland,

Seattle,

Toronto, all these cities,

and just started praying through those cities of

where we think God would lead us.

And then I had a really close

friend I played college basketball with who was living in Denver at the time, and

so we would come visit them as a family.

And then the more we came here,

we just

felt God's stirring to come to this city,

which is a very hard city to plant a

church in. And there's so many churches that have been tilling the ground for a

long before we got here,

and so we wanted to just join in the story of

those churches and God's faithfulness here. So it's been amazing,

but man,

it's

It's tough sometimes,

once a week I'll be like,

man, I should have gone to Dallas.

(laughing)

Two different worlds.

I should have gone to Nashville

to reach the people of Nashville.

(laughing)

Yeah, I've got a friend planted in Nashville

and it's a different road,

there's no getting around it.

It's a different road, man, yeah.

I think every city is hard,

man.

I don't think there's a city where the devil's like,

oh, I'll make it easy in that city.

I think every city presents its own challenges,

so.

I just read a Gospel Coalition article,

pastor was talking about, he had planted or pastored in London,

and there he was like,

man, I mean, it was direct opposition.

People get up in your face when they disagree with

stuff,

this kind of thing.

And then he moved to take over a church in the Bible Belt. I

can't remember where,

Alabama or something. And he's like, oh, and he felt like such a

sellout, like, this is gonna be so easy,

and I'm just gonna step in there, and it's gonna

be smooth sailing and all that.

And he's like,

man, it's been harder to pastor since he got

back to the States in the Bible Belt than it was in London.

And the primary

reason why, and this was kind of the point of the whole article, was like,

you

know, at least in London people were strong one way or the other.

They were

either like,

"Man, I'm all in. I want to follow Jesus." Or it was like,

"This stuff

is crazy.

How can you have the nerve to say and teach the things you do?" And he's

like, "Man, I get back to the States and it's just everything's so cultural faithy."

Which is actually gonna be a great transition, come to think of it, in your

but it's like everybody's just kinda got this pervasive

lukewarmness when it comes to faith.

For sure.

And it's like,

man, this is harder

than when people are just all in or they're all out.

And so I thought that was just back to your point though,

of like, there's no place that's like,

oh, this is the easy spot.

It's just which kind of challenge do you have in your spot?

Yeah, exactly.

It's like parenting whenever people say,

what's the easiest season of parenting?

I'm like, man, I have a 15 year old and a four year old

and every season has incredible beauty

incredible challenge, every one of them. And there's no one that's easier than

the other.

And so I think it's just important to recognize,

you know, we

sometimes as church leaders we will kind of, "Well, you know, you have it

easy.

You know, you're in,

you know, fill-in-the-blank city, and I'm here." Like, I

don't know. I think every place is hard. There are probably certainly some things that

are easier in some churches,

but I think true discipleship at the end of

the day is about reaching the hearts of people and turning those hearts,

selfish,

idolatrous hearts towards God, and that's hard no matter where. Yeah,

right on.

Well, I just

actually, I had a preview copy of your book that came,

you know, electronically,

but I just love

it. The actual real copy, Defiant Lights, How Following Jesus Called to Live Differently

remakes us and restores our world. It just literally showed up today right in time for

the podcast,

which I love.

And man, I'm excited about this book. I've not gotten all the way

through it yet, because when I got my PDF version,

I started cruising, and I made some good content.

I was gonna ask you to do some accents, but I'm not going to because I was tempted.

In the book, you talk about that. I was like, "Man, it sounds like he can go."

But you open the book with a quote that is one of my favorite John Wesley quotes ever,

which is, "Light yourself on fire with passion,

and people will come from miles to watch you burn."

Watch you burn.

And yeah, tell me, what's that quote mean to you? Why is that the opener?

Yeah, I mean, there's two quotes that I love. That's one of them,

And the other one is by C.T. Studd,

and he says, "I pray that when I die, all of hell

rejoice that I'm out of the fight."

And I've always just wanted, I think from the time I was born,

I just had this conviction

that I wanted my life to mean something,

that I wanted to move and push towards something.

And so when I came to follow Jesus and became a believer,

I was,

you know, part of my personality

is I'm a 100 percenter.

Whatever I'm into,

I'm gonna be 100 percent into.

So when I came to Jesus,

for me it was,

man, I'm either all in with Jesus or I'm not.

I can't play this game.

I can't play this game if I'm half in, half out.

And so for me,

I think passion

is the most contagious thing in the world.

I think passionate joy,

passionate authority,

passionate mercy,

passionate grace,

I think it's the most contagious thing in the world.

And I think people are drawn by passion.

And so for me, when I read John Wesley

and I hear about John Wesley,

man, I just wanna light myself on fire with passion.

and I wanna steward that fire

with the Holy Spirit inside of me

and just trust that God is gonna draw other people.

And I've just found that people are moved by passion.

People,

I believe that you believe this.

And that's the hardest thing for me to get behind somebody

is I'm like, man,

I don't believe that you believe that.

And I want my life to say,

I want people to say,

man, I may not agree,

I may not see things the same way,

but I fully believe he believes that.

