Pastors CONFRONT Top 5 Megachurch Myths (ft. Joby Martin) | Live Free with Josh Howerton
Is God bringing revival to America while the Church faces more criticism than ever? And are megachurches really as bad as people say?
Pastor Josh Howerton sits down with Pastor Joby Martin of The Church of Eleven22 for an unfiltered conversation about revival, biblical truth, spiritual leadership, and the power of the Gospel. Joby shares his incredible journey from a troubled teenager to leading one of America's fastest-growing churches, including his experience defending biblical Christianity in a liberal seminary.
Together, they tackle online attacks against pastors, what Christian men should look for in a godly wife, biblical masculinity, and common megachurch misconceptions. Joby also shares unforgettable encounters with Billy Graham and John Piper, along with powerful stories of lives being transformed through prison ministry. Through it all, one message stands out: The Church isn't called to chase crowds, but to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
In this episode, you'll discover:
• Why churches are experiencing revival and opposition simultaneously.
• How to recognize biblical truth amid criticism and false teaching.
• What Christian men should prioritize when pursuing marriage.
• Why biblical leadership requires both strength and sacrificial love.
• The truth behind common megachurch myths about money, growth, and discipleship.
• How the Gospel is transforming lives inside America's prisons.
Stand firm. Think biblically. Live free.
or you're in cell block D and marrying correctional. You put your faith in Jesus, he'll change everything about everything about everything. Unspoken rule of the world has with pastors. You take it easy on us, we'll take it easy on you. And the second a pastor breaks that rule, all hell will break loose on your life. But that's the moment that all of heaven starts to break loose in your church. Amen. Well, hey, Liffry Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas. Texas, but the Liffry Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this. We want to invite you to take a simple next step and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook and our church online platform. And it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend. And now, enjoy the podcast. Bishop Toby Martin, welcome to Liffry. I pass you back out and it's always a pleasure. Dude, this is awesome. So we're actually recording right here from the retreat center. Where are we? Where are we? We're by Georgia. Yeah, this is awesome.
That we're leading a cohort with some great dudes. The future is bright in the local American church, brother. Yeah, you want to because they don't know what I'm talking about. Well, what's the postage stamp that we're doing right now? Do you mean with the pastors? Yeah, yeah. We're doing for some other people, what some other people did for us, man. This was your idea. I had finished something at Lake Point and we're hanging out by your fire pit. And you talked me into getting together some of the young guys that guys just got his hand on and spending some time with them. And so I said, if you'll do it with me, I'll do it. And here we are. It's awesome, man. Yeah. This is your second time on the pod. Yeah, I know. I'm excited about it. Let me just, I'm going to say something. And then every time I have you on, I'm going to say the same thing. Because I want people to know it. They had a pride make sure I'm comfortable. I'll do it every time. In 2019, here's my little thing. In 2019, for people who don't know, I had eight months of like pretty aggressive anxiety attacks. And way back then, I decided to her preach and you just preach her. And I decided on Joey Martin. And so when I was 2019 for those eight months, every single Monday, I would just wake up, walk down to the best pond, open my Bible, get my coffee,
and listen to you preach. And I heard a million times things like, what's propitiation? It's a pain in the satisfies. Right. Well, what's condemnation mean? It's a builder's term meaning, meaning unfit for you. I can do all the things. And dude, yeah, I don't know why I can't talk about what my sweating, but the Lord used you to pull me out of the hardest. It was the hardest season of my entire life. And I'd take a bullet for you. And I'm very, very grateful for your friendship and the way God used you in my life. Thank you. You're welcome. I knew about you before I knew you. I had been watching from afar because I knew Stroop so well. Yeah. And I was just cheering you on when you took over and took off. And so it was kind of crazy that it had any kind of impact in your life whatsoever. So I've been a big fan of all the things you've been doing for a long time. Well, significant. And bro, I tell my church this all the time. Literally this last week, sermon, I went through this whole thing. I was like, Joe, he's like, if Billy Graham and Larry the cable guy had a baby. And I, you know, and I was like, hey, man, he's my preacher. 10% of everything you hear came from Joey Mark. I tell him all the things. Well, you passed through in my church vicariously. And Lake Point is an amazing church. Yeah.
I mean, the thing is that the people that criticize those of us that quote other preachers and don't spend 45 minutes just footnoting our sermons. I mean, we give credit often and we sprinkle it in there. So I've said it before, you can't steal what's freely given. And so, you know, I've learned from so many people. I use your stuff all the time. I try to say my friend, Josh Howard, and said, but you can't say that like nine times in one paragraph. You know what I mean? I've heard you do this and I've done this too before. Occasionally, I'll just stop and I'll say much of this sermon came from one of these four people. Yep. You know, but it's kind of sad that we live in a day and age where we, I mean, I'm all forgiven in credit, but just to even have to change anything because what the nice heirs will say. Well, that's one of the things I want to talk about. So like, let me just, if you're listening, let me give you heads up, we're going to go. First of all, both of us, by God's grace and we say this, I pray with the most amount of humility before the Lord of people. We're seeing unique things happen in our churches. You guys but how many people do you baptize a second ago nine twenty seven? Yeah, man last Sunday for us I don't I don't even know how to describe it and when I was a kid I could not have even fathomed it so I want to talk about like What we're seeing around a country? I want I want if we feel comfortable. Maybe we'll edit this out. I want to talk about new realities facing pastors Where it's like there's like a whole online industry of pastor critique, which is new brah. That's new to us Like I that's a little new to me. It's kind of weird in it. It's a little weird, man Some things the Bible calls sin other people call men. Yes Well, we'll get there we'll get there because dude, I will say I'm pro for listeners I'll probably only do this once is like I want to help people who are in churches because they don't know how to think about it
Correct, they just see crap online and they're like is his actor and I'll double down on live free I don't know when it's coming out. So for me, it was Monday. Yeah, because you talked about Calling out sheeps and wolves coding. Yeah Particularly in your state, man. Yeah, you got a crazy person trying to be in charge is smidge bro, and his you know God has six general old unquote pastor. Yeah So anyway, there is there is a place for that. Yeah but The Bible talks a lot about disunity. It doesn't say good things. We'll get there Okay, we'll get there and then dude I just you know We'll do our best to be as wise with as we can okay one of the most frequent questions we get because like live freeze is It's a lot of people, but it's a bunch of young dudes So like one of the big questions guys have is like they're looking at demographics and it's like man young women skew and hard left Yeah, young men skew and hard right and then honestly do there's a bunch of young guys going like where do I find a good wife now? Well, didn't you find your wife from a demographic study? I Did not we'll get to that too. Oh gosh, and then last thing I want to do is we'll just try not to step in it Is rapid fire mega church myths like objections that people do so let me start right here, man Because like I like hearing the stories that people that influence me. Give me the three minute How did a kid from you know, maybe a rougher background from Dylan, South Carolina? Go from there to pastoring. I'll just say it. I'll say something you won't say the fastest growing church plant in American history Well, my daddy said the best thing ever come out of Dylan, South Carolina is I-95 and that's a fact Bro, we didn't grow up in church at all. We would go on Easter only and Great church. I'm sure and I just didn't connect. They just went in part of our world I got in some trouble in high school found myself at a camp run by one of the deacons coach bully from that church and That's where I met Jesus the counselors reenacted the crucifixion of Christ and for the first time When Jesus says it is finished. I knew it counted for me and this was old school Baptist So we sang just as I am about 18 times Around a campfire on the last night of camp and then coach Lee gets up and says I think there's one more And it was me and I got saved and then I started working at that camp
like just cutting the grass and stuff and Then one day I'm like 18 years old and I'm in the back of the room Maybe 19 and coach Lee said boy when the when the guy's done singing You're up and he was singing. I am a sea with with an overhead projector hand motions Yeah, you know, you know, you had that dude. Yeah, that that one person like hold the words and like yeah I was that guy in the youth ministry. Let's go. Yeah, I was like coach Anyway, I told him I wasn't comfortable and just imagine 1980s hardcore football coach. He said boy. Did you say comfortable? You think Daniel was comfortable in the lines then he's preaching me a sermon right there You think Paul and solace are comfortable in prison boy. Do you think Jesus Christ was comfortable on the clock cross? I was like no, and I said coach what I talk about. He said boy. That's easy You talk about Jesus. You talk about 30 minutes go and I preached my first sermon and some kids got saved and When I got done he put his finger in my chest and said boy when you teach the Bible. I See you come alive and I see them come alive and then Few months later. I'm just serving at my church while I'm in college leading 10th grade boys and we were doing a disciple now weekend and the guy gives a salvation invitation and like a read education opportunity and then some Some of you may be called full-time vocational ministry and I was overwhelmed with the presence of God I had to go to my dad and say daddy. I'm not going to seminary I'm not going to med school I just got accepted to the medical college of Virginia and I said I'm not doing that I'm going to seminary and he's like what is seminary and I said well, let's say And he's like, "Why the heck you need a school "for to be a preacher? "You only study one book and work half a day a week." (laughing) - I don't know, but I feel like that's the next step. - Bro, it's funny. It's like what half of our churches actually think.
- Yeah, like actually think that. - 100%. So that's what I did. And then I was a youth pastor and I thought I was gonna do student ministry forever. - Well wait, oh you did sit real quick. Didn't you go to like, did you go to like a pretty liberal seminary? - No, I went to a very liberal seminary. - Oh, okay. - Very, very, very. - It's like, if I'm allowed to ask, if we need to edit anything. - No, what was it? And then what was it? I've never heard you tell us. - So it's bad as theological seminary of Richmond. And a part of the problem when you don't grow up in church, you don't know what's happening in church world. - Yeah, yeah. - So all of the professors that did not believe the Bible when they got fired from the big six Southern Baptist schools because they were heretics. They assembled together with great animosity and started Baptist Cultural Seminary of Richmond. And I thought, well, I'm working at a Baptist church. There's a Baptist school right here. I mean, I visited Southwestern and Southern and South Eastern. I thought that's where I'd go. And I love those students that I was serving.
And I just didn't know. And it's all my responsibility and nobody told me. And I showed up on campus and I'm like, what the heck? And so we're about, it's like my third week and my professor is, she's talking about the resurrection as if it's a myth or a story. - Bro. - And I'm like, hold on a second. I got a question. She said, what's up? And I was like, it sounds like you don't believe in the bodily resurrection. She goes, well, what if I don't? I said, well, when I get to heaven, you won't be there. (laughing) - You had in a clown three weeks in with this professor who has a PhD in Johanon literature. - Okay. - And I got saved at summer camp single, did you years ago and had done many quiet times. And so my whole seminary experience and the Lord, like things were going so well in the student ministry. And I also thought that, that, you know, these kids will never leave me. I didn't realize they graduated every four years and, you know, that kind of thing. And so I was just so in love with what I was doing. So I had to go to war every, every class. I had to get permission to write papers twice as long. And I would literally say, and I've got,
I can be a bit antagonistic. And now in 53, when I was 24 or whatever, it was bad. And I would say, this is the heresy you've been teaching 'cause, you know, basically for a paper in school, you just have to regurgitate what they've been telling you. And then I'd say, and this is biblical Christianity. - Bro, and I had to petition the president to graduate. - No. - 'Cause everybody failed me. - Seriously. - Seriously. - And I just had to be like, listen, I've done the work and y'all just disagree with me theologically, me and Jesus, but that's fine. And then I finally was like, do you really want me back? And he said, congratulations, you can walk. - So did you stay all three years? - Yep. - I'm just curious, what made you stay three years when it was like, I'm surrounded by actual heretics. - The churches I was serving. - Y'all, I gotta stay with these people. - That's it. I was just serving the local church. - He was interesting to me about that. He's like, you know, and I think it's dark not rises, where they throw Bruce Wayne down in the pit, they break his back. And then the whole process of him climbing out is how he becomes Batman. It's like a little bit of like, well, that's a little bit
of how Jobe became Batman. - Yeah, I was a little bit of an apologist before I even knew what that was. Because I had to argue Orthodox Christianity against people that were exponentially more educated than me. - We didn't even plan to talk about this, I'm curious. What were like the other like main things that they were pumping out in that seminar is like, I had to deal with that. - Everything that you call progressive Christianity. - Oh, it was that. - Bro, but this is the mid 90s. So I started in 95th. So nobody had ever heard like sexuality kind of up to you and it's biblical, Dominique Croson and the Jesus seminars that are voting on what Jesus may have said, may not have said. That was like, they would say things like, this isn't the word of God, this contains words from God. Things like that. And in fact, you were required to attend chapel and I would go. And then somebody from the chapel stage gave this very, very disparaging comment on Adrienne Rogers and people cheered when I was like, I'll never be back. - If you're listening and you don't know who Adrienne Rogers is, legend, legend, one of the greatest preachers - Bible believer, 10 toes down. - Yeah, and so I'm back in the president's office,
I'm like, you have to come to chapel. And I was like, that is a house of gossip. Like, can we just walk through the epistles and what the Bible says that we're supposed to be doing in there? So, funny enough, I have preached at most of the Southern Baptist seminaries as a guest chapel speaker. I've never been invited back to. (both laughing) And if I did go, I would go on a mission trip to share the gospel, yeah. - What would you preach? Like, off the top of your head. - I would preach this passage. - Just probably straight Romans three. - Yeah. - Just the gospel, 'cause honest again, it's safe. - They need to get saved. - They need to get saved. They need to surrender their life to the lordship of Christ. - All right, so I'm sorry, I'd dovetail this. So, all right, this thing. - Good news is none of my church. - Yeah. - Y'all were in coffee shops and they always made fun of me 'cause I was always like, I gotta go lead a youth group. But it's a great way to do seminary, 'cause the whole, you'll be like, that won't preach 'cause it's not true. - Yeah.
