Everything is About Eternity

Hi everybody. Welcome to this edition of Ignite. Boy do I have a superstar with you now. You know, I'm doing these podcasts. I don't have a lot of fun doing them, but I have a newbie. Okay, let's face it. And I don't have a clue what I'm doing, but I'm having fun. I have some real talented people around me and they're catching on and people watching. That's fun. But yeah, on the other end of the spectrum, you got Matt Brown. And I don't even know how many billions of people are watching. Matt and I have been friends for a good long while. And this guy so mirrors my heart. I just, Matt, thank you for joining me today. And I've been looking forward to this. We do these podcasts, but this one I knew it was at some point we're going to get together. And we did a TV show together, but this is, this is really fun. So welcome, welcome, welcome. And you are my dear friend with huge respect. Oh, it's a huge honor. Thank you for having me, Barry. And I love what you're doing with Ignite podcast. And it's so needed. Your show, the different ministries. What, what amazing work. And so I mean, huge honor for me. Thank you. Oh, it's not as you say, but I mean, I think eternity, people aren't thinking, I love the name to begin with. But let's, let's go back to your whole posturing and where your mind is. Let's talk about you. This is not about me. This is about you. Talk about even go back. God, could you start maybe back when your age, whatever was 17 or whatever? And God sovereignly spoke to you at that moment and put a burden on your heart for, for the lost around you. This is why we start there. Oh, oh, I'd love to share that story. Yeah, I'd love to share that story. I, uh, grew up in a Christian home, uh, came to Christ in early age. My mom is a real evangelist. And, uh, some people like her, uh, Mark Middleberg, who's best friends with me, Strollwell, uh, Jason Powell, who you know, well, who worked with Greg Laurie for many years. And you are on a different stratosphere altogether. So I'm going to be bringing in the other side here of, uh, maybe encouragement for people who go, I'm not as good as Barry, but I want to talk about, uh, what God did in my life. So I, my mom led me to Christ in early age. I sent to call the ministry actually when I was eight years old at a youth camp or, I guess, a children's camp up here in Minnesota, where we're from. And I didn't really know exactly what God wanted me to do, but grew up in a good Christian home. My parents weren't in ministry, uh, but they, but they served the local church. So my dad was always an elder and had a small church here in the Twin Cities and the suburbs that we, we attended that was great. Really, uh, what's interesting Barry is a lot of amazing church leaders have come out of that church. So it wasn't a huge church. But the disciples, uh, that were formed there to follow Christ. Clearly it was a lot of good fruit. So that was cool to see, uh, how God has used that ministry or that church here in town. I have a, a similar situation. When I was 17 years old. Yeah, go, go ahead. No, I just said I had a similar experience. Not a big church, but the, but the ministry has started her that church mind boggling. So, uh, both from our, our Christian parents and what that meant to us. I mean, you realize how blessed we are that we've been taught since our early years. We are. I mean, we really have no excuse that we were so incredibly blessed. And, and I always come back that scripture to much has given, uh, much has required. I mean, you and I have been given so much for our earliest days. I mean, uh, right. And, and of course, most people haven't. So we're obliged to them. Aren't we to, to share this precious gift that we've, yeah. And it reminds me of, yeah, totally. It reminds me of Matthew 13, where it says when, you know, the seat of the gospel lands and somebody's life and good soil, then it goes on to just see a huge harvest. So it might be a small ministry, but if the gospel is truly getting into people's lives and they're accepting it and, and cultivating it, the, the work that God can do can literally change history. And so maybe that's an encouragement to someone listening that, uh, you might feel like, well, I'm not, I'm not a part of a big church or a big ministry. I don't live in a big town. Listen, that's the amazing thing about the kingdom of God. And that's the amazing thing about the gospel is that when you plant that in one heart and you cultivate that and it's a good, it's received with a good heart, the scripture says in Matthew 13, it goes on to 30 to 6 to 100. And let's be honest, very really millions of times for, for a lot of us, God just takes these things and multiplies it in ways that we can't imagine. And so the thing is, if you're following Christ, you're a history maker. Like you, you have that DNA inside of you to change not only someone's life, but family generations. And that's what Barry is always telling you on this podcast. So getting