And I wanna live my life,

I wanna be that kind of husband, that kind of dad,

that kind of leader,

that kind of preacher,

that kind of writer,

that I fully believe what I believe

and pray that other people are caught

in the tailwind of that

and then they light themselves on fire too.

So that's,

man, that's my singular passion

is to awaken people's imagination for life with God.

Yeah,

I love that.

It's interesting,

I think my grown up journey

and I grew up in the church

people teach on the Bible or whatever,

and it was just flat so much,

and so much of the time.

And I used to think, how can we be taking

some of the most brilliant,

incredible,

life-changing truths,

and just be all chill about it?

And even I think of seminary and my master's degree,

there'd be classes where, I mean,

we're talking about these massive works of God,

and it's just like another day doing a lecture.

And then there would be professors just the opposite,

man.

it was just like you could tell their spirit was alive

with what they were talking about.

It was hard for them not to just straight up

preach the lecture.

And I'm like, I wanna be like that.

I want people to see in me

and even how I'm talking about what I'm teaching.

I want it to reflect how excited I am about it

and how radical the truth of it is.

Tell us about "Defiant Lights."

Like what's the big idea

and why'd you wanna write this book?

Yeah, so it all kind of stemmed from this.

You know, I was watching,

I was doom scrolling,

which I think that's what they call it, late night.

Yeah, yeah.

This question came up of,

you know,

somebody's kind of doing a man of the street interview,

and they're saying,

"Are your Christian friends any different than you?"

And one by one, they're saying,

"No, they're all the same, they're all the same."

And this just sort of struck me.

I'm like, how is it possible

that people can call themselves Christians,

but nobody around them sees

there's any difference to them whatsoever?

And I think, you know, John Stott would say,

"The greatest insult you can tell a Christian is

"you're no different than fill in the blank."

And I think there has to be

a significant difference in who we are.

And so that was sort of what started the journey.

I've always loved Matthew 5, 14 through 16.

And I've loved it because,

you know,

Jesus has these seven I am statements about himself.

You know,

I'm the light of the world,

I'm the good shepherd,

I'm the door,

so on and so forth.

But he only transfers one of them to us.

And he says,

you are the light of the world.

So this is not merely a command,

it is a statement of reality.

You are a light in this world.

The question is not,

am I a light?

The question is, whose light am I shining?

Every one of us is shining someone's light.

Every one of us is trying to point glory to someone else.

So for example,

here's my hot take.

Hot take,

after the age of 18,

no grown man should wear the jersey of another man.

Like you should stop.

Like don't wear,

no game day jerseys,

nothing.

Maybe Halloween,

I'll give it to you,

but you're a grown man, like stop doing that, you know?

Very strange that you're doing this.

But the point of that jersey when you wear it,

Nobody has ever, nobody has ever looked at some guy in Home Depot wearing a Tom

Brady jersey and been like, "Oh my gosh,

that's Tom Brady." I had no idea that Tom

Brady was a 5'7" half Asian man with a killer dad bod. I did think

that was him. Like,

the point of that jersey is so whoever sees it recognizes

two things.

You're a fan of this person or this team,

but it's pointing towards

that person in order to give glory to that person.

So Jesus is saying, "Hey,

listen, every day,

"you're shining some kind of a light.

"It's visible,

it's actionable,

it's verbal,

"and it's pointing towards the glory of someone else."

Jesus says, "I want you to shine my light."

So Jesus has chosen to renew this world

by using broken people like us to do it.

And it's not because he's out of options.

It's because he is so gracious in his invitation

to say, "I choose you."

And my posture is this.

I think there's a lot of great books,

amazing books on theology

and amazing books on Christian practice.

I'm interested in merging those two

and saying what is the Christian posture?

When people meet us,

like I hope when people meet us,

they don't say,

"Wow, you know,

Pastor Brian,

"he really Sabbaths hard.

"Like he gets after it at Sabbath."

I hope what they say is,

"Man,

when you're around Pastor Brian,

"he's so kind,

he's so generous."

And those are the results of what happens in practice,

because you have good rooted theology.

And so I want people to see our posture,

and that we have a reputation as man,

those Christians,

they're the most joyful,

you cannot offend them.

They are so content, they are not competing with anybody.

They're so merciful.

They're so kind and generous.

They are so gracious with their words.

They invite others into friendship and fellowship,

genuine friendship.

They're so free.

I've never met someone more free than a Christian.

And man, even in discouragement and anxiety,

they walk with such confidence and such humility

and such authority.

So I'm interested in that.

That if we live that way,

in the quietness of our ordinary lives,

that somehow,

mysteriously, in the power of the gospel,

it will draw people to see Jesus for who he is

and invite others to walk that same life.

So that's what the book is about.

The book is about how to live in the posture of a Christian

and to stop,

you know, just stop BSing.

Like,

if you say you're a Christian,

then live as a Christian.

Like, live with some conviction.

Live with some passion.

Like,

represent Christ wherever you go,

with the people of God,

working by the grace of God to be transformed in the Spirit

to move, to become more like Jesus together,

formed into the image of Christ together.

But I just want Christians to live like Christians.

