Confessions Of A Former MegaChurch Pastor | Tony Wood

This week Granger interviews Tony Wood about the doctrines of grace, human depravity, and God’s sovereignty in salvation. Tony emphasizes that salvation is entirely the work of God—humans are spiritually dead and unable to seek Him without divine intervention. He explains how this challenges modern views of autonomy, particularly in American culture, and often stirs discomfort around the idea of God’s control over all things, including evil and salvation.

Despite the tension between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, Tony affirms that Scripture teaches both. He shares his personal journey from thinking he chose God to realizing that God had chosen him, seeing this truth consistently throughout the biblical narrative—from creation to Christ to the birth of the Church.

This theological shift profoundly changed Tony’s preaching. Instead of crafting messages around felt needs or cultural trends, he now practices expositional preaching—teaching the Bible verse by verse and letting Scripture shape the message. Granger and Tony agree that true church health begins in the pulpit, where God’s Word—not style, music, or production—must remain central. They encourage believers to seek churches that faithfully and deeply preach the Bible.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, brother, thank you so much for taking this time.
You you are a friend, You're also a pastor, You're
a you are You're so careful and bold and courageous
and humble and gentle, and it kind of kind of

(00:21):
all wrapped up into one. And I just I'm blessed
to know you and.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I feel the same, brother. What an honor to jump
on with you today. And just I think I told
you before like you're The way that you balance truth
and kindness is next level man, and so it's a
privilege to be your friend and watch you do ministry.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Well, thank you, brother. I was trying to think before
you got on here, how exactly we met, and so
I think I think I can give it a shot here.
I saw you on a podcast and it was with
Costy I know, that's the first time I saw you,
and I just thought, Wow, this is this guy, this

(01:01):
guy's story, you know, praise the Lord. So I went
and followed you on Instagram and then I believe this
is the part where he could teaze you. I believe
I was kind of liking your post commenting and at
some point somebody DMed each other it was you or me.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I I didn't know who you were. And I hate
to say that, because sure, you know, I've since learned,
But like, all I saw was there was a singer
guy that had followed and was liking things. And then
the first time I clicked on your name, I saw
the story obviously about about losing river. And so what
I did is I texted, I said, hey, man, is
this a story that you tell? And you said absolutely,

(01:39):
I'd love to. But I didn't. I didn't know you'd
written the book. I didn't know that you were telling
the world what the Lord had done. And so, yeah,
it was so neat when you when you fired back,
and we've yeah, we've had a friendship ever since.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, we at some point we exchanged phone numbers. I
remember we talked on the phone for a significant amount
of time, just kind of telling stories. I came up
and I think.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
There's a lot of similarities in our story because both
of us were coming up with a I think we
both have used the term cultural Christianity right like where Yeah,
we we just kind of assumed we were saved, and
we were we were growing up around church. But then
you know, later on in life, the Lord grabbed us,
woke us up and transformed us, and so I think
that's something that we share for sure.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah. Amen. So I've been out there a couple of
times to Coasta, Mesa to preach and once for a
marriage conference with Amber, and that is thanks for doing that, man. Man,
that's a beautiful place to go, you know, Southern.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Can I tell everybody what you said? What I'm like, Hey, man,
you thanks for coming. You said, Well, here's the big question.
Now are you still doing three services?

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Like?

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Is that is that because you're tired? Bro? Come on, man,
you work out. I see the I see the the
biceps there. You know, you and I. I just never
had a guy come and by the time they're done
with that third service, not not say it was tough, man,
because you're back to back to back, So thanks for
doing it.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Of course it's it is tough, you know. I will
say the second one is not bad. The second one,
you think, Yeah, I think I I think I actually
perfected a little bit of what I was trying to
say in the first service. But then the third service,
I'm thinking, did I say this already? I think I
used this illustration before I forgot I think I'll just repeat.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I finally told the third service, you got to start
helping us, man like you got to be with us,
give us some amens, you know, kind of carry it
for me. Yeah, it's been fun, but thanks for being
willing to give up your time and come out and preach.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, it's a it's it's a church that I personally love,
love those people. And of course it's like I said,
it's a it's a beautiful place to go anyway. So
I I love what you have done there and that's
part of what I want to talk about today. And
you know, on this show, I have I've kind of

(03:57):
gently walked in several places showing people what what is
it what is it like to have a good church,
what's it like to be part of a good church?
What does that even mean? And we've gone there, we've
we've we've actually talked also about do I even need
to go to church? You know, maybe maybe I find

(04:18):
God in the woods. A lot of people say that,
you know, I don't need a church to get closer
to God, which in its essence and me saying that
is true, you know, but there's more, there's more to
the story that that doesn't end there. And so we've
we've kind of lightly walked down all these paths and

(04:39):
and what I want to talk about with you is
you have a fascinating story because you came from one
one way to church and you went to another way
to church and the Lord took you there in a
dramatic way. And so can you tell me a little
bit about the your first pastoral job.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, my first pastoral job. So I think most testimonies
are the same, especially in the ministry. You go from
like a you know, we're all rebels and we're depraved,
and the Lord regenerates this, and then I think a
lot of times we get locked into a revivalistic kind
of ministry. I call it revivalism, where the idea is
I'm on fire for the Lord. I got saved in

(05:24):
a very large attractional megachurch, and so I'm just a
guy armed with John three sixteen wanting to save everybody.
And so, long story short, the other pastor asked if
i'd want to teach on a Tuesday night. I get up,
I grab a microphone, I start yelling, and people started,
you know, attending. But that was all that I knew.
So when that ministry started growing, you know, at one point,

(05:47):
I think we were at we were over two thousand
students college students, and we were basically I call it pragmatism.
I mean it's where you're just putting on a show.
You are trying to get people in the door in order.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
To save them.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
And the idea is church as opposed to gathering to
worship and then scattering to witness just becomes a you're
gathering in order to see people saved.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Occasionally, I want to stop you because yeah, yeah, because
I've I've talked to you a lot about this, but
I also want to slow down so that people could
catch some of these words. We'll start by saying, big
church is not bad. I've said that many times on
this show. Big church not it is not bad. Small
church is not good, uh, and vice versa. So that

(06:34):
that's not what we're saying. But what do you mean?
I'll start with the definition of attractional church. What does
that mean?

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, that's a great quote clarification. What I mean is
that the the ecclesiology of the church, or is that
if we just take a purely biblical framework, I'm going
to stop for the church. No, that's fine, We'll go
definition of terms and semantics right. Yeah, So if we
just take the Bible and go, okay, Jesus comes to earth,

(07:02):
he lives a perfect life, He dies a sinner's death
as a substitution in my place, in my stead, the
stead of his people. He rises on the third day,
according to the scriptures. He then in the day of
Pentecost sends, he goes to heaven, sends, the Holy Spirit
launches this beautiful thing we call the church. It's been
going on for two thousand years, all different expressions. Right.