- So yeah. - It was helpful. - All right, so as you get out of there, then I just wanna get from there to, I'm pastoring the fast and correct church plan in American history is 35,000 people. - I graduate and then it finally dawns on me. Oh no, nobody's gonna hire me. I wouldn't hire me from this place. (both laughing) And this incredible godly man named Dr. Bill Rawls hired me and I got to work at Vinton Baptist Church, just outside of Roanoke, Virginia. And it was just the time of my life, man. The student ministry's growing and blowing. He's showing me how to be a man. In the ministry, I meet Gretchen in the gym about four months after I get there, within a year and a half were married. And then he, Dr. Rawls says, I'm going to Athens to work at the church there and I want y'all to come with me and run students in college. So we get there. Most of the people in that church are liberal and I didn't realize that. And the only people that really wanted like Bible believing, Bible teaching folks was the committee that hired me and Dr. Bill and so-- - That was awesome.
- But well, we got beat down. I came this close to leaving ministry in 2003. Gretchen talked me into staying in and giving it one more chance. That landed us in Jacksonville, Florida and Beach Church under Pastor Jerry Sweatt, the best Christian I've ever met in my whole life, did that for about 10 years. We started a service that started at 11.22 a.m. on Sunday mornings and I just called it that so that people would know what time to come. And I'm not creative. In about, I don't know, in less than a year, our services, it turned into four or five services and it outgrown the church we were at. And he came to me and said, "I think you should plant a church and we'll plant you." And then they let us live there for another year and a half while we got everything together, renovated in all Walmart and we launched 11.22, September 23rd, 2012. - 14 years ago. - Yeah, dude, for people who are listening, like they don't know how rare, what Jerry Sweatt was his name. They do not realize like no one does what he did. Like no pastor anywhere looks at a massive service in his church and then says, "Hey man, you know what you ought to do? Take all these people in my church and leave so that the kingdom can advance." Nobody does that.
- Yeah, and he, and at that point, that church was part of the United Methodist denomination, but it wasn't like your United Methodist guys running for office, it's not like that. Dude, we went to one of his conferences one time I should tell you about that. - Who are you talking about? - What's his name? You just talked about him. - James Torego. - Nope, the other guy that you mentioned, Adam. - Oh, Adam Hamilton. - Yeah, him. - His heretic running for literal, I'm not saying that it'd be me, like an actual literal heretic running. - An actual heretic. I went to the first session and the whole session was about how his church is for thinking people because normal church people aren't smart enough to tell them how the Bible actually got put together and stuff. - You went to his church? - Well, Pete's church was a Methodist church and it was a big church. And so our team was trying to, I didn't sign up, I'm not a Methodist church. And so I just show up with the team and I was like, I'm not going on this crap. And I didn't, I went and like shared the gospel
on the street and worked on my youth talk while my house was in these. Anyway, so I'm not surprised that that was like the beginnings of it, but it was terrible. So anyway, Beech was a Jesus loving, love lost people kind of church. - Love the Bible. - Love the Bible. And since then they have left the United Methodist church when they went just complete apostate. - Yeah, again, people, for people who don't know, the United Methodist church made an actual decision to like just actually institutionally embrace heterodoxy and LGBT affirming a few years ago. - Not just firming, but like in positions of leadership and pastoral positions and I mean, just. - So when he's talking about them, leaving the denomination, he's not saying that is a bad thing. He's saying that is a very, very good thing. - Well, here's what happened, that denomination left the Bible. - Yes. - And Beech church stayed with the Bible. - Bingo. - That's a better way to say it. - We didn't move. - It's a great church, man. It's still a great church. - That's awesome, dude. - Yeah, yeah.
I mean, Pastor Jerry, we just did a church leader summit at 11.22 and had almost 2,000 pastors. We told Pastor Jerry's story and he opened the whole thing in prayer. - I love that you did that. - Of course. - That's awesome. - Yeah. - Okay, let me transition, but it's really, so like right now, for real, you're the, I tell people this all the time, church 11.22, which by the way, I think it's absolutely, people ask me all the time 'cause I quote you all the time. What's the Bible verse behind 11.22? - It is, it marked 11.22. - Oh, really? - Oh, I proof texted one. It's hard to find. - So you came up with it afterwards. - Yeah, yeah. And we picked the time first and then I started making bumper stickers and handing them out. So when we started the church, Gretchen was like, are we really gonna call it 11.22? I'm like, well, we can do it all the bumper stickers. It's kind of a thing.
And so there's not a lot of good 11.22 verses. Like Proverbs 11.22 says like a gold ring and a pig snout is a woman without discretion. (laughing) So that was almost our theme. - No, the 11.22 women's conference headlines. - Mark 11.22 says, Jesus answered, have faith in God. - There you go. - Yeah. Oh, good, we found something. - Yeah. - All right. So man, both of us are seeing, now honestly, in my wildest dreams and got called in ministry on 16, I could not have imagined being a part of what we get to do right now. - Totally. - Honestly, like, you know, we back, I think we're about to say 882 a couple weeks ago. - And dude, I just sat in the back and honestly, I cried like a little baby. - I did. (laughing) - I was just back there. Miles Swedden, you guys baptized, bro. - We've baptized. - That's 4,000 people this year. - Five, it's like 5,084.
- Dude, and if you're a lit, like I don't think you understand in all of church history, there may be a small handful of churches who have seen that. So like, let me just ask a question, we'll just get right at it. Both of us are seeing really unique moves we got our churches. You know, awesome man, like, I don't know about you, but I feel like we're breaking like, I feel like I'm breaking a lot of the rules everybody told me what you needed to do and not do to grow a church. Like, hey man, never preach above a sixth grade level. You know, anything that's any controversial, you know, has a little edge to it. You know, just keep that, keep that private. We'll handle that in conversations, not from the pulpit, but be a mile wide and an inch deep. And bro, you, like right now, you're, what, what week of preaching verse by verse through Matthew are you in? How many weeks are you gonna do a Matthew total? - How many weeks have been in the year? We started the first week of January, we'll take it all the way to like Thanksgiving. - Yeah, a couple of years ago, I'll listen to every single one of them. You started the year and you went, hey guys, hope you like the book of Romans,
because the entire year, we're in Romans. You're gonna love it. And so it's like, man, you guys, my favorite, I say this all the time, I said it's Phil Panther Mitchell. There's two ways to preach. You can preach like a feather duster, or you can preach like a jackhammer. I like guys who preach like a jackhammer, where they just sort of open up the board and the word is the sword in the word, and they just choose violence. - I love me some Phil Panther Mitchell. - Yeah. - God has blessed our generation with his voice. He's a godly man. - Yes. - And you only get to see a glimpse of it on stage. Like the real Phil Panther Mitchell's best days are in that prayer closet, just getting after it. But mind kind of normal routine now, 'cause our first service starts on Thursday nights. And I'll, at 522, and so I'll try to get everything buttoned up by two, run across the street to the gym and listen to a Phil Panther Mitchell sermon, just alike. - That'll get you good workout. - That's it. It just, I just need that little extra fire as I'm going in. And so he's been an incredible blessing. - All right, well, honestly, all three of us,
it's like, you know, and this is no shade at anybody, we're just, people do it different. But honestly, it's kind of like all the stereotypes of mega churches. I kind of feel like y'all, you break all of them. - I don't do any of them. - It's like, you don't do any of that stuff. You know, it's not a mile wide at an inch deep. You know, you're preaching verse by verse, the Romans for 45 weeks. Like, so here's the question. Okay, you're breaking all the quote unquote rules. And yet you're seeing an outpouring of spirits, like an open heaven over 1122. Why do you think some of the churches that are breaking all the rules are the ones that are seeing the most kingdom advance right now? - I think some of it is just the favor of God. There are people that preach better than me and know the Bible better than I do and pray harder than I do. And in God's sovereign plan, he's just decided to put his favor upon us. I don't know, I don't know how to explain it. We sing all the same songs, we all teach from the same Bible, I don't know. I appreciate the guys that have gone before us that fought all like the worship wars and we can preach in genes and, you know, not take ourselves seriously.