Just live as a Christian.

If you're saying you're a Christian,

then man, live like one.

100%.

Why do you think that is so hard for folks?

Why do you think there are so many Christians

that are somewhat indistinguishable from the culture?

Yeah, I mean, I would say three things.

One, I think it's,

when I lived overseas,

I would think,

man, it's so hard to be a Christian here.

And when I moved to America,

I'm like, oh no, no, no.

It's way harder to be a Christian here,

way harder.

You know, like for example,

like,

bro, I'm a huge Chicago Cubs fan.

So for those of you who are watching this episode,

check this out.

This is a 2016 Chicago Cubs World Series ring.

Wow.

Like,

that's the real thing, man.

Like, that's the real thing,

right?

You can feel the weight of it, you can see it,

all the diamonds, all the color.

But if I gave this to you,

and you looked at it with closer inspection,

you would say,

"Hey,

those aren't real diamonds."

That's not,

like, it is an exact replica of the ring,

but upon closer inspection,

it's not the real thing.

And I think today in America specifically,

It's too hard to fake being a Christian in Iran,

or Orissa,

or North Korea,

or China,

'cause you would be so distinct from the people around you.

But it's far too easy in the West

to look like an authentic follower of Jesus.

Man, I go to church on Sundays,

I go to my small groups during the week,

I post my Old Testament Bible verse

'cause people know I'm serious about the Bible

once and forever.

I Instagram my time with Jesus

so people know how serious we are.

It's far too easy to look authentic,

like an authentic follower.

But on closer inspection,

I think people could tell,

like, man, this is not a person

who carries the joy of Jesus with them.

So I just think our culture creates a place

where it's easy to look Christian.

So that's number one.

I think complacency,

like real spiritual apathy and complacency,

I think the inability to really wrestle with suffering,

like to be a Christian is to suffer for the Lord,

And so we don't want to suffer for the Lord's.

I think those things are all.

And then sometimes I think it's just poor teaching.

I think there's a lot of people who've just grown up

with really poor teaching of what the gospel is.

Because for a long time,

if you've grown up in the American West,

for many of us,

the gospel was merely the ticket to get to heaven.

It wasn't the reality of a changed life here on earth now.

Eternity begins now,

as John Oprah would say,

and then moving into Christ's likeness

all the way into eternity with God.

So I think a lot of it is just poor teaching.

And so we have to re-correct poor teaching,

which can take a lot of time.

But I think that's off the top of my head,

what I would say.

Yeah, that's good.

It's an interesting thing in our culture,

because I think that some of the values,

as much as our culture is secularized,

our culture has been so formed by Judeo-Christian values,

that there are some values that a Christian might live here

that don't seem all that,

there are good things that our culture,

like generosity, for example.

our culture has a good bit of generosity

compared to some other cultures in the world,

even amongst secular people.

And so it's just interesting 'cause here,

Christian being generous might not stand out as much.

And I think you would probably say,

and I think I would say for sure,

is the secular version of generosity,

while our culture still values that,

is not nearly as radically kind of faith-filled generosity

as what we see in scripture.

So we kind of have this cultural version of generosity

that I think probably does come from the biblical tradition

that the culture has been shaped by,

but it still is not the actual thing.

It's just like a surface version of it.

Yeah,

so for, I mean,

the data would say,

you know, whenever someone says,

"Man, Christians should give more,

the church should do more,"

no pastor in America or the world would say,

"No, no, no, we're doing the max we could possibly do."

Every one of us would say,

"Of course, of course we wanna do more."

However,

my pushback would be to those voices,

Statistically, the data shows that Christians,

compared to Muslims,

Hindus,

atheists,

by far,

I mean by far,

outgive in generosity,

by far.

So it's there, it's in there.

Now the question is,

is that giving

truly generous and sacrificial?

Does that giving actually cost you something?

Is it saying,

man,

my wife and I,

our family is going to not go out to eat a lot this month

or at all because we're gonna really support missions,

we're really gonna support this,

we're really support a kid in our neighborhood

and this is gonna be a sacrifice for us.

So I don't think that's true categorically

that people would say this is genuinely a sacrifice.

And the second thing I would say is the difference

that we have here in America is that our generosity,

our generosity,

our philanthropy,

well,

it's tax deductible,

but Christians and villages in Orissa are not saying, "Hey,

do

you think I'm gonna get a tax deduction for the rice that I'm giving to

the church?" So my question would be,

man, let's say our 501(c)(3) went away,

like

it totally went away.

Would we see that same level of generosity in people?

Or

people are like, "Well, I don't want to give to the government, I might as

well give it to you, so let me lower my taxable income." So we have a

financial benefit we have to our generosity that most Christians in the

world do not have.

Like when I'm in villages in Africa and they're literally

pouring out grains of rice as their offering,

there is zero financial benefit

to this at all.

It's purely for the love and the blessing and the sacrifice for

the body of Christ. Like other people, single moms need to be fed,

poor families

need to be fed, so I will give generously to that. So that's what I would say.

I

true sacrifice in the Lord.