(07:24):
What we do is we go back to the New
Testament and we go, okay, what would be the framework
or the guidelines for this beautiful organism that Jesus has
left us? And so by and large you'll see elements
that are the same across the board. You're going to
have a time of praise, You're gonna have a time
of prayer, you're gonna have a time of scripture, teaching,
and typically the ordinances are practiced, you know, baptism and communion,

(07:47):
So that's pretty normal. What then tends to change are
going to be how those things are practiced, sure in
different denominations. But also what I'm talking about would be
when I say attractional is instead of the saints, the
focus of the church being for the saints coming to
worship God in reverential awe and then grow in the

(08:11):
Word and then go out or scatter to witness. A
lot of times, what happens since the revivals of Charles
Finny and the Second grad Awakening, and there's a whole
western frontier expansion and go into another time. What happened
was church is realized we can actually use Sunday as
a and this goes back to Schuler and then Bill
Hybels and eventually realk Warm. We can use Sunday as

(08:33):
a time to witness. So we're going to preach on
the same seven or eight topics there tend to going
to be felt need based things that everyone's working through.
And then we're gonna maybe give an altar call and
give people a chance to respond to the Gospel and
then we'll trust that in our small groups or on
Wednesday nights whatever, then we can do the real deep growth, yes,

(08:53):
for the true Christians. And so what I bring up
all those buzzwords, all I'm saying is the folk g
is point folk point of the church as Christ intended.
It kind of kind of flipped somewhere in the early
eighties and the early nineties, and so that's what I
was saved in. Does that Does that help a little bit?

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yes, you're saying the focal point the flip happens when
you become instead of a church that's the purpose is
growing Christians. That flips to evangelizing unbelievers.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
Correct. Yeah, primarily on Sunday mornings in corporate worship.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Which Christians should evangelize unbelievers. But you're saying you're using
the platform of the Sunday morning gathering for that purpose.
And when that happens, problems start.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Well, sure, because you're going to constantly begin engineering new
things to try to attract people with good intentions most often, yes,
but you're going to begin to lose the in the
purest sense, the primary focus that Christ intended.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Okay, that's what I was saved. So let's pick back
up in the story. You're this is what you're saved in,
and so this is all you know, that's it? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah. I had grown up in a conservative Baptist church,
and so I had a framework underneath that that that
that remembers proper ecclesiology, biblical format for church but then
when I get saved, that's what I'm around. And so
I started doing it like everyone else that I knew,
and we did it good. I mean, we've all seen churches,
and I'm not picking on anybody. We've all been a

(10:28):
part of churches where you know, the bands are great,
the the hazers are on the you know, sometimes I'd
preach a sermon and you know, hang from a rope
to show how we need to cling to Jesus and
all that stuff. Uh. And it was young adult ministry.
It was fun. We did the same seven topics of
depression and loneliness and sex and all that stuff, and
it was and it worked. It really worked. I mean

(10:51):
there were where thousands that came, hundreds of people would
come forward on a Wednesday night. The entire city was
ignited through the outreach and the excitement the zeal of
the kids. So it was exciting. But that was where
you talk about the story. Then, you know, began to

(11:11):
change as we came out to plant Mission Bible in
twenty ten and the Lord broke me down. Man, it
was like all I knew was that Oprah Winfrey version
and kind of bait and switch getting them to come
back the next week. I come out here in Orange
County to plant the church. And long story short, the
Lord just the Lord just just just took my knees out.

(11:33):
And I was showing up on Sunday mornings. We were
doing that stuff and it wasn't. It wasn't working the
way that it had before. I kind of thought, we'll
come out here, plant the church, snap our fingers, and
it'll be a couple thousand, and it wasn't. And I
remember going home one Sunday afternoon after church and I
had a you know, a deep almost an extis central

(11:56):
crisis would be a word I would use. Where I
sat on my couch and I looked up at the wall. Uh,
and I just pray to said, Lord, if this is
what church is, this idea that on a on a
on a man level, I can go in, we can
go in and we just hype it, and that's what
church is. If that's what this is, I don't, I don't.
I don't know that I want to do it.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
And so let me tell law here, because this is
this is an amazing moment. And you have been clear
before that you, you and the other pastors and the
and we could speak for a lot of other attractional churches.
They aren't actively trying to deceive people. They're doing this
out of what do you call it ignorant like it's

(12:39):
well intended.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
It's well intended though sometimes non theologically attuned effort.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
You know.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
So you have the best of intentions. Yes, yes, you're
armed with John three sixteen. You have a low anthropology,
you know, a low view maybe of of what's required
to have a man saved, and you're just you're just
pushing the ball downfield. Yes, but there comes a point
where you realize if this thing can be engineered on

(13:06):
a human level, that's frightening because it doesn't require supernatural efficacy.
That's what happened to me. Yeah, So I'm just sitting there, going, Lord,
if this is what it is, he was so gracious.
I got in the car the next morning to go
work out, and there's a guy barking on the radio.
I remember who it was, some old guy about the
glory of God, you know, and I'm listening and going,

(13:27):
whatever that is, that's what my heart is excited about,
which we know understand is big God theology. And so
I wait till the end of the program and I'm
getting online, I'm buying the books, and then the footnote
of that book actually led me down this trail, this
long trail of you read footnotes in a book and
it takes shit all the way from nineteenth century, eighteenth

(13:47):
century Jonathan Edwards, all the way back to Luther, the Reformation,
all the way to the Church Fathers, and my soul
over the course of those next two three months, just
began to grasp things for the first time that I
that that felt like, I know it sounds crazy to say,
but it felt like another rebirth. Yeah, it's like I
had been saved. But you hear people talk about it

(14:09):
John Piper does all the time, like it's almost like
when when you understand reformational theology, it's like another rebirth
that all exists for God, all things are from Him,
through Him, into Him. And so that's when I realized, Okay,
we have the church upside down. And I was off
at a study leave and I fall to my face.

(14:30):
I remember, and what was impressed on me so strong.
It was like the spirit was like, you know, Jonah
was running the opposite direction. You're going to get up
off your knees, You're can get off. You know, I
was in tears, and you're going to stand up in
whatever the Bible says. You're going to go back at
that church, and you're going to do it even if
it cost you everything. And so we did, and so
we did. I mean, that was the story you mentioned

(14:51):
COSTI and all those guys. We all moved from being
pastors to pastors and training. We all those guys went
off to seminary. Can you we went off to school, Tony,
Can you tell me what happened? What happened, like, what
was the first conversation that happened? I mean, you come,
you come off your knees. And by the way, we're
not we're not talking about your coming out of rehab

(15:13):
from drugs and alcohol.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
You're you're already a pastor and and a sincere pastor.
You know, like you said you had Cora ecclesiology, but
you you were sincere. What did you say? What was
the first thing you said?