I have a great appreciation for that. But I'm glad we've gone beyond that. And I'm not in the crowd business. and I Think folks are saying okay if I'm gonna show up and give you an hour and a half at a church Then just just give me the goods man. Yes, just put what are you asking? What is he asking me to do? Just tell me what it actually says and I don't need a bait and switch. Just tell me that just tell me what it says and I think and Then ultimately Jesus said if you lift him up he'll draw all men unto you So I can't save anybody and I'm not in the crowd business. I'm not just trying to get bigger attendance trying to make disciples That is the imperative in the great commission Yeah, dude, I think there's really something to like there's a spiritual aspect. There's a human reality Like there is no such like the thing that I'll tell you it's all the time to say man The Spirit of God authored the Word of God and so the preaching the Word of God attracts the presence of God And if we give the presence of God the presence of God I'll attract the people Amen, and so it's like man if you just there's a listen dude. I don't care who you are There is there's power in that book the other thing man is a lot of guys they they they're like preaching for the audience of Their favorite famous Christian pastor that their hopes listening first of all he and listening or they're preaching to impress They're dead seminary professors. Yeah, listen, bro. Yeah, listen I'm just preaching to the man and the woman that I see sitting right there in the second row so if Because I'll tell you there's been a couple times where I feel really intimidated because I'm preaching a conference with like John Piper And I'm like he is gonna laugh at my illustrations And think it's silly because you're right There's a lot of Larry the cable guy in there because it's just who I am and how I grew up and a lot of that stuff I use all your jokes, but the reality is this what dr. Piper actually did first time I met him as I walk up to him. There's I mean of all the preachers. I got to have dinner with Billy Graham one time and then Shake hands with dr. Piper and chair stage with him like back-to-back preaching
I walk up to him. I'm like dr. Piper. I know everybody told you a million times, but I just want to tell you again I'm Joe B. Martin from 11 22 and he goes I know 11 22 and I was like hold on a second. Gretchen come here Can you say it last morning? Okay Nothing but encouragement nothing but encouragement. Do you know how you heard about you? Probably Matt Chandler He's very real tight. Yeah, and then he says We you sit with me in the service So we're sitting together on the front row his leg is touching in my leg and I'm like lower Would you pass the double Elijah Elijah on me? You know I believe an impartation in this moment Then he said we pray for me for our preach. I'm like yes, sir. So anyway But I'm not trying to preach to John Piper I'm trying to preach to just the people that showed the God brings to 11 22 People in struggling marriages and prodigal kids and people have been a Christian a long time, but they feel stuck whatever it is And I think some a lot of times too many preachers are like Trying to go viral instead of just be faithful for the text and just just preach the word. That's right, man It's really interesting. So I'm reading a Charles Spurgeon burgers right now. Let's go And uh, it's you know because I listen to you so much I'm reading the stuff about his preaching and there was a sentence I read the other day and I was like ask joe Because the what the guy said the biographer said what if you don't if you don't know who that is and you're listening Charles Spurgeon is generally considered the greatest preacher since the new testament era It's called the prince preachers. He was passing in church of uh 10th I just read the other day he preached 24 000 people at one time without a microphone. Well, and this is like uh Mid delayed 1800s. No mic, you know And the dude was just a baller And they said this about his preaching while I read it. I was like that's joe Is they said the thing the two things that marked charles Spurgeon's preaching is he had an extremely High Chris that he's he had a very high theological. Yeah, you know awareness and undergirding his puritan Got all the things all the things but because he experienced extra and i'm not saying this is why you do it
I'm just talking about what you do because he experienced like extreme suffering his wife was an invalid. He had extreme Uh, uh, I think it was brights disease is what now they think it was his whole life They said he had this thing where like his preaching would go really high doctrinally But then really low in the at the compassion level where it just felt like It's a man just crawling up right next to your hospital bed And there was a tenderness to him and when I read that sentence. I was like, that's joey martin. Yeah, that's that Well, I love jesus and I love people Yeah, and I want the people that I love to love jesus because he first love them That's right. And so I just tell them about it Will you tell the, tell the Billy Graham story? Oh man, I'm on a mission trip. Uh, and this guy calls me and he's a doctor at Mayo and Dr. Graham will come to Jacksonville and go to Mayo to do all of his checkups and stuff. And he was attending 11, 22 and he's like, Hey, I need you to pray about something. Would you and Gretchen like to have dinner with us and Dr. Billy Graham. And I might pro some things you don't pray about. Okay. I literally can't even imagine for this. So I'm like, of course, so we show up. And this is not like you're invited to a dinner with and there's a hall of people and the guys up on stage. No, no, no, no. It was the homeowner, his wife, their daughter, Dr. Graham at the head of the table, me, Gretchen, and then Dr. Graham traveled with like a travel companion and a nurse. That's it at the family dining room table. So I read two of his biographies in the couple of weeks going into it, just so I'd be all fresh and I walk in the door and there's Billy Graham. And he had met in one of his biographies. He met like Joe DiMaggio or some famous player and he was like, Oh, it's a great stay in my life. And so when I met him, I was like, Dr. Graham, I was reading about how when you got to meet, I think it was Joe DiMaggio, this is that moment for me. And he says, Oh, pastor, tell me about your church. And I was like, baby, do you know, he called me pastor. She's she's a, it's because he probably don't know your name.
I'm like woman. So we had just baptized. I can't, I think it was 126 people the weekend before in the ocean. And I was like, well, we just baptized 126 people. He like, he looked shocked. He backs up and he goes, I've never heard of such a thing. And I was like, you know, I think you have. I read that you had 75,000 people in Seoul, Korea, get saved three years ago. But okay, you know what I mean? But here's the thing that he never compared my ministry to his ministry. He just celebrated what we were doing. So we sit down at dinner. We were together maybe like four and a half hours. And we sit down at dinner and we're just kind of chatting. And then he looks over at Gretchen, he goes, Miss Martin, understand that you're a worship leader at the church. And he was like, she said, yes, sir. And he said, will you sing me a song? And Gretchen looks at me and I was like, if Billy says, saying, woman, you better say she gets up. He couldn't hear very well, see very well at this point. And she comes over and kneels down and she just starts singing the song and he closes his eyes and he just lifts his hand at the table. No show. He's just okay. And then she looks at me and you know how when it's just slamming at the end of the service and the authors are flooded. And you're like, I know we scheduled one song, but and she looked at me and I did the just like, let's keep it going. The buses will wait. And so eventually she gets done. He looks right in her eyes and he goes, I believe that's the most beautiful song I've ever heard. Now listen, my wife can sing, but he's heard some songs, man. But again, there was no comparison. I asked him, I asked him to pray for our ministry.
He grabbed my hand and Gretchen sand and never mentioned the ministry. He said, God, I pray for this man. I pray you'll protect him from himself. I pray for his marriage. I pray that he would love his wife and he would make disciples and you will build your church. And when he's we were driving home and Gretchen was like something's different in my life. And she had been leading worship and kind of reluctantly she had all the talent. She didn't want to be on stage. I mean, look at her. That was gone and broken. And then right before dinner was over, I said, Dr. Graham, if you could preach one more crusade, what would it be? And I mean, before I got the sentence out, he said, that would be Galatians 614. Now, at that point in my life, I had yet to memorize Galatians 614. I didn't even know what it said. So I was just moving like I was like Galatians. I am so and I pull my phone out and go to my uversion Bible out because he can't see. Shut up, Greg. And I go to Galatians 614, which is far, be it from me to boast in anything, except the cross of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The man that's got the right to brag about everything. Yeah, man. Bro, it was our time together. That's a story. No doubt. It was so interesting about that is like. So two guys that have influenced both of us significantly. It's funny. You and me. from Passion One Day. By the way, my XP Tim Smith, shout out, he helped.
Did you know he helped quarterback that Passion One Day? - No way. - Bro, he's the one that did like a bunch of the, he set up that, all that stuff. So he was there and everything. - I have the, not the one that Dr. Piper was holding, but I have the reader's digest that he reads from. - He showed it to me when I preach a lot. - Yeah, somebody heard me preach about it, and they had it after, like Grandma had it in their house, they brought it to me, sitting on my desk. - I think we have a, we don't even, we're gonna move on, talk about what we're gonna talk about, but I think we got similar thing. Shout out, his name was Lewis Curd at Union University. He handed me a burn CD of that dad gum sermon, and I bet I listened to that thing no joke 200 times. I could, I could, I literally could have quoted that sermon, I think, word for word. When Janet and I started dating, we go on a blind date, I think it was like our third date, I was like, "Hey, instead of music, let's listen to this." And in my mind, it was kind of like, if she's out on this, I'm praying out on her. - Yeah, it's like, I don't think I'd be doing what I'm doing, if it wasn't for God pouring out his spirit on that. - I was leading the college ministry at UGA, and we had a Bible study that night, and this kid comes in and he had a bootleg DVD, sub the event, and he was like, "Can we watch this?"
I was like, "Okay." And I remember, man, like all the cool people were there, it's like David Crowder, Louis, I mean, all the coolest Christians ever, and then out comes this man, who looks like he works at Bobbuster. - Ill-fitting doctors. - Yeah, we watch it beginning in, it's only like 42 minutes, and then everybody's undone, and the whole point out of it is just don't waste your life. That's the whole point. Don't chase after the things of this world, just chase after Jesus, find your joy in him by being on mission for him. It finishes, everybody looks at me 'cause I'm like the college pastor, and I just play it again. And we just, we watched it three times. - Jeez. - What's interesting is the boast only in the cross, so you got that from Graham. That's like Piper's thing. That, I think he mentions it in that sermon, if they see that or the other one, but it's very interesting. Galatians 614, and everybody's something too. Hey, real quick, can somebody look up, like what people, if people wanna search that YouTube, that sermon on YouTube, can somebody tell me what to search? 'Cause people are gonna,
you will want to pause this podcast to go listen to that. Just tell me whenever you find it. But dude, that just, it wrecked my life. It completely. - It's still wrecking my life, I mean. - I, well, nevermind, we'll move on. Okay, I might get it. - Bosting only in the cross, John Piper, passion one day, two dollars. - Bosting only in the cross, passion one day, 2000. Worth your time. - Correct. - Worth your time. Okay, let's fast forward and talk about stuff, okay. So I wanna see what you think about this. So almost every pastor I know, I think probably both of us, but almost every pastor I know, they're experiencing two things simultaneously at the same time. More salvation, more outpouring of God's spirit, more baptism, and more opposition, more honestly, just sort of like viciousness, and then more sort of attack. And I feel like both those are happening at the same time. - I'm honestly just curious. You got any thoughts why you think that is? - On the last Live Free, you talked about the 50 year cycles of revival and communication breakthroughs that accompanied those things. I triple stamped that no takebacks, man.
I'm into it. I also think in the, I remember COVID, all the race riots, everything's burning down, all of that that was going on in 2020, and we're all freaking out. I happened to be with Larry Osborne, and he's like, guys, this isn't new. Y'all don't remember the late '60s? And we were like, well, we weren't born yet. So say more, very, very similar. And out of that comes the Jesus revolution. That's right. Dude, it's interesting. About five years ago, six years ago, I did a series for like, for a long time, at our church called Gospel Awakenings, where we just studied the ingredients of revival, and we began to pray for 11, 22. Why not us, why not here, why not now? Interesting. Yeah. And did you do just like revival texts in the scriptures? What'd you do? Like you go like Nehemiah. This is for a memory. It was more like some of the things that, some of the ingredients, according to really smart people, was a pursuit of holiness. There was a repent, like serious, serious repentance. People getting serious about evangelism, not as a strategy, but like the people they loved.
And then there's the unexplainable spirit of God shows up. And so we did a week on each of those, And then you're right. And then the, I mean, you know, I reached out to you a couple of weeks ago. Um, by the way, thanks again for that. You and Philip talking it ministered to my soul at just the right time and just the right way. And so I appreciate it. But yeah, man, people have become more and more vicious. And one of the things you've reminded me of is that that's not new, man. It's just, you know, same demons, different days that Paul would go into a city, right, a revival would break out and a riot would follow. And the internet, it's just made normal people really mean. Bro, yes. I mean, I heard Pecluda said this at our place last week, but when I was growing up, if somebody said something about you, you'd say, say it in my face. And there were some consequences involved there, you know, yeah, if you can't say it to somebody's face or you wouldn't say it that way to somebody's face, then you probably shouldn't type it. Bro, it's been a toxic tweet at any of that. Something. Yeah. Do you, I think that like, uh, there's a little, there's a little schema that like, uh, I just, I did, uh, I think I did 40, 44 weeks in acts. And bro, here's a little exercise for like, if you're a listener or you're a pastor, like, here's a little exercise for you. So like, all right. So, uh, obviously, uh, this, like, uh, I've heard somebody said, whatever got great state and counterfeits. So yeah, God does the Holy Spirit state and counterfeits with unholy
spirits about what calls demons. So where they, uh, wherever there is an action of the Holy Spirit, there's always going to be an, an opposite reaction of unholy spirits about what calls demons, bro. If you, I did it when I was sitting for acts, if you go through the book of acts and you take two highlighters and every single time there's a revival or outpouring of God's spirit, you do one color. And then every time there's a riot or a Christian gets murdered, you do another color, literally the entire outline of the book of acts is revival, riot, revival, riot, revival, riot. And bro, I don't know if you feel this way. I don't think we talk about this. I literally will tell my team now. Like we, I knew I was like working on baptizing minimum 700 people this year, I will literally start telling my team the next week. I have no idea what it is. Yep. The next week, you are going to see some massive opposition. Be ready. And I have never been wrong, not because I'm right, because the Bible told me so. Well, yeah, you got any thoughts on that? Well, you see it in the scriptures all the time last. So we do this thing called saturated in the fall, bro. It's, let me just say, okay, I'm in my workout room. I listen every year. It's amazing. It's incredible. Robbie Gallady, Jenny Allen, JP Pecluda, Jason Shepherd and the meal and Sunday we baptized 900 plus people. The following weekend I started with, wasn't it awesome?