But man, there's some amazing people that write

about this. I love Randy Alcorn, he writes about generosity,

and so I'm

trying to lead a church and our lives to be that way. And if someone's accusation

against us is we're too generous, then I think I would take that. I'd be totally fine with that.

Shout out Randy Alcorn. I mean, if anybody is looking for a good,

biblical,

rooted,

challenging approach towards thinking about money and possessions,

read anything Randy has written.

Anything.

Oh, he's fantastic.

Anything.

Fantastic.

Anything.

One of my favorite chapters in the book,

when we're talking about Jesus' call to live differently

is living a life of joy in a world of offense.

I just,

man,

and I'll, in a second,

I'm gonna ask you what your favorite chapter to write was,

but I wanna start with my favorite chapter.

So let's first talk about,

when you talk about a world of offense,

just to explain what you mean by that,

by that term world of offense.

Yeah, so we live in a world right now

with a currency of popularity,

the currency of power

is how quickly you can be offended

and how you can monetize that offense.

This idea that the customer is always right.

Well, now the viewer is always right.

The person is always right.

And it really comes from a deep seed of entitlement

that I am owed something.

I'm owed it to happen to me.

I'm owed it to happen on this time.

I'm owed to be paid.

These are my rights.

These are my privileges,

and no one can take this away from me.

And so we stand on this,

even Christians,

We stand on this sort of,

no, it's my right to worship Jesus

and no one will take that away from me.

And I'm like,

I think you defend your right to follow Jesus

more than you actually follow Jesus.

Like that's what it feels like right now.

So we just live in this world where everybody's offended.

And you think about it, it sells,

it sells.

The more offended somebody can be,

the algorithm literally works.

The more violence,

I mean,

literally,

it's bombarding our minds everywhere.

And so,

man, in a world where everybody believes

that I am, you know, I call it Burger King faith,

you know, like I am,

I want it my way.

Everyone believes that about themselves.

Our distinction should be that we are a people

of unshakable joy,

that no matter what the situation,

the circumstance,

we always approach it with,

man,

it's,

I don't like that this happened to me.

I'm,

I may be even grieved over it,

but this will not shake my joy in any way.

And I think that is the most powerful witness

as followers of Jesus,

that people can say,

"Man,

you just cannot get this person to be offended."

And people try to argue with me all the time.

And I say, "Listen, you have every right to be wrong."

But Jesus was never offended.

He was never,

ever,

ever offended.

And they're like, "Well, you know,

"how about when he went into the temple?"

And I'm like,

"No, that was righteous anger

"against the injustice towards the poor."

But guess what?

He went back the next day,

and he served, and he taught.

And so we love to identify with Jesus's anger,

but we don't want to embody the servant leadership

that he also had at the same time.

And so I would argue that Jesus was never offended.

Even when he is being crucified on a cross,

he is saying,

"Father,

forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing."

And I believe if Jesus actually did that,

and now he's living inside of us,

it is fully possible to live in a world

where other people are doing something horrific to you

and you can still say,

"Father, forgive them.

"They don't know what they're doing,

"but I will, for the joy set before me,

"I will endure this in the same way that Jesus endured it."

And so I can't say that I'm there yet,

but that's my prayer, it's like,

"Lord, make me the most joyful person in the room.

"When I walk in a room, make me the most joyful person."

And I love what, you know, so many Christians say this,

Spurgeon says this, Martin Lloyd-Jones says this,

that joy is the Christian's secret weapon.

Like this is our secret weapon,

that we are the most joyful people.

And so that's probably top two of my favorite chapters

I wrote in the book too.

Why do you think,

why are we so drawn to offense, do you think?

I mean, it's like,

I think when I feel offended by somebody,

when I'm all irritated or whatever,

there's probably,

it plays to pride at some level.

Like I'm better than them, I get it,

you know?

And so therefore I can look down on them.

I think that maybe that's going on.

I think when I'm offended,

you know, it feels like that the part of us

that maybe feels like we've been a victim

or somebody is of an injustice,

if it's a bad idea.

But why do you think that,

I mean, it's like our soul wants to just chew on,

it's like gossip almost, dude.

Just something. - Oh, yeah, I mean.

It's like a sick pleasure to feel offense,

you know, and to be offended.

Yeah, I mean,

there's definitely entitlement pride.

At the core of it,

when I feel offended

and I make that offense known,

and I feel right,

my anger is justified,

my reaction is justified,

Really,

that expression of offense is really my traumatic

or my trigger response to feeling afraid.

I'm so afraid that I need to stand up inside of this,

tell everyone why they're wrong,

because deep down,

I'm just a terrified 12-year-old.

And rather than acknowledge that fear,

and rather than acknowledge what's actually happening

and invite the Lord into it,

I feel more in control.

So if I get offended, I can feel in control.

When I'm losing my mind on the poor flight attendant

He doesn't own the flight, by the way.

And if you flew Frontier,

that's your fault.

Like you could have gone United.

You could have gone Delta.

You chose Frontier.

Like that's self-inflicted.

You paid to sit on a bucket.

You chose that.

And you're yelling at this person

as if they own the plane,

as if they did something against you.

So when I let it out, I feel in control.