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Well to my wife, I told her, I said, I
think we're getting this wrong. We've got this wrong. Yeah,
and it's upside down. I don't even know all the
answers yet, but we need help. And so we had
some older pastors that had stepped in, made some phone
called John MacArthur called left a message on the phone
and I remember, you left this long voicemail for Costy
and he said, you know, you're a brand snatch from
the fire and this long thing. And that wasn't even

(15:50):
those weren't even guys that I knew anything about. Yeah,
I just didn't have that that framework. That wasn't my camp.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
And so I remember talking Debris and crying with her
and then talking to her. I began studying about the
doctrines of Grace. And I don't want to offend everyone listening,
but that for me was game game changer. Understanding that
I'm totally depraved, that I require the unconditional hand of
God to unlock my heart so that for the rest

(16:19):
of time I will be protected by him and I'm
eternally secure. And that was big. So we set up
some classes. I remember we had a membership class and
we you know, we had a group come in. I
started just teaching on the doctrines of grace. That that's
what I knew. And there was this long journey of
basically just being a little bit out front of everybody
and wherever I was learning. I was then teaching them,

(16:42):
and so I'd give everyone these big white binders and
it was like I would just copy and paste Charles
Spurgeon and they're looking at me like I remember, we
had to fire the worship team. They were all contracting musicians,
and so we had to call them up and say basically, guys,
you know, we got to let you go. And I
think one Sunday we might have had one girl that
was willing to get up and join me and I

(17:03):
had to sing with her. We had no singing. We
lost a couple hundred people that left frustrated. So it
was quite a time.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
You said, you mentioned earlier you said I don't want
to offend anybody. I know what you mean by that,
But why would that offend anybody?

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Well, I'm not sure who your listenership is. You I
think I want to be thoughtful that people who aren't
entirely in the reformed world, I don't. I don't want
them to get the thought that I'm saying that they're
all wrong.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
Okay, fair enough, so regardless of if you say they're
wrong or not, and I'm not either, But why would
someone be offended at a big god theology.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Pride, pride, it goes all the way back. That's what
Erasmus and so a lot of people think the Reformation
was fought over indulgences in the papacy, but as you know,
I know you're at Southern, it wasn't. And underneath all
of that there was this seven year debate that began
between Luther and Erasmus, and the idea was Erasmus as

(18:15):
a humanist who's writing for the papacy ultimately, even though
he had issues with them, is saying like, there is
just enough good inside of you, semi Pelagian, right, there's
just enough good inside of you that if you work
hard enough and the Church comes alongside you, you will
in fact be able to get to God. In fact,
you're gonna warrant his grace. And Luther's bone in the
Reformation when he nails the nine to five thesis, it

(18:37):
started on the external. I don't like the fact that
you're selling indulgences and saying that if you, if you pay,
you know, we'll get you one million, nine hundred and
twenty eight two hundred less years in purgatory. His issue
was underneath that, what you were saying was is that
we can help you get to heaven, and his study
of the scriptures, he came to the realization that there's

(18:57):
zero good inside of man. Yea, we are totally depraved.
We're dead, no trespass and sins, and so that the
heartbeat of the Reformation was it's entirely a work of
God that you are saved sovereign grace and sovereign grace alone.
And so I think it's our pride, you know how
it is a lot of times we go, well, logically,
that doesn't make sense to me. It makes God seem unfair.

(19:19):
But Luther's point was what does the Bible actually say?
And what the Bible says is that you're dead and
you needed the regenerating work of the spirit in order
to even turn and believe.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Especially in America where we really value our freedom in
our autonomy, and for someone to say you don't have autonomy.
God has autonomy, perfect autonomy. We take offense to that.
And that's always interesting to me to kind of wrestle

(19:51):
back and forth with why people get so upset with
this idea that God is sovereign, even over evil and
even over salvation, and it is it is I wondered
often because I wonder, why is that a touchy subject?
Why wouldn't people say you believe that way, That's okay,

(20:14):
no problem, I believe this way you believe. Why wouldn't
people do that like they would with paidal baptism, you know,
But but they don't. And and and I think maybe
one of the implications of that is that if you
think this way, do you think that God is sovereign
even over salvation, then why would you evangelize? Then why

(20:35):
would you? Why would you Why wouldn't you just stay
in your couch and eat potato chips and reach a
Bible and and and be arrogant? And uh, you know,
why would you? Why wouldn't you do that? And that's
the opposite, you know that. That's called hyper calvinism. And sure,
so many times I'm kind of fighting against that. I'm
probably honestly, I'm probably opening up more right now than

(20:58):
I ever have on this pot guess. But but this
is something I deal with every day. We have man.
God is sovereign, and yet man has a responsibility to
respond to the Gospel. And those are two parallel lines
that do not intersect on this side of heaven. That's
what you believe. And so yes, you believe that that

(21:21):
God is sovereign. But you you also believe, which is
why you're a pastor, which is why you'll be in
the pulpit this Sunday, because you believe.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
I want to jump in with you and say I
do sympathize and empathize. After coming out of that that
world into the world that I'm in, I struggled for
a year or two when I'm realizing, like, oh my goodness,
you know, God is sovereign over all these things, and
I'm struggling going well, when I walked the aisle and
prayed the prayer, I thought it was it was me
that was my decision to follow Jesus. Now I'm reading

(21:50):
in the Bible and it saying no, it was his
decision to come get me. But then as I began
to read the scripture, brother, and I'm I'm sure you've
had the same thing, it was like, the scripture is
the revealed will of God is what showed me that
I was wrong, Because I'm going all right. It says
that He created the world and the Son of Me
and the stars, and I agree with that he did

(22:11):
nobody else could have yeah. And then it says that
that he reached down and he he saved Noah on
that boat, and I go, okay, I believe that, and
that he chose Abraham and he was going to start
a nation. Eventually there's Moses, and he protects the nation
of Israel through the wilderness wanderings, and he he hardens
fail his heart, and he he then saves them through

(22:31):
prophets that predict the coming of his son, and he
sends his son in the appointed time. And I'm going,
I believe that. I believe that. I believe that. And
he he starts this thing called the church and sends
his Holy Spirit, and then he ignites this that he
commissions these apostles to go out and tell me about
it and build the beautiful temple on his living stones
unto his glory. And I'm going I believe that that
that that that. But then if I believe all that,