Get ready. Yeah. The enemy here comes the enemy. And I said to quote my friend, Josh Howerton, the birthmark of the believer is the bull's, which I got from somebody else. And so, I mean, look at, look in the Bible, man, Jesus gets baptized. That's a high holy moment. He has not been connected to the Father the way he has eternally because he is incarnate in here and he comes out of the water, the heavens open up and God, the Father says, behold, my son in whom I am well pleased. You think you feel good when your dad gives you an out of boy? How about when the heavenly Father speaks? Awesome. High moment. The next verse he's in the desert for 40 days going nose to nose with Satan himself. You look at like the mountain of transfiguration. That's a high holy moment. I mean, Elijah and Moses and Jesus is displaying his glory, whatever that means. I mean, this is awesome. Then they go walking down the mountain and what's happening. Jesus gets to the points where he says to the disciples, how long am I going to be with you? Because they get into a denominational argument about something. Meanwhile, there's a dad there with a sick kid and they're not doing anything about it. That's a valley. You see it in Paul's life. You see it like at the Lord's Supper, man. Here are the disciples, this high holy moment. He's washing their feet.
He's connecting all the dots for him. And then just a little while later, he's in the place of crushing, getting crushed. Yeah, this is the biblical paradigm is mountain valley, mountain valley. Dude, I don't know about you, but it was really, uh, it was about two years ago. When we, and dude, I'm not, I'm, I refuse, I'm not a victim. I absolutely refuse to think of myself that way. I'm not saying I'm not a victim, but we, it was like our first like actionable death threat. And then you had the Charlie Kirk thing the next year and that kind of stuff. Didn't I make you feel a certain way when you got up on stage? The next, honestly, honestly, it did. Yeah. Honestly, it was the first night saturated last year when he got killed that day. And Willie Robertson was kicking it off for us. And me and Willie walked up there like, hmm. I really do thank God for what it produced in me. 'Cause it was the first time in my life, I really had to stop and go, if I get, and I'm Lord willing, this never happens to anyone. But it was the first time I thought, I could walk out and get shot in the neck. - Yeah, if I gotta go. - Am I prepared for it? And it was really good for me because there was a day where I was like, "Yep, I would definitely give my life to do this." And it was really good for me. - Yeah, no doubt, amen. - Really good.
All right, so here's the, depending on how this spot goes, if either of us feel uncomfortable, this will let it out later. So here's the reality that goes with the opposition and all this stuff. - You would be amazed at how comfortable with uncomfortability I am. - All right, good, this is gonna be great. No problem, this is gonna be great. So dude, I'll be honest. One of the things I'm trying to learn at our scale, and then with the internet becoming what it's becoming, is honestly dude, people can lie about you faster than you can respond. - Yeah, I was, I just read on the internet, I'm supposed to mark and avoid you, where I'm supposed to be friends. - I'm a false teacher for like 11 different things. - Well, one of the good things to do when you get on the false teacher list to see who else is on the list, and ask do I wanna be, or these are my guys, the first time I ever made the false teacher list, Matt Chandler and Matt Carter were on there with it. And I call, I was like, oh gosh, look at the list I'm on, and I named, all I did was name to name. She's like, that's awesome, what is it? And I was like, oh, false teachers.
(laughing) So that's what a false teacher is, sign me up. - All right, it's like, I'm just gonna, I'll just give some examples. - Yeah. - And don't talk yet. 'Cause I'll give the examples in that I'll do my little thing here. So actually, I'll do me first, and then I'm gonna do fun ones with you. So like, for instance, like dude, I'll give, so here's an example of like, I'm gonna ask you, how do you think this is a pastor? And then, you know, for people who are listening, it's like they're church members. And by the way, I think what both of us figured out is 99.9% of our church, they don't care. They got lives and jobs. (laughing) We're actually, they have real problems, you know? But it is. So like, well, I don't even know how to do it quick. There's like this stuff that'll flow it out there, like, oh, Josh lied about his house being a gift, like that all. And it's like, I've never said that. What is 100%, here's an example. That was 100% true, is we could not have gotten into the house that we're currently in
without the help of some generous Christians and church members. Right. And so that's what I'll say. Then somebody, internet, it'll do the telephone game. And they'll be like, oh, Josh's house was a gift. And then 30 people on YouTube will be like, Josh Howardton lied that his house was a gift because we dug up the-- Yeah, the more-- The documents do, I can't think. And there's stuff like that. There was a deal where somebody saw three different numbers that I'd done. This is the kind of stuff we deal with. Oh, on the feeding thing? Yeah, yeah. So they dug up three different numbers that Josh lied. He said that the food pantry did a million meals a year. And then he said half a million. And this webpage only says 250,000. And it goes viral. Like that stuff goes viral. And I'm like, well, actually, in 2020 and 2021, the food pantry to 1.2 million meals, that's the number that got him John Lovell. That's where it came out of the podcast. You know, John? Yeah. Bro, John's awesome.
Bro, John is the best. No doubt. So that's the number John uses on his podcast. And then we have one food pantry at our broadcast campus that that food pantry alone does 300,000 meals. And then what we also do is we help facilitate and run three other food pantries and collectively, the number between all three of those 750,000. So it's like, this is what we deal with. What somebody can do is they can take that stuff, they can make it look like you lied. When actually, it's all totally true. So what I'm dealing with is people can lie faster than a passenger response. So Joby, I've heard your net worth is at least $35 million. That's what the internet has reliably told me. Reliably told me. My favorite part about that one is when it came out, somebody sent that to my wife. And she texted the team that I worked with. And it just said, can somebody tell Pastor Joby to share some of that money? (laughing) My wife. That's hilarious. That's funny, she's funny. And then, man, I heard you were using inhumane brainwashing techniques. Mm-hmm. And so here's a deal that I'm driving at
that most people probably don't realize that we have to figure out how to navigate it. Yeah, people can lie about you faster, you respond. So here's the thing. So even if you take time to explain, so my net worth is not even close. I wish it was 24. I hope it is one day. Lord bless him. So there's this one website that lists the top 10 richest pastors in the world. And it's got me on there. Wow. Yeah, with my net worth at 24 million. It says I was born in 1984. Thank you. That's only 11 years off. Says I was a graduate of Southern Seminary. I didn't go there. and under it, it says, here's Pastor Rick Lorne and his wife, okay. - Bro, no way. - So what it says, I'll show you the website. - What? - And because somebody posted that one-- - Can I show it on the podcast, Peter? - A hundred percent, please, please, please. - Will you guys send me the link, so I can show it? - That's hilarious. - And so, not a reliable source.
But somebody put it on the internet, and now other people just go and grab it and blab it. Now, here's what I think happened, is that when we moved into our broadcast location, we started leasing it, and then a few years later, we had a guaranteed purchase price on the whole thing by a godly man that I love so much. I'm Tony Slame, and he helps us play in churches. And so we bought it, the purchase price was $24 million. And I bet if you go into, like, jacks.gov government things, legally, organizationally, I'm listed as the president, and they just associate me with that purchase price. Now, here's the thing, those people don't know how math works. (laughing) But even if I explain it, here's what happens to the people spewing it. They're like, okay, and then they just move to the next one, next one, and the next one. - It's like trying to grab water. - I've never heard the person come back and go, oh my bad, I had the wrong information. - No, I didn't have it. - The inhumane brainwashing technique, I'm reliably informed, Joey. - This girl and her girlfriend come walking down the aisle at 11, 22, a bunch of years ago, and they were like, we love this church, it's a movement for all people to discover and deepen the relationship with Jesus. Well, you do our wedding, and I go, how about we do dinner?
I didn't just say no, so how about we do dinner, that's why. I just sit down with the Bible, and the first thing that I said, Sean tells the girl's name, and I was like, first thing I need you to know is I love you, God loves you, I want you here, He wants you here. The second thing I want you to hear is we live in a world that's gonna lie to you and tell you that me and you can't be friends. So don't believe that lie, I love you, and the world's gonna say that I hate you, so you can either believe them or me, but I love you. And we just walk through what the scriptures say about marriage, about sex, and about sexuality. And so, long story short, Chantel surrenders her life to Christ, breaks up with her girlfriend, they have to sell the house and figure out what to do with the dog, come on man. Now listen, theologically it costs us all the same to follow Jesus, it costs her more. So when she was sharing her testimony, she just shares that. She's like, yeah, Pastor Joey said, you can't do that. And then we sent her as a missionary to Uganda for a bunch of years. And so, this is a girl-- - No, I'm kidding me. - No, I'm not kidding. - And so-- - Testimony. - Right, now today what the enemy has done is they call that conversion therapy. - We call that discipling someone.
- I'm just, do whatever you wanna do. I'm just telling you what the book says. If you don't wanna do it, and particularly somebody that's coming to me saying, I want to align my life with the scriptures, I don't want to feel my feelings and attractions to be the Lord of my life, I want Jesus to be the Lord of my life. Pastor, can you help me? I can help you. And what I'm gonna help you with is the Bible. And so, that was the accusation and that's the reality. - So do you, but here's the problem. So here's what I'm for me, for people who are listening, all this stuff, like the deal, the problem is the internet can lie faster than you can respond. - Totally. - So then it's like, what do you do? I'm like, what do you think? - Well, what do you think? - Jesus makes it pretty clear that the motive of the question-asker matters a lot. In the book of Matthew, the Scrapids and the Fair Cities get together and they come up with a way, they devise a plan to treat Jesus is what it says. And so they say, all right, we've got this situation about marriage and the guy dies and she marries another one and all right, who's is she in the kingdom, you know? And Jesus is like, well, let me ask you a question. John the Baptist, is he from God or not? And they're like, oh, hold on one second.
They huddle up and they're like, man, you can't Jesus, Jesus, he got us. So they come back and they're like, we don't know. He goes, then I'm not answering your question. So, 'cause what's actually, if somebody actually wanted to know the truth, before they push it on the internet, they could just reach out and say, hey, I got some questions. And by the way, any covenant member of 1122 that has any questions about anything can meet with a staff person or an elder any time. And we're, we gladly just say, here man, what do you wanna know? them online because they're trying to gain popularity because they typically they're either selling data, they're selling some kind of offshoot product. Do they want more attention towards bro? Let me just interject here. This is like this whole, I, it's my pet peeve and it makes me laugh. So like half of those articles are like, look at this mega church. That's all about the money. Please click this link to my monetize website. So Paul talks about it in Titus three, 10 as for a person who stirs up division after warning him once and then twice have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful and be self-condemned. Or I look at Nehemiah, Nehemiah had a call of God on his life. I have a call of God on my life, which is to lead a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And Sam Ballet is trying to disrupt this call and he's calling these meetings and calling these meetings and he's got ill motives.
And Nehemiah says, I'm doing a great work. I cannot come down. Like, what do you want me to not do in order to be a keyboard warrior, to just get in the comments and start fighting with people? So, yeah, you know, and again, it would be different. If somebody reached out and said, man, I got some questions and the intent was clarity and clarification. That's right. No problem. That's right. Cause what's happened in my own life is I heard something and then I talked to somebody and I go, oh, I didn't know that. It makes a lot of sense. But if you are, if you were just assuming the worst and trying to play gotcha, you'll always have some, some angle that you can go after. Bro, and there's like, I'll tell you, like, here's a low note. You think about this. Like, here's what I learned is like, you think, I got this from Larry a legend, Larry, I was born, you think by responding, you think you're putting water on a fire and it's putting water on a grease fire. So like, this has happened to me before. So here's like what I don't think, cause what I think happens is people in churches, they're like, why won't you respond? Yeah. We demand to respond. First of all, I don't have to show up to every fight I'm invited to. You don't get to put things on my to do list just because you're mad on the internet. This is not how it works. But the other thing is, bro, here's what happened to me.