I feel justified.

I feel, and so for a moment,

I can suppress that fear.

But deep down,

our offense is really just masking both entitlement and also fear.

I'm just afraid and I need to feel in control.

And that's good.

And you think about the political conversation just in culture where it's so often plays

off of a combination of offense and fear.

And that's just an interesting dimension where it gets us going where we can,

if the offense

thing as being what's pushed,

it's triggering our fear.

If it's the fear

thing that's being pushed,

it triggers offense,

which both are very

powerful negative motivators. Yeah, and this is from the

garden,

right? This is from the garden. So Adam and Eve,

Genesis 3,

reach out, take

the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil,

and they hide.

So instantly they

feel shame,

they hide, they feel afraid, they feel good, they hide.

God comes for

their daily walk, and you know theologians would tell us this is not a

God says, "Let's go for a walk."

He walks with his children.

He comes in, he says, "Hey, where are you?"

And what's Adam's response?

His response isn't,

"Oh, I'm just hiding behind this tree."

He says,

"I'm afraid."

I'm afraid.

He responds emotionally.

I was afraid,

so I hid.

And think about this for a moment.

God,

to this point,

has never been anything

other than perfect,

kind,

good,

and benevolent.

And yet,

the human response is fear.

If we're like that with God,

who is perfect,

why would be any different than with other human beings

who have certainly betrayed,

let us down,

disappointed us, frustrated us?

And so our default is what we're feeling.

I mean,

take any situation where somebody

is getting really offended,

right?

They're getting really offended.

Take,

man,

my flight got delayed.

And I'm yelling at the flight,

I'm yelling at the person working at the booth or whatever.

What really is happening there?

Man, I'm afraid if I don't make this flight,

it's gonna have an effect on my life.

I'm gonna miss something with my kids.

My wife and I are already on thin ice

and this is just gonna make things worse.

I'm afraid that I may not have the money

to cover the expense of staying for one more night.

It's really all this fear that's underneath it

that we're unwilling to uproot and let the Lord

in his light expose that to bring it to healing,

so it's easier just to be offended.

When really,

man, being offended is the most exhaust.

I've never met someone, I've never seen somebody

who is offended and thought, wow,

and that person looks so at peace.

Like they just look so.

I mean, like,

it has to be exhausting

to get out of your car and to slam somebody else's car

and then just keep punching.

I mean, it's gotta be exhausting

to live that kind of life,

you know?

And I'm like, man, I just wanna,

I'd rather be a person of joy and peace.

And man, one of my favorite stories,

I won't tell you where, but it was in Indiana.

My wife and I went to this restaurant in Indiana.

This is years ago, we first got married.

And so it's kinda home-cooked meals

and you sit around this table

and the waiters and waitresses surround the table

and they start singing,

"I've got the joy, joy, joy down in my heart."

But man, it was,

they literally surround us

and they were like,

"I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy."

(laughing)

Where?

I'm thinking,

man,

if this is them on a joyful day,

I could not imagine them on a bad day.

And so I certainly don't propose

that Christians should be fake,

that we should somehow manufacture

some kind of false happiness.

But I think joy, I love what Willard says,

he says,

"Joy is not a passing sensation of pleasure,

"but a deeply pervasive sense of well-being

infused with hope because of the goodness of God.

So if my attitude,

you know,

Keller talks about this.

Keller says Christians should be the most confident people

in the world because we know how the story ends.

God is holding all things together.

So if I know that, if I know, man,

God is holding everything together,

including my delayed flight,

he's holding all of it together.

If I really believe that God is the source of all life,

he's the author and perfecter of faith,

that God is truly Jehovah Jireh,

He is truly the one who is in control,

then my confidence should be so great

that it's evidenced in joy that can't be shaken.

So yeah, that's one of my favorite chapters.

Let's dig in a little bit more on,

I think when Christians hear,

I think a lot of Christians would say,

if you asked them, what's joy?

I think generally in Christian culture,

there's like a, yeah, I get joy is different than happiness

and joy is this transcendent,

I'm living in this place

and it's irrespective of circumstances,

this kind of thing.

And I think people would hear everything you just said,

they'd go,

"Yes,

I want to live

with the kind of joy you're talking about.

I want to be the person

who lives out of that place consistently."

What does it mean practically

to be a person who's able to do that?

Like if I come to you and say,

"Pastor,

I really want to just,

I don't wanna live in a place of offense.

I wanna live out of joy."

But just getting up in the morning and saying,

"Hey,

it's joy day, is it gonna do it for me?

How do I get there?"

(laughing)

Yeah,

so I think one,

like everything else

in the Christian life,

like everything else in life,

it's a journey of learning.

We have to train ourselves to be joyful.

We have to allow the Holy Spirit

to help us become joyful people.

So part of that is language.

Part of that is waking up and not being fake,

but saying,

I'm gonna wake up,

God, whatever you bring today,

teach me to see this through the lens of joy.

Teach me to see this through the lens of what you're doing.

So that's number one.

Secondly is to train yourself in looking

at the lens of the world

through God's mission for the world.

What is God aiming to do?