(22:52):
naturally I have to to come to the conclusion that
also he's the one that saved me. It's not like
he did all that. And then I'm the one standalone
in the universe that decided to go after Jesus. And
so I think that's when I eventually hit my face
and thought, Okay, Lord, I get it. This is all
you for all time.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
But Tony, there is no love unless you have the
free will to choose against it, says says who says.
All the people commenting right now is.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
That what they're saying. Well, there are others that, There
are others that have said that, there are others that
have said that. They're not alone, And we can go
back through history and we can go through the apologetic
from the other side. But the reality in scripture is that, yes,
I have the ability to make decisions.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
I have the ability to make a whole bunch of decisions.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yes, right.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
The one decision that I don't have the ability to
make because I'm born my nature is born corrupted, it
is born dead in sin is God. And so I
think that's sometimes where we start to get confused, is
we're talking about a condition of the of the will,
a condition of the nature. And so I have a
lot of things. I choose a lot of things. I
like a lot of things. I love. The one thing

(24:09):
that I couldn't have done without his help was ever
choose him. Yeah, you're slave to sin, born again. You
didn't have a decision to in your in your first birth,
and you don't in your second to this, so born
again now slave to Christ.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
So you're free. You're free within your slavery to sin,
and you have a freedom in your slavery to Christ.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yep. And then Roman six comes in and says, because
you now have been made new in Jesus, you have
died with him. You therefore will live with him. That
transformation has taken place in your heart. It is a spiritual,
supernatural work. And so therefore the rest of your life
you will love him, you will follow him, you will
worship him, you will serve him all the way to

(24:52):
the end, and you'll be glorified forever by him.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Amen. So the reason some people might be thinking, why
are they even talking about this? You know, why are
they talking about this this thing? But the reason is
what we're getting to is now this affects the way
you preached. Now, so now you're changed by these doctrines.
And what you're reading in the Bible not something you
decided or you discovered, but it's something you read and

(25:16):
believing that the Bible is true. You thought, I'm doing
this wrong, that salvation comes a different way than I
thought in the attractional way. Instead, it happens through the word,
so that affects directly affects the way you start preaching.
So now tell me what happens from the pulpit now
that this change has happened to you.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, you've referred to what's often called, you know, the
means of grace, the idea that God's primary means for
doing that work in the heart is the heralding, the krudzo,
you know, of the scriptures, which is really a unique
act when you go back and study it. It's this
idea where the profits of the Old Testament you get
to the New Covenant, and it's this new birth of preaching,

(25:56):
which kind of is a heralding, a proclamation of God's word.
I always picture it like imagine that we're in a
fish bowl, and I don't want to go geek out
on Francis Shaefer, but like imagine that we're in a
fish bowl and we're just little fish women to here,
we're creatures. Right, There's no way that a fish is
ever going to understand what's outside of the fish bowl.
He's not going to understand what a man is a
woman is, and certainly not all the things we're doing.

(26:18):
The only way that something that is that finite can
never understand the infinite is if we drop that truth
down into the bowl and he's able to then at
his level, you know, understand it. So what God did
and then scriptures progressive revelation is from the very beginning,
He's dropped into the fish bowl enough truth for us

(26:39):
to be able to know him. Yeah, and that's why
all the authority is in the book, all the authorities
in the word. That is the means that he's going
to use. It's like the Holy Spirit grabs the Bible
and he's going to use that to transform hearts. And
so as far as a practical thing, it changes the
way you preach because I'm not sitting there every week
when I'm doing my study and going all right, you know,

(27:01):
what are the people really interested in this week? You
know what are they gonna be excited about? Now? I'm
gonna go over, you know, and I'm gonna I'm not
gonna use any names. I almost use a name. I'm
gonna go over and then and then and then grab
a Bible verse that kind of rhymes with that feels good.
A lot of maybe Old Testament narrative usually you know.
And then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna spin
it and throw a maxim at him, which is like,

(27:22):
you know, if you always go, he'll always come. If
you're always up, then you're gonna be down. And then
they're gonna walk away. They're gonna be pumped. It's called anthropocentric, right,
They're gonna be pumped in their human power based on
what they heard. So that's just self help Oprah Winfrey stuff.
Instead of doing that, all I have to do is
take the book that he dropped into the fish bowl

(27:44):
and then just simply open it up and start preaching
through it chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph, verse by verse,
understanding what we call the authorial intent, what to the
original author as superintended or inspired by the Holy Spirit
me when he wrote it. How can I bring people
up to that theological principle and then apply it into
their lives with passion and vigor what Lloyd Jones called,

(28:06):
you know, logic on fire. And when we do that,
we have promises all throughout scripture which tell us he
will use his word, it will not return void. And
so that's how it changes preaching. The power is not
in the preacher per se, it's in the creator of
the universe, who's then speaking through him.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah. So what you're described, and we've said this several
times on this show, it's called expositional preaching yep. And
the previous preaching is called topical. Basically that there would
be a decent way to preach topically textually, but most

(28:45):
of the time what you'll see in a a I'll
bring up a new term, seeker sensitive. Can you give
a quick definition the seeker sensitive before you?

Speaker 2 (28:55):
I would go back to what we talked about with
attractional and that put those probably together. That's maybe a
nicer term. You know. The idea is instead of being
you know, saint focused, we're gonna we're gonna make Sunday
mornings more more sensitive to the outsider. So I think
it's a fair term.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah. So you you are pretty you're very adamant and
and anything that has to do with the church. The
most sensitive thing you are is the most adamant thing
that you speak on is preaching in this way. Stop
preaching topically, Stop preaching about marriage and finance and singleness

(29:37):
and grief, and use the word the Bible itself preached
through that, and the that will have implications that speak
to marriage and speak to singleness and finance and grief
and all those things.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Absolutely, and there can be times, as you well know
where we're going. Okay, there's a huge number of people
in the body that are struggle and was set issue
right if it's grief? And so another wrong with doing
a proper study on grief, but you mentioned it it
would be a topical textual where I still want to
make sure that I've mind the scriptures and I'm saying
what God says about the topic. So I think ext

(30:15):
to Jesus an exposition reason in these big words is
really the opposite of what's often called is to Jesus.
You know this idea where you go over and you
take a topic and you try to find a verse
that matches it and then get everyone ignited and fired
up by that. So we want to make sure we're
minding out of God's word what it is he says
about that topic.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, and that's a great point because most people will say,
my pastor preaches out of the Bible, and I say, well,
of course he does, or he wouldn't be a Christian.
But how is he preaching out of the Bible. It
is the question. And so I don't want in my
job here is not to tell people what church to
go to. Instead, I want to get people to think,