But when I was a kid trying to figure it out, the first time this ever happened to me, I was like, you know what? I should respond. And then what I learned is before I responded, like one percent of my church had been exposed to a lie. Correct. And then I responded and a hundred percent of my church went looking for the lie. This is a great line. Well, um, somebody was sending me, me emails to me about my preaching about whatever I'm not doing right. And Pastor Brett grabbed it, my executive pastor, who I love today. He's a good man. And he sent back and it said something like of all the responsibilities that God has trusted you with. The teaching ministry of 11 22 is not one of them. No, we're not talking about like heresy and heterodoxy. You're just talking about preferences, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and the, and the, the heretics you have pointed out, if nobody was listening to them, then there'd be noticing to point it out. Okay. And so we have a local church, we have a board of lay elders. And they're actually all old men that I am submitted to. Same. So in regards to whatever, whatever, the purchase of the retreat center, um, whatever it is in my life, I have authority in my life that I am submitted to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, it's just, I actually any negative things that I get, I just immediately forwarded to the chairman of the board of elders. Yeah. That's broad. Here you go. That's brilliant. You have all the information. Yeah. So I'm not hiding anything. I'm not, if you see truth in this, you let me know. Yeah. My favorite is my last one. I got this guy's like, you're an empty suit. I don't even wear suits. Except on Easter. I own Easter only. Except on Easter. All right. Let me, let me transition like a hard emotional gear shift. So like, I think both of us, you know, interesting thing is, uh, 11, 22 reach a lot of dudes, you know, it's like both of us kind of grew up in an era where the church actually a lot of times skewed 70, 30 female male. And, uh, you know, it's like 11, 22 reaches and disciples, a lot, a lot of dudes saying, same with late points, same with lip free. So here's, so I'm going to show you. They're going to see it on the screen. Okay. So like, dude, here's, here's what I get this question a lot. Okay.
So like this right here, I got it. This right here is a graph that people, I'm, I'm appointed out right here. So like what it's showing is that in the last 10 years or so, you have this actually 20 years, you have this weird thing going on. We're like men in general are skewing conservative and then women in general, obviously not all of them are skewing radically progressive. So you're getting this increasing gender divide thing here. Now I'm, I'm talking to a pastor, trying to pastor not just men. - Yep. - So you got that. So that's number one. So first of all, actually, do you have any thoughts on why that's happening? If you don't, we'll just move on to the actual question I was gonna ask. - Bob, you know, in regards to the women going liberal, I think that it's a bit of what you talked about Satan can't create, but he will corrupt common deer, you know? And so oftentimes he'll take a good thing that God put in there, which is like deep need to care for people. - Yes. - And then he'll begin to twist it to an unbiblical kind of messianic complex. And that happens. I also think it's a reaction to the lack of good godly male leadership. Jenny Allen was on deep in, and she was,
Kyle Thompson was on there with me, and he asked her a question, and she said, "I'm not making an excuse, but for one of the things is that in the church, men have not treated women like co-equals and partners for a long time. And a bit of it, maybe in an unholy way, they've kind of like fought for their own. And so now you've got this overreaction. And again, she wasn't blaming anybody, but every man should take responsibility 'cause we're men, lead, and love will. Everybody flourishes. - That's right, man. - That's right. - And so before I like, you know, go after the women, then all of us get rid of a hole in the mirror to our own self. - That's right. - And say, what kind of environment have I created? Because God doesn't allow Adam to have a wife until he gets his house in order. He names all the animals, and then he gets a wife. And so the responsibility of the house being in order is us. - Okay, so here's the question like, this is a very common, live free YouTube comment. - Okay. - You got a young, single guy.
- Yeah. - Who's like, "Hey man, especially if they're in like a college town." So a college town, probably a little more progressive on campus, probably a lot less Christian on campus. They're watching that, this little thing happen. I'll keep, I'll give you one more grad, this will blow your mind, dude. So this was CNN, I'm gonna put it up here for them, but this is us. So this was CNN, and they did this deal where it was Gen Z men and women, and they ranked the things that people counted as success in life, what they were most passionate about. And so bro, it's like young, conservative men, the most important thing in life, they ranked it number one. Now this is CNN. It's not like Newsmax, it's like CNN. Young, conservative men, most important thing in life for them. I wanna have kids in a family. And then dude, it grabbed young, progressive women, single progressive women, and they ranked it having children literally last, literally last number 12 out of 12 of most important things in their whole life. So here's the question that I get a lot on like podcast comments. Is hey man, I'm a young single guy. I believe the Bible, the Bible of Jesus,
I really wanna have a family and a good wife. We talked about this earlier. But he's like, where do I find one? - 1122. - Boom, we're done here. - They're there, that's where they all are. - For real, tease it out, like click on it. You're a young single guy, you don't live in Jacksonville. - I haven't. - You live in Jacksonville, that's the answer. You live in Dallas. - Cause even in Jacksonville, dude, at our church, here's the thing. I see all the statistics and the diagrams, but when I look at the actual humans, it's like a dozen to one godly women looking for a godly man in our church. - Same. - Same. - I've got some dear friends of mine, what I'm sitting right there. - And we have this conversation at our house, how in the world is there not a line out the door of godly men chasing this girl now, bro? She's the best, the literal best, like I don't understand. So I think these things have killed us, because the follow up question ought to be, cause your desire is to have a family and have kids, question two. So what are you doing about it?
Brother, shoot your shot, man. Just ask somebody on a date, like a real date, tell them how to do it. You go up to him, you say, hi, my name is, and you hold up your Bible, I believe this, you hold up your wallet, I'm working on this. Can I take you to dinner at? And I will pick you up at name and time and both of those things. Then you take a shower, you put some nicer clothes on, like nothing with a team logo, someone with a button, maybe a sleeve, and you drive in your car and you pick her up and you open the door and you go to a place and you tell her, get whatever you want, and then you pay for it. And if you enjoyed that, then you ask her again. And if she enjoyed it, she'll say yes. And if you ask her and she says, no, suck it up, buttercup. - That's right. - Just shoot your shot, man. - That's right, dude, yep. - You, just swing for the fences and go for it. - So if you listen, it's like, I just wanna give like, So like number one, it's the same at Lake Point. I'll see stats like that. I'm like, well, maybe it's like that out there. I ain't like that in here. - Correct.
- In my lobby, I'm praying for young single Bible believing women. - All the time. - To find good dudes. Now it's honestly, I am starting to see it get fixed at Lake Point 'cause we're reaching tons of young guys. - Yeah, we... - So it's starting to do this? - We did a whole, I mean, we spent our whole year, last year calling men to stand firm and act like men. And a part of it was quit playing the role of the boy and be the man. And stand up at like, man, by getting on your knee and inviting her to join you in this great adventure. And there's a bunch of people that got engaged. - Yeah. - So a way to go boys. - Amen, bro. Okay, so here's my, I'm gonna give, I'm gonna give five. - Okay. - And then if you, while I'm talking, you can be thinking if you got anything else, all right. So working a young Bible believing guy, find a good wife. Number one, you attract what you become. It's the thing we say all the time. Become the type of person you're looking for is looking for. Like, hey, man, if you get a vision for the type of young woman you want to attract, then the next question you need to ask yourself is,
would that girl like me? And if you're all weed porn and jobless, she ain't gonna like you. She was like, hey, man, you gotta become the type of person that she's gonna be into. Any further comments or I get it? - I get it. - The bar of what it means to be the elite alpha male now is solo. - Solo. - That if you could just get out of bed before 10, not wear pajamas in public and have some, and love Jesus and have some kind of direction and you're like, bro, you were like a blue chip five star. - If you got a job that's even better. - Oh my God. - Even better. - Yeah, yeah, so. - All right, so that's number one. Number two, I'm not joking dude. I don't think a lot of you guys that are listening like believe us. Our churches are, there are hundreds if that, probably actually thousands of young single Bible believing women who will make unbelievable wives. - Amen. - It's like, I like to fish. Yeah, I know you like to fish too. It's like, hey man, it's like, you got to fish in the right pond. If I go to a, if I go to a, you know, a salmon stream,
I'm not gonna catch a bass. - Correct. - So find the right pond. Guess what's the right pond? A Bible believing church who actually preaches the Bible. - Correct. And don't you be showing up at my church just trying to like, like it's a dating site. You come and submit and you serve. And while you're pursuing Jesus, you get your eyes fixed on him, running the race that he has marked out for you. Then every once in a while, you look left and you look right and you see if somebody else is running not just your same race, but at the same pace and you ask him on a date. - Bingo. - I see it man. - Bingo. - All right. I mean, the Bible says he finds a wife, finds what is good. - Finds. - Not waits for one to be delivered from heaven. (laughing) He's like, you don't just wait for God to bring you lunch. You go get it. And so we just need boys to just put a little steel in their spine and just shoot your shot. - Go find him. - Yeah.