What is God doing here?

How can I join God's mission in this?

Whatever the delay,

whatever's happening,

how do I join God's mission, God's purpose?

Like,

man, I hate to break it to people,

but God's great purpose in life is not for you

to discover your great purpose in life.

Like,

and so many Christians have been lied to.

They've been,

so many Christians have been like,

man, when you discover your purpose,

like, no,

when you discover God's purpose for the world,

So many Christians are so exhausted,

so depressed,

so anxious because their entire life,

in their Christian life, they've been told,

man, discover your great purpose

and you'll find your destiny.

And God's saying, no, no, no,

discover my great purpose and discover your destiny.

What am I doing for the renewal of the world?

And by the way, I'm inviting you into it.

And there is incredible amount of joy in knowing,

man, I am walking with God in this.

So that's the second thing.

And then third thing is, man,

cultivating a heart of gratitude.

Like literally learning to see everything

with a lens of gratitude.

So I'll give you an example.

The other day I took my sons to,

I think we went to, oh, we went to McDonald's.

Went to McDonald's because they wanted ice cream.

We go to McDonald's to get ice cream.

I'm surprised they still got McDonald's in Denver.

I thought you guys moved beyond that kind of food

or something.

It's for all the sinners,

they still have it left.

You know, for those of us who are weak and sinful.

So we go to McDonald's, the line,

man, the line,

it's a Sunday afternoon,

after church.

Two of my kids go home with my wife,

two of my kids come with me, line is out of the door.

So we're like, let's go inside.

We go inside McDonald's,

order three ice cream cones.

And it's taking,

I mean, it's probably been 25 minutes

of no ice cream.

And I'm wondering what's going on.

Eventually the,

I mean, and they are backed up.

This woman comes up to me, she says,

"I'm so sorry,

we are out of ice cream.

"Can I,

I'll give you any other dessert.

"What do you want?

"There's no ice cream."

So I was like, well, just give us,

small chocolate milkshakes.

She's like, "No, no, no.

"I'm gonna give you all large chocolate milkshakes."

comes back with large shark milkshakes.

I'm like,

yeah.

I mean,

economically,

I'm

like,

I just got $25 worth of milkshakes for $6 worth of ice cream.

This is, you know, for an Asian, I'm like, this is great. I'm saving money. Like,

let's go. Like,

praise Jesus.

And one of my sons is totally like, oh,

milkshakes. This is great.

My other son,

he,

man, this kid is so dejected that he

didn't get ice cream.

And I'm thinking,

I'm trying to tell him like, hey, man,

And let's look at this through the lens of gratitude.

We got to be here for 25 extra minutes and spend time together,

me, you and your brother.

We got to joke around together.

We laughed together.

We watched funny videos together.

We got a free upgrade on milkshakes instead of ice cream.

This is way more.

It's better.

I mean, if it's possible that a milkshake could be better than an ice cream, it's better.

And so trying to help him train his eyes to see that if you invite God into something,

moment you can find something to be grateful for,

any moment.

And I was like,

"Hey man, we even helped another lady who's never ordered before on

this new digital AI machines,

and we got to help someone do that.

She's never done it, and we know how it works, and so we got to interact with somebody else."

And so trying to teach yourself how to see everything through the lens of man,

and you

don't have to be happy about it.

Like, "Oh yeah, I was disappointed."

You can be disappointed and joyful at the same time.

don't think Jesus on the cross was saying,

"Man, this is this is amazing.

This is this is what I dreamed of." Like I woke up this morning thinking,

"I can't

wait to be stripped naked,

spit on,

beaten, and put on a cross." No, but man, for the

joy set before him, the joy of living in the Father's will,

the joy of others

being able to experience God's grace and be invited to the Father, like that joy

carries us.

And so joy is kind of like a wave,

you know? Like I didn't grow up

I've seen it.

I think I could think it did the general vibe of what you do in

surfing.

You don't need bear spray by the way.

I don't need bear spray.

But it's I imagine it's really hard to surf with no waves.

And so I kind of

see joy that way. Like joy is looking for the wave. Like I need to look for the

wave and then ride that wave.

Ride it until it brings me and then find the

next one. And so trying to find moments to be joyful,

it's a muscle that

cultivates over time.

And I think what Christians have to know is you

cannot wake up tomorrow, and now the Holy Spirit can do that. You can become the

most joyful person.

But for most of us who are normal,

ordinary people,

joy is

something you have to learn over time. And it can be painful.

You know, one of

my,

one of the coolest things I love is you watch these shooting videos of

Steph Curry, who is,

you know, arguably the greatest shooter who's ever played.

And his whole life,

he shot,

his shot was just a terrible form.

And I think he

who's 12 or 13,

his dad is reteaching him how to shoot.

And he's like, "Listen,

you can shoot this way

"in seventh grade when the average defender is your height.

"But when you're playing in college in the pros

"and now there's a six,

seven guy guarding you,

"this shot, the opponents have gotten stronger,

"faster, taller,

better.

"This shot's not gonna work anymore."

And I think that's the same thing.