(30:58):
what is a healthy church? How do I know that?
And you're gonna argue and I would too. It starts
from the pulpit, It starts from the preaching itself. You
can't always get it from the building or the way
that the lights look or the way that the music sounds,
but you can always tell immediately from the preaching.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
I would even say, we want to be careful about
letting all that other stuff be the driver. I think
a lot of times, you know, big lights and great
music gets a bad rap, right, there's nothing that ever says.
So let's say you have a healthy church. You got
the pulpit that's a precing exposition preaching God's word, and
then you have the praise time that is reverential. Yes,
is doctrinally sound. The elements of prayer are there, the

(31:41):
elements of scripture reading, the elements of the ordinances are
being taken a beautiful symbolic description and reminder of what
Jesus did for us on the crossing communion. For example,
people are being baptized and there's a church membership or
church discipline, and you actually are you have a pure
bride of Christ where you're not just sitting around and
anything happened. Let's say all that. Then you can have

(32:03):
great music, you can have great lights. There's no reason
I think it's a false dichotomy that we should go. Okay, exalting, exposition, equipping,
and evangelizing are all happening, but now we just want
to paint the walls brown and we want to have
esthetically displeasing children's ministries. Let's actually go back and do

(32:24):
music from eight hundred years ago. In fact, let's not
even let's make it smell. It's almost like we're trying
to You need to have truth first, okay, But if
you have truth, then it's okay to have all the
other stuff growth and vigor and zeal and passion and excitement.

(32:46):
In fact, I'd almost argue that if you have truth,
those other things will come naturally. Where you get into danger,
my brother, is that I think any attractional or secret
sensitive it. We flip them and we go after growth,
and then you have to kind of fight through all
the masking to get to truth. That's the danger. Let
the truth drive the growth, but don't ever get to

(33:07):
the place where growth is what you're focused on and
you've ignored the truth. And if you do that, you're
in trouble.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
So when you think about businesses that are selling a lot,
if you're into business e commerce or commerce platforms, when
you think about a company that's doing it really well,
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the selling and for the shoppers buying simple. For millions

(33:36):
of businesses, that is Shopify, including gee dot com. We've
been using Shopify for a long long time now, and
it allows us to have creative control over our website
and the way the EEE dot com looks and all
the EEE apparel. But when it comes to the checkout
and the selling, when someone wants to go add something
to the cart and check out, all that mechanism is

(33:57):
brought to us by Shopify. It's a great company and
that's why so many other companies use it all across
the world. If you're into e commerce or commerce if
you have a store or an online business, whether you're
wanting to grow that from where it is or start
it from scratch. You got to know the businesses that
grow grow with Shopify. So upgrade your business and get
the same checkout as ge dot com. Sign up for

(34:19):
you're one dollar per month trial period at shopify dot
com slash granger all lowercase got a shopify dot com
slash granger to upgrade your selling today shopify dot com
slash granger. If you want to get a hold of
me for any reason, go to cameo dot com slash
granger Smith. It's a great way to get someone a
gift that you don't know what to get. It's a

(34:40):
video message from me. Basically, you message me and say, hey,
can you tell my brother happy birthday? Can you tell
my wife happy introversary? Or can you give me a
word of encouragement or maybe even a prayer? Go to
cameo dot com slash granger Smith. Fill that out and
it comes right to my phone. I read what you
want me to say. I could add libit. I take
my phone, put it on selfie mo, shoot a quick

(35:01):
video saying hey, Bob. Cindy wanted me to tell you
happy anniversary, and you know, whatever you woman to say,
and then I'll send you that video message and then
you give it to Cindy's. It's a great little tool.
I've been using this for a long time. Cameo dot
com slash Granger Smith. Have you heard about EEE Fast yet?

(35:21):
I need to tell you. It's May ninth and tenth
at the EEE Farm. We're gonna have a truck show,
We're gonna have a mud bog, lots of good food,
lots of people from YEE Nation will be there, and
I'm even gonna do some kind of live podcast. Don't
know how that's gonna look yet, but we're gonna do
a live audience, live podcast, answer questions, gonna have Amber there,

(35:43):
most of my team and my brothers will all be there.
And you know, we'll be at the EEE Farm, so
you get to come. It's open to the public completely
and you get to come and hang out with us
at the EEE Farm. I think it's gonna be so
much fun. And here's the surprise. Saturday night, May the tenth,
I'm actually playing a concert, my full band, all the crew,
It will be the only concert we do the entire year,

(36:06):
So you don't want to miss this. I mean, this
is gonna be If you're part of EU Nation or
you want to be part of EU Nation, you got
to check this out. You go to eee fest dot
com for all your info. I'm looking at it right now.
If you're wondering the price for the full weekend, it's
seventy nine bucks for a ticket. If you just want
to go to one day, like a single pass on Friday,

(36:28):
it's thirty nine bucks, and a single pass on Saturday
is only fifty nine bucks. So if you want to
go to this concert fifty nine bucks. Kids are cheaper
than that. And then there's all kind of like VIP
packages ways to get your truck in there. You could
sit on your tailgate of your own truck. It's going
to be a really, really good time. I'm so excited
about this once again. Eee Fest coming May ninth and tenth.

(36:50):
Go to ee dot com or eee fest dot com
for more details. At you're in trouble, So how could
someone that walks into their church this coming Sunday, how
could they tell if this is a proper exposition or
textual topic.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
I think the simple litmus would be how often is
your head and your pastor's head like like down in
the text? Okay, so, and that's a really simple, simple litmus.
I mean, just just think about it. It doesn't mean
he can't come up and he can't be engaging, and
he can't illustrate, and he can't get you excited about
the word. That's all style. Don't worry about style. Style
comes and goes. Personality of preachers vary. But the point is,

(37:30):
by the time you leave where you introduced to a text,
did you, with everyone in that in that congregation to
your right and left examine the text. Were you brought
to a place where you further understand the theological principle
of that text, which is timeless It was there when
Paul wrote it and it's there today. And then did
he help you apply that to where when you walk

(37:50):
out the door, you go, you know what, I actually
know more about this book than I did when I
came in. That would be my litmus. How often is
your head in the text.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
That's good. Remember flippings one. Paul's talking about how there
are different ways to preach wrong ways there's coming from
ways of greed, and and then there's there's the way
that comes from love. And I know you, yeah, I
know you personally, and I know that you do this

(38:20):
out of love. You preach this way, not not out
of selfish conceit or any kind of ambition for yourself.
I mean, honestly, you would make the argument that if
you were doing that, you would do it the opposite.
You do it the old way because it's a lot
easier to stand up there and make a show than
it is to, like you said, have your nose in
the text. But I know that you do this for love.