- All right. Once you get to the Bible, he already hit the, he got to the third one first. Once you get to the Bible preaching church, you have to actually be present where the young women are. What I'm saying is coming in 15 minutes late to the service and leaving five minutes before it's over is not enough. - Correct. - You need to actually become a disciple that's actually part of the church. You need to serve. You need to be in a life group. This is, I'll give a, this is a pro tip. At like point, I'm like, if you wanted to serve somewhere where young godly women are, you want to be in students, kids, young adults or a greeter. - Amen. - Anything else? - That's a good call. - That's it. But you got to, you got to, like you can't just show up and be like, no one, I didn't find anyone. Well, you didn't do anything. You didn't do anything. - Yeah, and make sure you're worth finding. - Yep. Number four for me, this is, this is how I got married. Blind eight. I'll say this dude. The number of young guys at Lake Point,
we do the rooted thing. - Yep. - Discipleship, by the way, if you know them rooted, you're crazy. Everyone needs to do at least once in their life. Rooted at Lake Point, we don't, we're like you. We don't stick a bunch of 25 year olds in the same room. We'll be like, disciple each other. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - We try to find somebody whose age starts with a five, six or a seven to lead those disciple groups, discipleship groups for the 20s and the 30s. So, dude, here's what I tell people to tell me and Janet got married. If you're single being led in a group by a godly couple this married, literally just tell them and literally tell them if you come across a godly woman, you think would be good for me, would you please, please put a bug in. That's how me and Janet got married. Anything else? - That's a great idea. - All right. - I have about to be 17 year old daughter. The idea of arranged marriage just makes a lot more sense to me today. Huge fan, big fan. And then last one, I will say this because I've decided,
there's two guys I've discipled from a distance that after a long time, I finally was like, "Hey man, you need to pray "and that's the Holy Spirit of the sweet you should do." than me, ignore me and listen to him, if you're in like a super, like an area where honestly geographically, socially, culturally, like honestly, it really is. It's legitimately gonna be hard to find an even one. You are not wrong to consider moving to an area where you can, like Pastor Joby said, find a good wife. That is not wrong for you to consider. Agree to disagree additional comments, you're not gonna hurt my feelings. If Gretchen Martin currently lived in Chernobyl, I would quit my job, sell everything. And if I had to live in a tent with that girl, I would do whatever it took. That's right. So it'll be worth it. It'll be worth it. Amen. And be a man we're following. Listen, Pastor Britt and I talked about this on "Deepened." Gretchen is 17, so when he gets to the point where some young man is truly courting her for marriage, I'm gonna look at three things in his life. I'm gonna look at his phone. I'm gonna look at his calendar
and I'm gonna look at his checking account. 'Cause if he's a pervert, it'll be on his phone. And my girl, Aaron, Mary, and pervert. And if he cannot manage his own life through his calendar as a single man, there's no way he can lead home, no way. And if he doesn't bring his first and best to the Lord, he's a thief. My daughter ain't marrying a thief. Bro, that's fire. So be the kind of man. 'Cause one of the questions I'll ask these guys, oh, hold on a second, if you were God, would you let you date one of his daughters right now? I mean, you live at your home there, bro. I mean, I get it. You're killing whatever video game you're playing. That's great, but, and I know you're waiting for that next YouTube trick shot to go viral. Good luck with that. But if you're not on the journey to be able to provide and protect and be prophet, priest, and servant king, then you haven't done your part. And if you'll do those things, they will make it, the girls will become easy to find. - That's right, bro. And what's so, it's like a lot of times people are doing Bible verses and they don't even know they're doing Bible verses. Like literally what Pastor Joby just said,
he's literally a Bible verse. That's it, if you notice in Genesis, what you have is God puts Adam in the garden to work it and they keep it. And then Genesis, I think, is it 224? I think it's 224. I mean, she'll leave his father and mother and whole faster is why if the two show become one, and then they show become one flesh. So, bro, here's literally the biblical pattern. The first thing Adam gets is a job. And then he leaves. So now he moved out of Mom and Dad's house and we do his self-supporting leave. Then he cleaves, that's the KJV. So then he got married and then the two become one flesh. That's the lay with each other part. So that's the order. And here's, and speaking of order, and it says, leave, cleave, and they were naked and unashamed. But what happens in our cultures, people get naked, then they get married and they wonder why they bring all their shame into their marriage. (laughing) You carry some demons up into your bedroom. And so listen, if that's you, 'cause at like point in 11, 22 happens a lot, right? Couples, they're dating in college or whatever, and they're sleeping together,
and then they end up at our church, married, and come to know Jesus, and they're wonder why their sex life was amazing when they were dating and now it's stale, 'cause you carry some demons up into your marriage. So husbands, this is your responsibility. You take your wife on a hand, you go get on your knees. First of all, you repent, 'cause the Bible says love is patient. And you say, I'm so sorry, I didn't love you 'cause I was impatient. I took something that wasn't mine. Would you forgive me? And then you go before the Lord. And the good news is that he is faithful, and just to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. And you need to cast that demonic shadow out of your marriage, 'cause there is freedom and wholeness and joy that God wants you to experience in that area of your life. Yeah, that's a big deal, dude. So this is not in my nose, but I just wanna ask you. So like, you see the same thing, 11, 22, like who we're really reaching right now is like that guy that's like 24 to third, actually up to my age, 40-ish. And it's that guy that's like, man, you know, he's excited one hunting season starts, and he likes NASCAR and football, and you know, and he likes it
when I use a bass fishing illustration. And he was kind of that guy that until he got a lake point, you know, he called himself a Christian because when he took the census in high school, he's like, well, I'm not an atheist, I'm not a Muslim, I guess, I'm a Christian. And then he comes to Lake Point, and he actually meets Jesus. Like, I just, I love watching it, dude, as he just wrecks their lives. But then somewhere along the way, he got married. He did it wrong. So he gets into, so here's a, He did it wrong. So he gets into his marriage. He led badly, going in the marriage. So honestly, because he led badly, she didn't respond goodly. And that's not her fault. That was his fault for leading badly. So then he's like, man, now I'm trying to lead my family. But dude, I set it all up wrong. You're like, well, honestly, I'm trying to lead. Why would she trust me? How do I even do it? So like, what would you say to the guy that's like, man, I want to lead my family and be the godly leader of my family. That's good. But I was such a jacked up guy on the way in,
she very understandably is like, I don't know about you having the steering wheel. So I think, I know what you mean when you use the word lead. But I think when your average guy's been going to church for a few years, here's us say lead. He's not thinking what we mean when we say lead. This is good. This is good, right here. 'Cause Ephesians five, right after it says, well, I've submitted your own husbands. And again, there's a lot there. I know the word submit, it's not popular, but neither stay married, so you might want to try. And women don't submit to men. Very important. Right, well, I submit to your own husband as unto the Lord. That verse comes right after the verse says, submit to one another out of reference for Christ. Then it gets to the men. And it doesn't say, so husbands lead your wives. It says, love your wives, this Christ love the church. So when Josh says lead, what he means is like John 13, every single day you get up, dress yourself as a servant and wash your disciples feet. That's what you mean by lead. It's not like I'm the boss and I'm the man, you know. A great way to, you know, 1 Corinthians 13, I mean 16, 13 to 14, the passage on act like men. We love it. The men love it.
Watch out, stand firm, that means fight. Act like men, be strong, but you better keep reading. That's right, bro. Verse 14 says, let everything you do be done in love. So if you want to know what that means, go to 1 Corinthians 13. And what's good about this is, Paul didn't tell a story. He's not like, love is like a butterfly. And you know, it just as love is, then it's going to say a word. Love is patient, love is kind, love is not arrogant, love is not rude, love is not self-seeking, love keeps no record of wrong. This is what we're supposed to do. Then in that context, this hit me when I was writing the book. I'd never noticed this before. In that context, Paul says, when I was a child, I acted like a child, but when I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. So you're inpatient, rude, self-seeking, beating your chest, demanding your own way, childish. You think you're being tough, Paul says, you're being a toddler. That's, well, that'll preach. So serve your wife, love your wife. The places that you need to start leading, be the lead repenter, be the lead apologizer. That's it. Just own it all. I'm so sorry.
You're right. And then just serve her and love her. And then, quite honestly, what ought to happen is, this is true of each spouse. The more you know and love Jesus, the more your spouse should benefit. And now you're not into a theological argument. She's just like, yeah, whatever that thing has happened to you, the church and that group you go to, my whole life is better. Keep doing that. Maybe I'll come with you as first Peter three. Yeah, no doubt. That's first Peter three. Yep. Dude, I'll add. So first of all, I think what a lot of guys don't understand if you're in that situation, what you either purpose for it or inadvertently did is honestly you shattered your wife's trust. That's what you accidentally. So that's what you're up against. You're not up against, you're not necessarily, some of you are, but you're not necessarily up against. She won't submit what you're up against as you broke her trust. And man, what I always tell guys is, man, if you break your wife's trust in marriage, she's got a job and you got a job. Her job is to tell you what targets you need to hit
to regain the trust and your job is to hit the targets. So you need to, at some point, you need to in humility do exactly what Joey just said. You go and with probably some sweat in your eyes, you realize what you did and you apologize. And then you say, I'm so sorry. You ask her if there's any area in which man, have I lost your trust? You ask her. And then what you do is you ask her the question, tell me exactly what I need to do to regain your trust. You listen to the words that come out of the mouth. And you remember exactly what she said. And then your job is to hit those targets. So I'll just like, you know, this is a little, you get what you pay for and this is free. So lower your expectations. But at that point, he's got a job and she's got a job. Your job is to hit her targets. Her job is to let you hit the targets and slowly give you back the trust that you lost. But you gotta do your job and you can't micromanage her job. Men are like puppies. They repeat what is rewarded. So when he gets it right, if you can respond, heracles, I'm just telling you, he'll be like, okay, that was good. That's how you taught your puppy to not pee on your carpet. You gave me the treat. We needed it outside. Right.
So, um, yeah, man, all very true. One other thing I would say, because you mentioned a guy going, she won't submit. That verse starts with wives. If you're quoting it, it's over, bro. Yeah, it's over. You should go in and skip down to the husband one and just do everything it says and trust the Lord with the verses that he wrote for her. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let me, uh, let's close this out with some rapid fire. Let's go. All right. We're going to wrap, we're going to rapid fire, close this out. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to wrap both of us are in church. It's, you know, 30, 35. The, uh, uh, we're going to rapid fire. Uh, objections to mega churches. Yeah. Who don't you hate those? Well, yeah, boo. All right. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm actually, we're going to show it up here. So this went viral, like you probably don't know this because you're not, you're not playing around on Instagram. You're actually doing it right now. All right.
This went viral last week. All right. So we're going to show it up here. So here it was a little carousel post went crazy viral. So here's what it says. I'm just going to read it and you can respond. That man is probably not your pastor. If he doesn't know your name, if he doesn't know your name, not your pastor. If you can't even shake his hand, not your pastor, if it doesn't walk with you, talk with you, pray for you or know the least bit about you, not your pastor. You, uh, we could keep going, but Joe, let me just ask it. So in the Greek. Pastor and shepherd are the same word, right? Correct. And Jesus says he was, he is the good shepherd. Yes. And David says in Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. Yes. So, so have you ever shaken Jesus's hand? Whoopsie daisy, bro. I saw one says, you ever seen him on eye level? Uh, all right. So they're just, they're conflating things is what they're conflating there. So how many names do you think you could remember? Minus your, you know, leave out your family. Oh no, dude, 500 or 1000. I don't know. You think you get to 500? I like, I think there's probably 500 people on planet Earth, whose names I know. Okay.
So, but that's, but hey, listen, that's on a good day. And that's across my whole life. Well, you got to unlearn whatever, you know, so what this person is saying is once you get over that number, that's not you. That can't, you can't be the pastor of those people anymore. I mean, it's just, there's not, okay, just show me the text. Yeah, just show me the text. Bro, that's my thing, like what, what it's like, it's easy for somebody to criticize up. Can you imagine if we were just criticizing small churches? Yeah. You know why you don't hear that? Cause I'm not critical of small church. That's right. Praise God for small churches to be faithful, man. Amen. Amen. So that guy can feel that way. And if you don't like it, he can shoot me an email at Jimmy Craig's corner. Now I will say that I, although I don't personally shepherd all the people. Yeah, this is important, but all the people need to be shepherded. Amen. So we have about 70 pastors right now and 420 staff members and a army. We have, I want to say it's 2,400 people that went through a six week training to be on the care team. We love, we care. We accomplish the roles of the shepherd. We're not caught up in the title of who gets the badge. Yes, right. And so the sheep need to be loved and cared for it and those things.
Yeah. Sounds like this guy has to have a title. Yeah. So I think that's really important. Hey, man, does every single pastor need to know every single person's name? Hey, that's dumb because we literally, unless the apostle Peter memorized 5,000 names in the first four chapters of the book of Acts, we literally got a Bible verse that says the opposite of this. Correct. But so does every single pastor need to know every single person's name? No, but at like point. You can be known by a pastor. Amen. Absolutely. Yes. I think part of the myth is if you got a big church and then people like, they'll be like, well, it's all about you. Yeah. Well, actually, I, I have diversified responsibility. Maybe more than like it doesn't have to all go through me. I am not the single point of contact on thing. I'm actually the reason I do that is because we're like one body with many parts. And I might be OK at the talking part and I'm not as good at this other parts. We've got some other people that could serve you better in that area. And maybe I can serve you better in the teaching in the Bible kind of area. Yeah. All right. So it's not about me. Yeah, but, but, but, Joby, yes, your church. - We are.
- Okay. - How about it? - Well, please don't fall into the tyranny of the ore. - Bro, that's it, bro. - Not only where, always works in the genius of the anne, 'cause guess who all the church, the church plants come to? The big churches, but where you fund us? It's just true. We have planted and partnered to plant. By the end of 28, we will have planted 1,000 churches around the world. There are more people that attend the churches that we have planted today than how many people attend 11, 20, 20. - My gosh. - So it's not either or, who said either or? - That's right. - We plant staff people, we plant, we partner with people all over the world, in Africa, in Brazil, Scotland, all over the place, so yeah, we do that. - Yeah, it's the same at Lake Point. This is, well, I'll get this every now and then. Most people are smart enough to realize that's a dumb question, you know? But every now and then I'll get this. - There are no dumb questions. There are lots of dumb people. (laughing) - But it's like, at Lake Point, we started a strategic launch network.