The older we get,

God is saying,

"Hey, the opponent is gonna get bigger,

"stronger,

faster,

taller,

And this shot has to be adjusted

to still be able to play against an opponent

who is much better than the opponent you faced

when you were 12.

And so you have to learn it.

And you see these videos of Stephen Curry literally crying.

Crying 'cause his dad's trying to teach him

a new way to shoot.

And I think that's part of the journey of discipleship

of man, I'm gonna learn how to be more joyful

and this sucks.

This is not great.

I don't like this,

but I'm learning how to play a new style of game

that when the moment comes,

I've now trained myself

to respond as a person who is joyful.

Yeah.

But I've trained myself to do that.

I didn't just wake up and become that.

I'm training to become a kind of person

who sees everything through the lens of joy.

Yeah, and that's where it really comes back to,

you know,

believing,

when you were talking about this idea

of living a life of offense is just not a great life.

And it's really important to see that

because that old phrase of people don't change

until the cost of not changing is greater

than the cost of changing.

The thing is to live a life of joy

like you're talking about,

you're just gonna have to train.

The Holy Spirit's gonna walk with you,

he's gonna help you in that transformation journey,

but it is going to take effort.

And another great Dallas Willard quote,

that the gospel is not opposed to effort,

it's opposed to earning.

And so this idea though,

that we're just gonna like put our trust in Jesus

and boom,

man, we're just filled with joy

and it's never have to put real effort out,

that's a myth.

We've got to train.

I love that, you know, the

question that came to my mind as we're talking is really just this discipline

of saying,

"Where is the goodness of God in any given situation?" Because every

time we get in these offended places,

it's like all we can think of is the

thing we're grieving that didn't go right,

the frustration.

Where is the

goodness of God in that situation?

And man, when you train yourself over and

over again,

all of a sudden you start being able to see situations more

reflexively out of a lens of gratitude.

But again,

you'll never do the training in the first place.

If you don't realize a life of staying in a place of offense is just not a great

life.

It's not great for you. It's not great for your family.

It's not great for those around you.

Now I'm curious to hear,

you said that this is one of your top two favorite chapters.

What was your,

what's your second most favorite chapter or the other of the two?

Yeah, my second was probably on contentment,

like learning how to be content. Yeah.

And I think that's, that's the thing.

I've been praying for my life, you know, God make me content make me the most content person

You know

I love what East Stanley Jones would say is the cheap sin of man

That started in in the cosmos with Satan and God himself is competition that I'm always in competition with somebody else

and so that turns into it's expressing a life of greed and

Fundamentally, we are living in a culture that is so incredibly greedy.

I mean we live in one of the very few countries

literally that has storage units.

I mean,

I've never seen a storage unit in India.

I've never been like, what's that over there?

Like, oh, it's this thing called U-Haul,

and that's where people buy stuff,

and then they put it in that place,

and they pay monthly for it,

and then when they forget to pay monthly for it,

there's a TV show that capitalizes on this,

and what they do is they have people

who auction to buy stuff that people have forgotten.

I mean,

this is like such an American thing,

like the amount of stuff we have.

And so one of my favorite things to write about

And one of the things I talk about in the book is,

man,

to learn to be content.

So there's a couple of things I do in my own life

that I didn't put in the book.

So for example,

one thing I do is,

whenever I have,

every year, in January 1st,

I take every article of clothing in my house

and I turn it backwards.

I hang it backwards, I fold it backwards.

If I wear it,

then I put it back the right way.

At the end of the year,

whatever I didn't wear,

I give away.

Clearly this suit from Express that I've been holding on to,

I have not worn this year.

I don't need it,

give it away.

So give it away, give it away, give it away.

So like learning how to be content with those things.

Now, I'm certainly not proposing

that you can't have certain things in your life

where like I do think God is the God of pleasure

and God is the God of great gifts.

And so I don't think you should say,

man, I need to,

it's holier to be poor.

It's holier to have nothing.

nor is it more evil to have things.

Or I don't think Jesus ever says

that this is the amount of money you can make

and you can't make anymore.

And I don't think that's Christian of us

to tell people what they can make at all.

Jesus benefited from having a very wealthy person

say, "Hey man, bury him in my tomb."

Jesus certainly had wealthy people in his ministry,

so did Paul, Peter, so on and so forth.

But I wanna be content.

I wanna say like, man, I wanna be content.

So one of the things I talk about in the book

is doing a stuff inventory.

Like literally take a notepad and walk around the house

with your wife and kids and the whole family and say,

let's just take an inventory of how much stuff we have.

Hey man,

do you think you really need

97 stuffies on your bed?

You know, could we get rid of maybe six?

You know, can we start there?

And I think many of us just don't take into inventory

of what we have.

And for me,

I have found that when I take inventory

of what God's given me,

my gratitude really seems to go up.

my perspective of I actually have way more,

way more than I thought I did.

And

so I want to,

that was my probably my other favorite chapter to write is

that. And also because I used a lot of one of my favorite movies is the movie

Wall Street.

And so I used some Wall Street, we used some Wall Street stuff in

there.

--Michael Douglas Wall Street? Are we going back to that?

--Michael Douglas, oh yeah.