(38:42):
And the reason I even bring that up, it's because
sometimes these conversations can start to sound like, oh, these
guys just think they got it all figured out. You know,
they're telling us they're better their their church. Okay, mission
Bible is better than the other churches. Is that what
you're saying? And I know personally, no, brother, you're doing
this out of love because you know that the Bible
says this is the way that people are going to

(39:04):
grow up in the Lord. This is how they're going
to know who God is. Sometimes you'll see churches that
will sound like this. They will they will come across
this way, and they'll say they'll they might even open
their sermon with open your bibles to First Corinthians five.
I'm going to read from verse four and we're going

(39:24):
to read down to verse ten, and you'll think, okay, exposition.
They read it down and then they give a quick
explanation and then they go off and they start yelling
at you know, at everyone. Sure, and every week it's
the same thing. They're not. That's not growing in any way,
that's not that's not moving through the Bible at any

(39:46):
routine fashion. That is just using the Bible as a
starting point and then and then and then telling people
that they're they're not good enough for it.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
I think those chricatures get built on all sides, right,
And I do think it's important to remember that if
you're teaching the Bible, I mean, you brought it up
like it would be very easy to hear. Even a
podcast like this, and I get on and talk preaching
and I'm kind of intense. I come across intense. I'm
a polarizing person. I'm sorry, I'm not really like that.
Ask my wife. But it's interesting that you, as a preacher,

(40:20):
I think any true preacher of God's word, who's ever
had to get up and know that he's speaking fearfully
on behalf of the living God. Yes, is going to
number one, do that only after he spent a ton
of time on his knees. Number two with moist eyes.
And so you can tell when a guy loves you
because you can almost hear the quiver in his voice,

(40:43):
You can almost sense the tears in his eyes saying
this is not just information, this is transformation. This is
stuff that I am begging the Lord to surgically implant
inside your heart.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
Right.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
But I think one of the characters here sometimes is
that guys who who love God's word and or you know,
un quote reformed or whatever, is that they are just
going to blast everybody. But what we forget is that
if we're teaching through God's word, God's the one who
also talks about mercy. God's the one who talks about
love and kindness and meekness and gentleness and self control.

(41:16):
God's the one who ministers. You came and preached here,
What did you preach? You've preached twice, and both times
you come bearing a message of number one. Second time
was the gospel. The first time was what how the
Lord meets us in our grief and meets us in
our sorrow? And so you know, hard preaching creates soft hearts.
But that's not because the preaching is always about hard things.

(41:37):
A lot of times it's about very personal needs that
we have as believers.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah. Amen, So let's let's drop you back into the
story now that we've kind of set this, set the
ground here, you you come back. You know, the worship
teams fired, there's some you know, hundreds of people have left.
And now you're preaching this way now, you probably don't
see immediate change. It's not like you preached the first

(42:02):
day and you preached the text and everyone thought, wow,
pastor Tony, that now everything's different, This is so much better.
If we're probably more gradual than that, is that right? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (42:13):
One of the challenges I think when we're young is
we want to make changes quick.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Right.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
It's like, this is us now, And I think one
of the blessings is the Lord had had parked us
at this rescue mission. So when we planted the church,
we were renting and we're at this rescue mission and
so we've got broken people. Man. I'm talking like like
literally the night before they're getting pulled by the cops,
you know, out of a hotel room, you know, tripping

(42:37):
on something. Then they're coming into church the next morning.
And the Lord and his grace kept us there for
seven years and sore as we're developing theologically. He's teaching
us how to how to love and develop ministry methodologically.
But we had to constantly be doing it with a
real sense of the brokenness around us. And I think

(42:58):
that was the Lord's kindness to kind of go, hey,
you have to really slow down and make sure that
wherever you go you're able to take a group with
you instead of kind of banging your chest. And I mean,
but there were some crazy sundays, man, I'm telling you.
We had, like I meant, a few times where I'd
be preaching something like we talked about the doctors of
Grace when you tell people, hey, right now you're all

(43:19):
on your way to Hell and and and and the
Lord is your only solution. I would have guys with
like I'm talking like like like like inked up with
you know, teardrops, like they'd just done something crazy in
the in the pen the night before, and they'd come
like over the seats toward me like they were coming
to get me. Uh, and we had security guys who
would grab them, you know, and what so Yeah, absolutely

(43:42):
absolutely it was like you know the old stories of Whitfield. Yes, yeah,
your bottles are flying.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
It was at least a couple of times. I mean
one of our one of our elders got headbutted squirt
square in the nose and the nose started bleeding. And
I mean it was a full on rescue mission environment.
But now when I look back at all the Lord's done,
when we got the new property and the church grow,
you grew, I'm always like, Lord, you did that because
you wanted to prune, and you wanted to sanctify, and

(44:07):
you wanted to bring us low so that we would
always remember that it was you and not us.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Yeah, I got more stories sometime. You and I got
to talk.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Man guys coming over the chairs. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yeah. One time there was a couple in the front
row and they're like like getting it on, I'm making
out the whole thing, And so I just called him out.
I said, I said, hey, I talked to the lady.
I said, hey, brother, give me a second and I said,
if this is what he's willing to do to you
in front of all these people possessing you like this,
what does that say about his character? And do you
think he's really going to his life down in love
for you for the next fifty years and the whole

(44:43):
place is just like hur you know, And he was
so mad. I really thought he was. I thought he
was coming. What year was this? What year is that
would have been? You can ask Costi he was around
still twenty sixteen seventeen.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Was Costi saved in your church? Yeah? He was.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
His famous story about the John five sermon in the
JMAC commentary and all that. That would have been two
thousand and thirteen ish.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
So I don't know Costy personally. By the way, we
have DMed a few times, but we're talking everybody. We're
talking about Costy hen who's the nephew of the antithesis
of what we're more talking about.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
And it's crazy, right.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
All this is crazy stuff. What would you say to
somebody a family that is in that Seeker church right now?
You know the pastors, he loves them, and he's sincere,
and he loves the Lord. We're not saying that any
of those things are wrong, But what would you say,
How important is it for them if they're comfortable that

(45:50):
children are in a good little ministry, they love their
small group, it's convenient drive from their house.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
Is it that big a deal? Yeah, that's a Paul
Washer quote, right. Don't find the church nearest your house,
try to find the church nearest the Bible. So philosophically, yes,
it is a big deal. But like I have friends
in all different sizes and different camps of the church,
and the brothers that are great brothers, they love Jesus.
What I find most often is, even if there's a difference,