- Yeah. - It's like we have literally personally funded, coached, and planted. It'll be over 100 churches in the hardest to reach urban centers in North America by the end of this year. I think what, honestly, what people who don't do what we do, don't understand, is hey, man, just because we plant a church doesn't mean that A, everybody from our church is voluntarily gonna choose to go do that. - Right. - And B, hey, newsflash, when we plant a church, thousands of people don't magically stop trying to come to my church. - Yeah. - Well, what actually happens is they get a whiff of the Great Commission and they're like, I want to be a part of the church that is a conduit of the grace of God, not a cul-de-sac of it. And so, and it's Jesus' Great Commission. And I'm just telling you, when you are about his mission, he will fully fuel and fund his mission. And so he just keeps bringing more people and more people and more people. - That's right. - And we keep sending more people and more people and more people. - That's the best out of it. But, but, Joby, all the mega churches,
they're just a mile wide and an inch deep, Joby. You don't disciple anybody. - Man, I would love to introduce you to our 1,000 or so disciple group leaders and let you tell them that to their face. - Before you finish talking, let me brag on. I'm wearing the bill for more hat right now. - Oh, yeah. - It's like we recorded a bill. By the way, the conversation we had on that pod is one of the best conversations I've ever had on any podcast. We went some places I've never gone before. If you're listening to this, when they released that episode of Bill for more with me, you and Denny, you're crazy if you don't listen to that thing. - And before we, before we, 'cause you listen to Bill for more all the time, just like I listen to the delivery all the time, I told you when you meet Denny what you're going to see, that's just a product of the discipleship processes of 1,122. - Bro, and he's a guy that's just like a drink-a-beer, watch-a-game guy, lost guy before. Stumbles in 1,122. Now dude, I'm serious, I was sitting there stunned at what a great disciple that guy is. - Amen. - And guess what happened? I'll make it true.
- I'll make it true. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anybody that ever says that, I just know they've never actually attended or watched. - Yeah. - My sermon, 'cause I mean, we just are going verse by verse through Matthew. - Yeah. - Okay, what else do you want me to do? - Yeah. - And honestly, I don't care what you want me to do. I'm not doing what you want me to do, because I'm not trying to live my life for the approval of man, but for the approval of Christ, 'cause if I was trying to do what you want me to do, then I cannot be a servant of Christ. - Relations 110. - Thank you. - Yeah, well, but Joby, all the mega churches, they're just big personality cults, Joby. It's all they are, it's big personality cults. - Man, like I said, we know them all. And are there some bad actors and some guys that have been terrible stewards of platforms that God, has given them man, sadly, the list is long? - Yes. - Well, you don't know, is the list is also long of churches that you've never heard of, because they just don't make the news. And like you've said, million times before,
planes that land safely, they don't make the news, right? Man, I don't know what to tell you, dude. I am the person God created me to be, and I wrestle through the parable of the talents all the time. And I don't know if I'm a two-talent guy or a five-talent guy, but I refuse to be a one-talent guy, man. - And the whole point of that, shout out Dr. Piper, is don't waste your one and only life. I got one and only life. What do you want me to do, preach less or tone it down or cap it, the number of people that wanna hear the gospel? Like, say it out loud, give me the alternative. - I'd be happy to hear it. So I'm curious when somebody says, "Hey man, this is getting too big." What do you say? - Who do you want me to uninvite? 'Cause I got a list and right now you're on the top of it. (laughing) - That's that thing. - So look through the gospels. This would be a good like magic marker study of the gospels. Look at every time the disciples turned inward on themselves, they get in trouble. They do. They're like, kids get out of here. Get out of here. Well, he's too busy for you. He's like, "You fool, unless you change,
"become like them, you'll never enter the kingdom of God." Hey, can my two sons sit at your right and left? He's like, "You don't even know what you're asking for." Okay? It never goes good when they're trying to cap the rim. Look at the times where they turn outward. They get a high five from Jesus, feeding of the 5,000. Okay? So what kind of disciples do you want to be? Because our vision statement at 11-22 is we're a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus. My experience and my understanding of the scriptures is the number one catalyst to help you deepen your walk with Jesus is to help other people discover theirs. - Bro. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if it's all just about me and mine, you have lost the plot. - That's right, man. - Yeah. - Dude, whenever somebody says that, so number one, it's the same thing. Like, what do you want me to do? What do you ask me to do? Are you asking me to tell like all these lost people, like, hey, y'all go home, it's too big now, you know? But the other thing is I'm like, nobody ever drives past a hospital and is like, you know, man, a hospital is just getting too big.
They're just healing too many sick people. - Yeah, right. (laughs) - What do you want? What do you want? - What would be better if somebody could just say, hey, God bless that ministry. And my own preference based on my own experience is, that's not the kind of church I'm looking to be connected in. This is the kind of church I'm looking to be. - Nothing wrong with that. - But he's gone for it. - Nothing wrong with that at all. - I know. - Yes. - Yeah. The other one that's like, well, I'm riffing on it, is you probably get the same thing. And I might be a little, I might be a little over-aggressive. And so don't put this on Joby. But sometimes people want to, like I'll celebrate. Like after Beptus ain't a hundred and two people, I'm like, absolutely, I'm sharing that. I want every person in church to know the grace that we have to live in the window of harvest that we get to see. By the way, parents, grandparents and great grandparents in that region prayed for for decades. And we're reaping their harvest. Yeah, I want everybody to know about that.
But like what people do after that is they'll be like, "Man, you're just all about the numbers." You're all about the numbers. And number one, I'm like, well, there's literally a book of the Bible called Numbers. So let's start there, you know. - How many got baptized on Pentecost? - 3,000. - How do you know that? - 'Cause I wrote the number down. It's chapter five, or by Acts chapter five, there's 5,000. - Correct. - Yeah, when we try to also tell as many individual stories as we can, we celebrate every single one of these baptisms, man. I mean, you know-- - There's a story. There's a life in there. There's actually a book with these names written in it. That's what we're celebrating. - Amen. - That's what we're celebrating. - That's right. - Last book of life. - That's it, that's it. And by the way, you said this earlier, I think it's really important. Is it like nobody's moralizing a church size? Because what you do, I've seen it. I have seen guys who pastor churches more like ours,
and they actually do sometimes talk like small churches are bad and evil, and the only reason they're small is 'cause they're bad and evil. - Now, if nobody's gotten saved, that's a problem. - The gathering of 125 disciples, and you know, I haven't made one. - That's a problem. - Well, I mean, that's a thing, man. You're outside of the, here's the thing. I shared it, I'm built for more. I'll just go real quick. - My Gretchen's grandfather, Lloyd White, pastor to church called Lone Star. He might have 125 people in it. But you know who one of the disciples they made is. Her name was Gretchen, nicely. I met her in 2000, it became Gretchen Martin. And in 2003, when I was about to leave the ministry, that disciple of Lone Star talked me in to giving him one more chance. Also, when Pastor Jerry said you should plant a church, I was getting calls from a bunch of big, very well-established churches just come be on the teaching team. I went back to her again. I was like, it would be way safer. And she was like, don't, I feel like God called us to make disciples in Jacksonville. And I was like, I just need you to know what you're risking. If this doesn't go good, I don't know what we're doing.
And she closed to me, Ruth. She just said, baby, I'm with you. You're guys, my God, you're people, my people, where you die, I'll die. - Wow. - Yeah. And so, she put courage in me. And then 1,122 is doing what it's doing. We've had over 5,000 people proclaim Jesus's their Lord for the first time this year. And we baptized over 5,000 people. Okay, so all of the fruit of 1,122 hangs on the truth. And when Lloyd White got to heaven, and when I get to heaven, God's gonna say, well done boys, amen. Well done, amen. We are our mutual mentor, Bishop Steve Street. He's got this fire line. He says, hey man, big isn't bad. And small is not bad. Bad is bad. He's so quick. He's a bad is bad. There's big good churches and big bad churches. And there's small good churches and small bad churches. Why? Big is not bad. Small is not bad. Bad is bad. Here's the thing I don't like about the word mega church. One, it's a comparative term, and I don't think we should be comparing churches to one
another. Amen. Like would you compare your kids? You know what I mean? That's my mega kid. That's my mini kid. Like, no man. It's just God designed that kid that way and that kid that way. So I mean, let's talk numbers. In Jacksonville, see on a good weekend right now, 35,000 people in the rooms that account online and all that kind of stuff, okay, 30,000 people. Jacksonville has a greater Jacksonville, has about two million people in it, two million people. Oh, bro. And then we just looked at the 2020 census and the most charitable look at it is about 25% of Jacksonville checks the box Christian. So let's just give it to them and say every single one of them have actually repented of their sin and surrendered to Christ. The most charitable, about 25%. So we only have 30,000 at 1122. We're not a man. Our city is mega lost, bro. It's the mega and again, it's not up to just 1122. Let me name some churches, man. You want to hear the gospel? Go to celebration church with pastor Tim. Go to Chats Creek. They just got a brand new pastor. Go to beach church because pastor Jerry's still preaching there. You know, I mean, bro, there's there's churches all over the place and we're not in competition.
We have it. We have an enemy. He's the devil of hell that was still killed and destroyed. So again, I don't, I mean, the mega thing. What are you talking about? Mega bro, compared to what compared to the lost people were mini church. We're barely. I mean, it ain't emphasis. That's right. They're not shutting down sinful industries because of the influence of the believers in town. That's right. You know, that's right. Everybody's still drunk at the jazz games. That's right. Like we got a lot of work to do. So you know, I'll say that I'll say that to like point a lot is, man, the only reason everybody, anybody ever thinks we're a big church is because they compare us other churches. We don't compare ourselves other churches. We compare ourselves to the size of the mission God has given us. What's that? To reach all people. So we're not a big church. We are a really small church with a really big vision. There's 2.5. 2.5 billion people on the planet right now that don't even know the name of Jesus. That's right. That's right. I'm not just talking about the lost people that are still parked into traveling on Sunday morning in Jacksonville and in Dallas.