--And it brings out all the all-time hits. I made my wife I think watch that movie a couple times before we got

married,

man. That's a classic. --It's such a good movie. It's such a good movie.

And

I won't give it away,

but he,

you know,

Bud says,

he's like,

man,

where's the line?

Like,

where is the line?

How much is enough?

And his answer, which I put in the book,

is the answer,

like inside of all of our hearts.

And so like, I wanna grow in a person

who's really content, like,

and it doesn't mean mediocre.

It doesn't mean, well, I'm just gonna grovel through life

and be content.

I do not think that's what contentment is.

Contentment is truly, truly, truly learning what it means

to walk in God's pleasure.

Truly say, man, like, I'm so satisfied in the Lord.

You know, as the great theologian Bono would say,

man, I still can't find what I'm looking for.

And for us to say like, man, I found what I'm looking for

in the person of Christ and what he's given me.

Or as the great theologian Mick Jagger would say,

you know, I can't get no satisfaction.

Like,

man, if we live the world's way,

there's no amount of sex, there's no amount of money,

there's no amount of power.

There's no amount of fame.

There is no amount of friendship.

There's no amount of relationships.

there's no amount of anything that can satisfy you

the way that the Lord can satisfy you, Jesus himself.

And so,

man, I wanna be so content in the Lord.

And I love that Paul says in Philippians,

"I've learned the secret."

You're like, I've learned the secret to life

is to be content in plenty or in want to be content.

And so,

that's how I wanna live.

I wanna raise my family to be like that.

I want my kids to be like that.

My wife and I wanna be like that.

So,

that's probably my favorite.

Other than joy, that's probably my favorite chapter,

right?

Yeah, that's good.

And that, I mean, it really takes us back

to really foundational spiritual disciplines

of learning what it means to truly enjoy God.

I think a lot of times we can talk about contentment

and what it means to be okay with what God gives us.

But if you're not,

man, if you're not really,

you don't know how to delight in just the presence of Jesus,

you're gonna struggle with contentment forever

because you don't have the thing that you most need

to feel like your heart is settled.

And so I think that's a great word.

Anything else you wanna share before we wrap up today?

Man, I'm just grateful to be in this journey

with everybody and learning what it means to start writing.

And I love writing and I love having conversations

with people, so I would just say,

man, the more I do this,

I don't believe I have all the answers.

I don't wanna position myself as someone

who has learned everything,

but I love what C.S. Lewis says

that I'm an unlearned man speaking to unlearned men.

And I wanna be able to tell the stories

of what God is doing,

activate faith,

strengthen that in people,

challenge and call people out. But at the same time I

want to have deep conversations together.

And so hopefully myself,

you,

your team,

your staff, your church,

the people that listen to this podcast, we can

grow together and continue this conversation for years to come.

And I noticed on your website you've got some great,

when it comes to

continuing the conversation, you've got some great resources.

And tell us a

little bit about that. It's more than just, "Oh,

look at the website and

you'll see the book, but yeah, say more about what resources.

Definitely get to the book.

And I do a weekly email that I actually write. I write a weekly email,

just things that God has put in my heart that I want to challenge and encourage

Christians. It's predominantly an email to challenge,

but also give you practical things of, Hey,

I want to try this and work on this this week or grow in this this week.

So that's a weekly devotion I'll put out on Mondays.

So definitely,

definitely join the conversation with that.

And I legitimately respond to people. So people are like, I don't, you know,

Like,

tell me more about this.

And I get into conversations with people.

I love it, you know?

That's cool.

And I have a lot of people that do that.

But I think this is part of pastoring.

And I love conversations with people.

I wanna be the kind of pastor,

leader,

story.

I primarily see myself as a storyteller.

But I wanna tell stories, answering questions

that people are actually asking.

And what I don't wanna do is give really good sermons,

answering questions nobody's asking.

And so,

yeah, definitely join me online.

Instagram,

all that stuff.

Facebook,

but definitely on the website as well.

and sign up for the weekly devotional, it'd be awesome.

Yeah, that's cool. - I would love that.

We'll put all that in the show notes.

Naroop, man,

thanks for this conversation today.

It's been great hanging with you.

I hope the book does so well.

When's it actually, when's the actual drop date

when people can get it?

September 22nd,

so get it on Amazon,

your local bookstores, Barnes & Noble,

Mardell, Lifeway,

Tattered Book, wherever they sell books,

the local gas station, if they have books, go get it.

Got it,

all right. - It'll be there.

Hey, cool, thanks for the time today.

I know this conversation will be helpful to many,

so thanks for hanging out with us.

Thank you, man. Appreciate you guys. Love you guys.

I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Pastor Narup.

I love that fundamental question he's asking is we are all shining light if we're in Christ.

What kind of light are you shining?

And is your light distinguishable from the world?

Does your light reflect Jesus?

Great questions for us to wrestle with.

Really do hope you enjoyed the conversation today.

If you did, please rate and review Made to Advance.

That is a huge encouragement to the team.

This has been a production of En Gedi Church,

and we have got more great conversations on the way.

And so,

until next time, know God made you advance.

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