back real quick, Barry, to my story, I, uh, when I was 17, I, I sensed a call in the ministry still, but I didn't know exactly what. And I went to a youth conference in my senior year of high school that was happening at what has now become our home church here in the Twin Cities, called the manual. And when I was, uh, at this youth conference, there was a evangelist that came in town from San Francisco. And just powerful few days had, having a great time with friends. And on the second day, he was talking about just a burden for people who are far from God, who don't know Christ. And God just really burdened my heart so much so that as, uh, as a teenager, I began, I began to cry, I began to weep, uh, under the burden of the Lord. And just felt God's, you know, desire for people who are so far from him. God's heart for his children who are lost. And I felt God speaking to my spirit in that moment. Madam, calling you to be an evangelist. And I grew up, you know, again, the small church, but just a good church kid, like was kind of my, my roots. But I knew God was calling to people outside the church, people who are away from God, people who are far from God. And, uh, so that, that was, that was a powerful moment. Uh, there was a lot of things that happened in my life over the coming months in year that just confirmed it in so many ways. People speaking into my life, encouraging me the exact kind of thing that God was saying to me. And I think I've shared the story with you before Barry, but a few months later, uh, into that next spring of my senior year of high school, I got an invitation to, uh, to a mission strip. Oh, yeah. That was going on. I hadn't done a mission strip at this point. All my, I have three brothers. So all my brothers had done mission strips for some reason. They skipped me. They said, Hey, we've raised enough money from all our friends and family, you know, uh, let's just not do this one that you want to do. And then, then all of a sudden, my younger brother was going on a mission strip. I just got missed all together, but I got invited this mission strip to play in the band. So I think my expenses were covered. And it was down in Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana. And I didn't know what I was getting into. I, this was not my world at all. Uh, I was the kid in high school who think people would be, hey, you want to come to a party? No, I don't go to parties. That's, that's not, that's not what, like I do. That's not my, my thing, my family, you know. Uh, and so I was, I was just total, this is totally foreign to me. And if you don't know, Mardi Gras, it's a, it's just a big free for all party, tons of, uh, immorality and, uh, and sexual immorality. And I mean, it's not a place for a young, uh, Christian kid. Uh, and so what was happening in those hundreds of people that were gathered, from a few churches in the Twin Cities, from some other ministries around the country. And they were actually all on the street sharing their faith. And up to this point, bury my experience with sharing my faith was I would invite, actually I did this one year. I think it was my junior year high school. I'd invite, uh, dozens of my friends from high school to come to my youth group. So that was my first step into sharing my faith. I'd invite them to church. They'd hear the gospel at church. And on the way home, my mom would lead them to Christ in the van on the way home, because we had a long drive between where my high school wasn't where my church was. So that was my strategy. I didn't really, you know, I was kind of a shy kid at that time, to be honest with you. And, uh, something happened to me, and I think I've shared the story with you, but something happened to me that first night, I was on Bourbon Street, the worst street of Mardi Gras. I'm supposed to, you know, you're always with kind of paired up with somebody. I'm supposed to protect this girl who's, uh, my partner and sharing our faith and she's supposed to protect, you know, my eyes and all that kind of stuff. So we're on the street and, and I just remember the Holy Spirit just taking over. Either there was no other choice. We're there to share our faith. And God just used me in such a powerful way that night to share Christ with people, to boldly talk to people about Christ. And ever since then, to be honest, you've just never been the same. It's just, it's, it shifted something. And there's something about, you talk about, there's every time on your podcast I know and everything you do, but there's just something about sharing your faith with somebody that ignites in shifts your faith in, in, it's just a completely different experience after that. And it doesn't mean it's not, you know, something you still need to work at, but it's just so incredibly powerful. And so it was interesting because in the fall of that year, God just gave me a burden for people without Christ. I got a burden for my high school. I didn't want anyone to leave my high school, Barry, without