(46:20):
subtle differences and ecclesiology, most of these guys love the Lord,
and they are they are begging the Lord for souls,
and they are trying to lead the church in a
way that honors Him. And so I think, by and large,
a lot of times we start having these conversations and
it almost looks like we're, you know, we're building.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
A strong man because exactly.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
But here here's where things get interesting, is that I
have to know to answer that as a father of
a home my theological triosh, which I'm sure that you
know at Southern you've heard a thousand times. But like
I have to know what tier of issue I'm dealing with.
Am I dealing with like a first tier issue that
you know, little old orthodoxy? This is like outside the
camp of Christianity. You know, are they not teaching the

(46:59):
virgin or the you know, the inerran word of God
or the authority of scripture, Jesus perfect life, subsidiary death,
his resurrection. If that's happening, then I have to take
my family immediately. And I got a flee.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Then I get down into those second tier issues, which
they are minor distinctives at different expressions of the church,
right is it? You know, are they are they doing
the tongues thing? Are they not? You know, what's their
view of complementary and roles? And then you get down
into these issues of like eschatology and dating and those
are very very very tertiary issues. So what I would

(47:34):
do is I'd work out number one, what level of
issue are you looking at?

Speaker 1 (47:39):
Let me build a hypothetical for you. You want to do it. Okay,
this is a evangelical church. They love the Lord. And
when I say that, I mean these are all the
all the first tier issues are checked Bible and errancy.
You're saved by grace, not by works. God has revealed

(48:00):
himself in three persons, and Jesus is the only way, okay,
that these are. This is what they teach. This is
what they all believe. They are there when it when
it comes to like fruits of our gifts of the spirit,
they're they're pretty loose. They don't talk about it too much.
They kind of you know, they keep it kind of quiet.

(48:20):
Sure they they they do baptisms, you know, a couple
of times a month, and they make a big deal
out of it. The the church is let's say, eight
hundred people, you know, and it's it smells good and
they have really good music. The pastors, there's many of them.
I don't know them all, but they're super nice, super

(48:43):
super nice guys. There are women pastors, you know that
they get up there and they're usually the wives of
the of the other pastors. And every week they preach
a topical message and they're usually in a series. The
series they usually have catchy names that you would recognize,
and they use videos to introduce the series. But they

(49:04):
do use the Bible. The Bible does pop in and
out of these you know, they'll use some verses and
they'll actually read, you know, sometimes larger sections ten fifteen verses,
and I leave feeling really good. Is it important? Oh
and by the way, the kids ministry is amazing? Do
I need to leave this church?

Speaker 2 (49:23):
I ask clarifying question, Yes, yes, all right, you're so poetic, man,
your creativity blows my mind. Just came up with that
right now. It's almost like you're a songwriter. So what
about membership and church discipline? If there's an issue? Am
I protected by the elders as a wife who has
a husband who hit me one night?

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Or yeah, I definitely want to This is me talking,
not the hypothetical. We need to talk about church discipline.
I would love to talk about that. But for me
at this church, I'm a member of the church because
I've been going for many years and I signed I
took a QR code and I signed up, and so yes,

(50:02):
I'm a member.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Okay, but do they practice? Is there a way that
the elders may come and go you're outside of a
Matthew eighteen rubric one he's five, there's sin happening? And
or or is it kind of just a free for all?

Speaker 1 (50:18):
No, you could you could just kind of sit in
the back and come and go as you please, and
that'd be my answer.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
That's that's the part I think. I think the statement
of faith part up front. I think the nice pastors
and all that, I think I'm fine with that. Where
things get interesting we use that big word ecclesiology again
and again. Where things get interesting is if if I'm
not clear how I got in, and I'm not clear
how I get out, and I'm not clear who's going
to have oversight right one Peter chapter five, over my soul,

(50:49):
who's feeding me, who's leading me, but also who's protecting me?
Then I would have some some sincere concerns about whether
i'd want my family there. And I also give you
we're doing conjecture, so let me throw it at you
so you know. Amber comes to you tomorrow and says,
you know, Hay Granger, I love you. It's been a

(51:09):
great ride. But I'm thinking maybe this isn't the right
thing for us now. Now, if you're at that church,
you're going, all right, sweetie. I'm pretty sure the Bible
says that we can't just you know, split, But if
you don't have elders who you're able to go to
and you don't have some form of Matthew eighteen accountability structure,
then there's really no one helping you or her in

(51:31):
that spiritual trial or sin. So I think that's where
people have to really really lock in and go. It's
not just what I'm taught, it's also I always used
to use the illustration and membership class. I would say,
I want our church to be like in and Out,
which anybody on the West coast knows. You know, in

(51:51):
and out. The reason and now it's great is you
always know what you're gonna get, so the food you're
gonna eat. But number two, you always know the tables
are gonna be clean, like literally you get up ten
seconds later, boom, and it's all white compared to McDonald's,
it's all nasty usually, right. So the idea was, I
want to know what I'm being taught every Sunday, the
Word of God's going to be. But I also want
to know that there's a group of men who are

(52:11):
protecting the ethic of this church so that there's purity
in the pews and that God forbid Galatians chapter six.
Even if I you know, am caught in something I
want to restore another brethren doesn't look it unto myself,
so that I too might not be tempted. And so
the Lord doesn't just want an informed church, he wants
a pure church. And so that would be one of

(52:33):
my concerns in that particular hyperbole.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
So church discipline that sounds very old fashioned and very scary.
Can you walk through, just genuinely generally through Matthew eighteen,
the simple story of what Jesus is saying here and
where we get this idea from.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yeah, that's a great question. The old word was, you know, censorial.
You know that was the old censure. But all it
is is saying Jesus lays down an acorn of truth
in Matthew eighteen, and then that that that oak tree
blossoms in Pauline literature, where Paul writes in First Corinthian's
five and says, like, here's what this could look like.
Jesus was simply saying that there needs to be some

(53:14):
way to deal with with ongoing sin that can corrupt
the group. And so in Matthew eighteen he simply says, hey,
if there's a problem and we're all in this admonishment level,
all the time with people. You know, someone rubs me
the wrong way. I'm like, hey, man, you know, so
there's this one to one and then if they don't repent,
or if that's not fixed, you go and you get

(53:35):
two or three people and you bring them and now
you're confronted in a group like your small group or something.
And then if they don't repent it, there's no change,
and there's something that continues to happen. Then you go
to the church, you go to the eldership, and you
bring them, and plausibly you get to the kind of
the pinnacle, which is you tell the whole church and
you say, hey, such and such member is committed such

(53:58):
and such sin. It's ongoing habitual to the harm of
the body. And then we need to now all go
after them together, asking them to repent. You know, and
I hate to even use you guys an example, but
I'm already on that road analogy. You know, everyone. I
feel bad doing it, but like everyone needs to go
after Amber. Yeah, and everyone in the church. Now what's
happened is her social construct is pressuring in. And the

(54:23):
beauty of that is, if I'm truly saved, I've got
the Holy Spirit on the inside, who's convicting me. I've
got my entire faith community on the outside, they're convicting me,
and it's keeping the community of faith pure and right
sized if we don't have that. And this was my
experience before. I've been at churches that are like, hey, man,
there's no membership, you vote with your feet, that whole thing. Okay, fine,

(54:44):
But then if that happens and my wife walks away,
who's there to help us? Yeah, who's there to even
tell her she's wrong?