That's right. There's access to the gospel. There's 2.5 billion with a big people that have no access to the gospel. It's about mega church. We talked about that's beautiful. All right. Let me finish with two things. Two final objections here. This one's fun because like the weird thing about our lives is we know these guys. Yeah. So so this is what, Joby, all these mega church pastors, they're just greedy, abusive hypocrites behind the scenes, all of them. Yeah. You've never met one of them. Or if you met one, it was like one of the rare bad happens. Can you go find some bad ones? Man, there's no doubt or snowed out about it and man, it puts a blight on the name of the product. And I fear for that man when he stands before the Lord. I fear for that man. Yeah. Here's the thing too that people just don't know. I mean, did you set out for this? Dude, I was, you know, we talked about it. I, I started pastoring a, I grew, I grew my dad's church plan at first from 120 to about 76. Let's go. Yeah. That was the first year or so. And honestly, man, I remember having a moment where I was like, Lord, if I am here to faithfully
pastor the 76 to reach as many as 76 can, I'm in. Yeah. No, I didn't. In my wildest dreams. I remember when we hired Pastor Britt, we were running about 4,000 people and we're talking about all kinds of stuff, multi-site and all that, which I, dude, if you cut me, I believe evangelism. Yeah. I mean, I just want to see people come to Christ. On the side note, on a pest, Apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers, Ephesians, are you primarily evangelist? Which one is that your strongest foot there? Apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherd, teacher? Which in regards to that People will always put up with the sin of The teacher in the shepherd and they'll crucify the sin of the prophet and the evangelist Bro, that's a bar because the shepherd and the teacher they sin gently Dude you could completely cut the great commission out of your Bible and keep the people in front of you comfortable And nobody's going to complain Still good wedding and funeral Keep the shoremen short enough so you can get the lunch on time No problem Now Jesus is going to remove his lampstand because that's not a church, but but you'll be fine You'll be fine It's that thing that you say the unwritten rule Unspoken rule of the world has with pastors you take it easy on us We'll take it easy on you and the second a pastor breaks that rule all hell will break loose in on your life But that's the moment all of heaven starts to break loose in your church. Amen. Yeah, man I
This wasn't my idea to begin with yeah coach Lee made me do it the master Jerry made me do it and ultimately lord Commanded me to do it and then I would have been totally fine Being the youth pastor at beat church for the rest of my life. Yeah, I was living the dream Just making disciples of he lord put right in front of me And then he spoke to me through a number of people and through his word And so we started living with me too. So when I brought bread in pastor bread, I think we were about 4,000 And I put him son. I was like, okay. I think we're going to continue to grow because New people are the best evangelists. They nobody's told them you're not supposed to tell about Jesus at work yet So they're going to tell everybody and I think God's going to move here in that way But listen if if the rest of our lives We get to care for and disciple 4,000 people that I do what a what a life will live or if that number is a hundred or 150 whatever it doesn't matter because it's not a number it is of it's actually a family You see the church is not like an event you attend or an organization that you're a part of it's a family you belong to that's right and And Jesus is like there's still some more lost kids out there that belong to me That's right. And I'm asking you To let me partner with you to go get them go get them and then not convert them disciple That's right because the moment you get rescued you become a part of the rescue. Hey, man Dude, the weird, you know, the I say one thing here and then I want to finish on our last question The the hardest thing when somebody says stuff like that or people implies stuff like that Is like the weird thing about our lives is we know all those guys. I know so and we and we and we know what they're like behind the scenes And it's like like bro their stories were not even allowed to tell About sacrifices their families have made in general about jeep. Oh, bro. The behind the generosity store I'm gonna give a couple examples without actually i'm gonna use a couple names that I know i'm allowed to and i'll give Some examples that i'm not allowed. So fran i'm gonna do phillip anthymical So dude that guy it's the dumbest thing. I see some of the things people say about that guy online. I'm like you idiot Like literally I have a righteous anger like what an idiot. Yeah, they don't know like dude This is a that's the most honestly. He's probably the most well-known pastor in america right now. Correct He comes hangs out on the live free episode
That dude i'll get my my sweat thinking about it because he just uh, he felt like a big brother in the faith to me and he prayed for like That guy has texted me almost every day since Just to tell me that he prayed for me and what he prayed for me So i'm gonna text him and ask him if I need to edit this out. I will i'm gonna give an example I'll wake up and that guy texted me in the middle of the night Which means he was up praying for me in the middle of the night. I'm just a young pastor that he want to pray for Josh This morning I saw your face in my time of prayer I saw the tears in your eyes when we sat across from each other and I was deeply moved by the spirit To earnestly intercede for you. I pray for you I pray that you would continue to be bold A bold voice for truth. No matter the cost I pray that you would see your highest reward as the crown you lay down at the feet of Jesus I pray that you would see the fleeting nature of this life and all that will be dissolved including the words of the de de de de I pray that god would continue to burn your heart with a holy fire to warn To proclaim to awaken and to stand for christ in this perverted and crooked generation This time is running out Bro, he just took time Just to encourage a young younger pastor And bro that here's what can bother me. No, but nobody tells that story That doesn't go viral so When I listened to you and him I was up here Had phones in filling up feeders with corn doing chores It's been an intense season of a time Spurgeon-esque, not like thumbs up emoji, prays hands, prays hands, fire, fire, not that. Like some sentences that take a minute to write. One of the neatest things about getting to sit in the seat that I get to sit in is a bunch of my heroes
have become my friends and I'm telling you man, Matt Chandler, it's a better dude than he's a preacher. He might be the greatest preacher of our generation. He's a better man, you know. The other thing, can you ever remember like when we all get together nobody's be like so what you running? That's not literally nobody. How's your how's your daughter? That's the kind of question. That's it, dude. That's it. What's God been teaching you? Stuff like that. So it's like you got this like this stuff like Phillip, you know, and here's names and no names. It's like one of the pastors of the largest churches that has ever existed. He's a guy that I know. He and his wife have every year worked up so that they first of all, well, I won't say that, they tied 60% of their income. Nobody's ever gonna know that. One of the pastors of the largest churches that's ever existed in America, he got to the spot where he wrote a bestseller like one of the best selling books in all of human history, paid the church back every dollar they ever salaried him and then decided to reverse tithe. I know that I know another guy who his family just decided early on that they wanted to fund personally fund a hundred adoptions in their life. By the way, that ain't cheap. Let me tell you that. I've done that a couple times and they set aside a massive part of their income. I know I'll just shout him out, man. He's got a Larry Stockstel is a legendary charismatic pastor, huge church in Louisiana. And this number of stories out here about, you know what happens if you walk into the auditorium at five a.m. on a Sunday, there's Pastor Larry and he spends three hours in praying before he preaches. We got a guy on our team, Mike, bro, the total legend, complete legend, Pastor Southland in Lexington, then was, we was a very well offered. That's a different podcast. And do that, you know, that got us. He could, he lit, Mike bro literally could have pastored any church in America that he wanted to back back then. You know what he did? He moved, he moved out to California to plant a church, help his his daughter plant a church where there wasn't one. He spends his free time now mowing the lawns for widows in his neighborhood. And every Thursday morning, there's about 15 addicts that have no idea who Mike bro was that he was like
one of the most famous pastors in America. And he leads a little Bible study at Starbucks for recovering addicts. And listen, here's what I say is that none of those stories ever go viral. That's who those guys are. And I'll say this, and almost every small church pastor in a little country town where he's got 280 or he's got just 50 or 80 people showing up. He's doing that stuff too. No doubt. And so it all goes back to that, that sentence. Why don't I ever hear about those guys planes that land safely? Don't make the news. And listen, man, if you don't like me, yeah, because of me, that's on me. This is who I am. I'm not gonna change. But, but if you don't like me, because of the position guys put me in, that's on you. Yeah, that's right. Like what does that have to do with me? So let me give an example. This is my last question. So, you know, Joby, I'll just let me phrase it like this. You know, make a church there. You're just all about the money. Joby, if you're just all in 20, you're just all about the money. I know this because I know how it works. You are spending and receiving not a single dime, enormous amounts of money, time, energy resources, so that you can be discipling people in correctional facilities. That's politically correct term for prisons, all over the country. You receive, you've spent an enormous amount and receive not a dime. Why? We have received a little bit of money. One time a guy made a commitment of $2.25. Think about that. I don't know how hard it is to make 225 in the prison, but he did it. He's like paying us with this canteen money. So that's about what it is. I think that's the income so far. Here's the thing, because we're a movement for all people to discover and deepen relationship with Jesus. And there's no asterisk. And all means all. And every one of those men and women is somebody's one more. There's somebody husband, somebody's wife, somebody's dad, mom. And so we moved in, man. We Part of the reason why is the guys at Baker have less than five years on their sentence and they're all coming back to Duvall County where Jacksonville is.
- That's awesome. - And so our state senators will like, if you want to change our city, if you can get ahold of these guys before they get home, make them better men. And then all we do is we just do church. Have a campus pastor, have a worship team comes in, just like all the other campuses, I'm on the screen. Once a year I preach live from the prisons. - Bro, I watch it every year. - I love it so much. - It's our most watched. - So much. - So we go to Baker and we're doing saturated. We do saturated in Baker. And me and my friend, Jeff Cobb, going there to baptize guys at the end of saturated. I was about 250 men out of a thousand in the population that attend that campus. And we baptized 67 men that day. There'd never been water in that bad history the whole time any employee had ever been there. - Bro. - One of the second third guys we baptized was the leader of the black gang. Now, I wasn't super familiar with like gang culture in prisons, you know, I mean, I've seen some movies but I don't know anything. And apparently, regardless of what your actual gang is outside, when you get inside, you kind of just
click up by race. And so the leader of the black gang goes, he's like second or third. We get to 66 baptisms and I do the same thing coach Lee did. I think there might be one more. And this skinhead white dude, with the cuss word, the whole word F you when it's forehead right there. You don't talk about intimidating while you're preaching. He's got a swash to go on his head behind this ear. It says, "If it ain't white, it ain't right." Well, he gets a balling and you don't cry in prison. I've learned that too. He gets in the water. I ask him if he's ready to renounce the sins of his past, the ways of this world, anything darker demonic he's ever been connected to and pledge his lead just to Christ and Christ alone. He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Who is Jesus?" He said, "My Lord and Savior." And I dunk him. And he comes out and dude, he's yoked. I mean, he can kill me right there. He comes out, hands up, soaking wet out of the tub. He steps out of the tub and the guy from the black gang stands up and they start walking towards each other. All the security is getting weird and they hug. They freaking bro hug in front of 225 men. The guy that leads the black gang looks at the group and he just goes, "It ends today." So all he said, "I'm like, what ends?"
You end up like, "What are we ending?" He just said, "It ends today." I may be all for the position or two here, but Baker was something like the second most violent prison in Florida. Eighteen months later, it was second from the bottom. The governor's office, which we have a wonderful governor here in Florida, if you were things for things like life and liberty and, you know, the constitution, things like that. His office calls me and says, "What are you doing in prison?" I say, "We were just doing church." He's like, "What about recidivism?" I go, "That's your problem, that's not my problem." We just do church. He's like, "What do you mean?" I was like, "We show up every week, same group. We just teach the Bible, help people get into tribal groups, take next steps of obedience." He says, "You can have every prison in Florida." Decentis, we have everyone in Florida. Well, he's like a disciple, disciple, right? Yeah, yeah. All right, you keep going. And he's also, I mean, he's an incredible legislator, like he wants to get stuff done. I think he might be the best one. Yeah. So we're like, "Okay, cool, let's do more campuses." So then we start two more campuses, so we have three. And then we start one for a women's prison.
And then the guy that was the assistant warden at Baker, the original warden-kish, he didn't even want to go, but he just drew the short straw and we held services during his shift and he was the manager on duty, so he had to sit in it. Well, the gospel got all over him. He gets saved in prison as the assistant warden. He gets credit for the turnaround in the lack of violence. He gets promoted to Marion Correctional Facility, and then he calls me one Thursday. He's like, "Hey, pastor, I'm like, "What's up, Kish? "What are you doing?" And he said, "Well, I just wanted to introduce you "to the newest campus pastor of your newest campus here "at Marion Correctional Facility." I'm like, "Say more." He goes, "I'm the warden, I do what I want." So we stream live your 7/22 Thursday night service. So that pops off. So they're around a couple hundred men there. About six months later, he calls me and he says, "Will you do baptisms here at the prison?" I'm like, "Yes, sir, of course." So I hop on my bike. I head down to Marion Correctional. We baptize, I don't know, a ton of people. I can't remember, 75 or something. Kish bro, what in front of all of the inmates? What warden, Kish gets in the tub renounces the sin of his past, the ways of this world, anything darker demonic he's ever been connected to.
Proclaims Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior and he gets up. Okay. After this, he starts calling all of his warden friends that he's known his entire life. And now we have 27 prison outposts around the state of Florida. They do 1122 every week. Because every one of those men are a trophy of the grace of Jesus Christ. And I don't care if you have ocean front property in Ponevieger beach or you're in cell block D and marrying correctional. If you put your faith in Jesus, he'll change everything about everything about everything. And he told me to tell you about it. And that's why I do what we do. That's like the book of Acts. That's a good place to finish. Pastor Joe B. Martin, would you pray for the people listening real quick? I'd be happy to. Josh Halton. I'm proud of you, bro. God has a real unique anointing on your life. And thank you for handling it in such an honorable, biblical way. So you may have critics here on earth, but there is a great cloud of witnesses in heaven, cheering you over. Don't stop. Thank you, my friend. Let's pray. Thank you. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, God, we love you more than anything because you first loved us. Lord, we just kind of sit here amazed that you would use a couple of nobodies from nowhere at just the right time. You would rescue us and redeem us and then by your grace, put us on the rescue team. God, may we never get over the gospel. I pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, everyone. Love you, buddy. Well, hey, thanks so much for listening. Lake Point Church is a movement for all people's in no Christ. Live free and change a world for God's glory. If you're already a member of a local church, we want you giving there. But if you'd like to make a donation to help this message go further, faster, it genuinely helps us boost getting out to more people.
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- Ministry of the Week+
- Devotionals+
- Foundations+
- Mental Health+
- New Believers+