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Yeah? Yeah. So the scenario is Ambers decides she wants
to get a boyfriend and she wants to leave. A
sister from the church comes to her and says, hey, sister,
you can't do this. You can't leave your husband. If
she says, you're right, I'm so sorry, then she's gained

(55:13):
a sister. Jesus says, brother, but where you started with Amber?
So I'm running down that road.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
But if she says I'm sticking with the boyfriend thing,
then the sister brings another sister and they both come
to her and they say, hey, Amber, you can't do this.
She still says no. They take her to the elders,
the leadership and Eventually, the idea is the elders in
the church will say, you can no longer be here.

(55:42):
You cannot be a member of this church and be
an unrepentant sin. And they don't do that that Jesus
doesn't build that so that that person is left and
ostracized and gone. That this is so that the person goes.
I want back in the family. I don't like being
out side of the family. I want to be back in.
That's the whole idea. And so that they could be

(56:04):
repented and come back. That is what we call church discipline.
And what you're saying is that a church that doesn't
have any kind of structure in their membership that's meaningful
at all. You don't know who the church is, you
don't know who to bring the person to, and you
don't know who to kick the person out of at all.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
That's right, and it goes right back to where we started, right.
If it's attractional and it's all unbelievers, you will inevitably
end up with an impure church. If the lordship of
Christ is not established as paramount, If we're not constantly
teaching in such a way that it's pursuing holiness, and
even at times as hard as it sounds, having to

(56:46):
filter out those who were with us but not of us.
Eventually you just end up with an impure church.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
That's so good, And I'd love how you brought it
back all the way around. And I know I'm interested
to read these comments. Aren't you a meant to figure
out what people are going to say through this? But
I did have a friend one time in North Texas
and he said, Hey, I'm looking for a church. Can
you help me and my wife? And I said, yeah,
I actually have a friend there. Here's the church. It's
close to your house. And he said, great, thank you.

(57:18):
A few days later, I said, are you guys going
to go Sunday? And he said no. We looked it up.
My wife looked up their website and it says they
practiced church discipline and she said, ooh, I don't like that.
And I said, brother, that's because they love their people.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
There you go, there you go, so yeah, that's love, right,
that's the love, And that's the father, Hebrews tells us, right,
he chastises, he disciplines those that he loves. Every dad
knows that. You know, man, you and I both have
children you've got little ones right now. And when you're
a little guy, I mean he's fun. I mean he's fun.

(57:55):
Maverick is Maverick right, he's climbing on things. Yeah, But listen,
it's one thing to be childish. It's another thing to
become rebellious or foolish.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Right.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
And you've now disobeyed what mommy and Daddy have told
you to do. And this is the circle of blessing
that God has given us. When we're in it, it's blessing.
When we're outside of it, it's danger. And I don't
want you to be in danger. And so therefore I
must discipline you in order that you learn, and I'm
restoring you now back into the circle of blessing. That's
exactly what the Father does for us. He keeps us
inside the family again where we started. He puts us

(58:28):
in the family. He keeps us in the family all
the way to the end.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
Aymen, Well, brother, I love you, and we've talked all
about church. And I don't want to neglect that little
book you have right in front of you.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Amen. You told me to put it here is like
a shameless good it's you didn't do that yourself.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
I told you go get that book. The reason I
told you to get it it's what's it called the
Little Red Book of Marriage?

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Is that what it's called Little Red Book of Marriage?
Complete with pictures?

Speaker 1 (58:54):
So you sent me a this is a book that
you and your wife Bree wrote, and you sent me
the PDF before it was actually in a book form,
and Amber and I got to read it and we
loved it. It is so simple and so beautiful. It's
so practical for marriage. And I was going, I had
full intention of having it here on the desk with

(59:16):
me for this podcast. And before you got on, I thought, oh,
I got to go get my Little Red Book. I
I go to Amber and it's like, hey, I need
I need the Woods Book. And she said I gave
them all the way.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
That's cool way to go.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
Yes, it's cool, but unfortunate. Now you're the one holding it.
Can you tell me a little bit about why you'd
you and Bri wrote that book?

Speaker 2 (59:37):
You know? Interesting that goes back to a buddy that
came to us three years ago and said, hey, you know,
in our kind of camp conservative aangelicalism, there's a lot
of talk about marriage's not a lot of application for marriage.
And so would you guys willing to do a podcast?
And so we started Date Night and that kind of
had a trajectory of runway we never imagine because we

(59:57):
didn't know what we're doing. My wife thought it was
crazy because she doesn't like me on camera or anything,
and that that that just kind of the Lord had
another plan as it grew, and then a buddy who's
in publishing came and said, hey, these these podcast episodes
are so good, could we put them into a book,
And so that that was what this was. We took
the top twelve kind of principles that are biblically foundational

(01:00:19):
to a healthy marriage and then just put them into
book form and tried to make it edible because it's
like when you're when you're busy and you got two
little kids and you're barely two ships crossing in the
night as a young couple, it's hard to read a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
So I think you did it great and you're holding it,
but it's it's easy to read. It's thin, you know,
it's not it's not a mountain of a read. It's
very practical. Anybody could read it at any level. And
the podcast you're referring to Date Night with the Woods.
Is that what it's called? Yeah, yeah, you guys have
been going to be so it is a it's a

(01:00:53):
fantastic podcast. So, so people want to know more about you,
go to that or you could see you're preaching at
Mission Bible Church in Coasta Mesa, California, which is incredible.
My only the only downside is the three services. Man.
You just got a sweat and sweat and sweat to
do that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
For the Lord.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
Well, brother, I love you and you are so busy
and I just it's a it's an honor that you
were able to take this time to be on this podcast.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
I love you too. Thanks for your ministry. Brother, It's
fun to watch you change the world.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
Appreciate it. Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast.
I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me
out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube,
subscribe to this channel, hit that little like button and
notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload
a video.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Yi