hearing the gospel. And then I go on this crazy mission strip and just the, you know, the Lord took over, did an amazing work of my life. And I've just, that's just put me on a life, a trail of just, you know, wanting to share my faith wherever I can with people personally. Of course, you know, I share my faith online every day. And I'm preaching the gospel just boldly to as many people as I can. We have a vision for our ministry to, to share the gospel to do 20 million gospel presentations over the next five years. So we're trying to just through ads through influencers. We're just trying to creatively, clearly boldly share Christ with people. And so we're on track with that this year so far, but we're just excited about that. And so it's online too, right? There's, and we can talk about that later, but what I would just say is that that was just life changing. And so I got a vision during that mission strip that I didn't want anyone to leave my high school throughout here in the gospel. And so God put this vision in my heart to stand in my lunch table and preach the gospel. And again, I want to go back to this for a second. I was a shy kid. So like just through high school, it's just pretty shy. Like I was, you know, awkwardly shy. I had been leading like a Bible study in the school and doing some of that stuff. There was a kind of a revival that was breaking out in our school over those years. That was amazing. But all that led into this passion for sharing Christ and just this heart for people to hear the good news. And so I did end up doing that. I fasted a little bit the final week of school during my lunch hours. I went into the band room and I just would pray, skip the lunch. And you definitely know if a young person is skipping their school lunch, like God is doing something. So pray in. And then the final day before did it, I got some of my Bible study, you know, friends to prayer walk with me prayer walked around the hallway. I walked into the lunch room and I preached the gospel. And then second lunch, I got up and did it again. And I preached the gospel to every single person in my school. Now again, there was a revival happening in our school. But that's still I just knew there's hundreds who still in here the gospel. So I just just saw God do a dramatic transformation in my life when I began to share my faith for the first time. And yeah, I think that's available for every single person. It's not that you have to go stand up at your work, lunch table. It's not that you have to you know, do it a certain way. But God wants to use you and it changes your life. It so does. It's funny. We have so many things in common. One was I was an introvert. Okay. People say, oh, well, if I had your personality, you know, I could I could share my faith too. But you know, I don't recall I do recall a great commission being going to the world all you who have a certain type of personality or you've been trained or you've been it just says go. And note that it doesn't say you didn't say go into the world and be a good person or go into the world and read your Bible or go into your world into the world and pray. No, it's going to go into what I tell everybody about Jesus. So I mean, that is our calling and it is amazing. I have interviewed so many people that share their faith of all types and descriptions and some of them are very quiet, but very powerful. In fact, they can be a few words, but their life so exhibits what they're saying. There's power in their words because their steps actions don't speak louder than words, actions speak before your words. And when you see a godly person, you know it, right? And even if they're talking, so I think one predictor java that he's he's gone down to about 90 pounds and he served the Lord all his life. And he was kind of a farm type. He was eloquent in words. And when he walked in a room, I ran to him. I just I just wanted to be as close to him. I wanted more of what he had, you know, and everybody felt that way. So it is I used to hide behind Karen. When we went to events, I would hide behind Karen. She's never known a stranger. I mean to join her, sending Karen into a room with the whole bunch of people she doesn't know. And so for our business conference stuff, she was my my lead. I would literally she tells you the story. It's hilarious. And how did you get from there to hear it wasn't in business. It was sharing my faith. And I think kind of like for you too, I in sharing my faith, I it was God prompted me. I knew I needed to do it. And and you know, I just started doing it. And of course, after why you get better, better until that that joy thing, you know, when you bear fruit that John 15 11 verse, I so love. When you bear fruit, my joy, I mean, with you and your joy will be full. And when you have joy, you just can't contain it. You just can't. It's going to come out. And that takes the that's this introvert thing down to a lesser level, as you just have that you can't hide joy no matter what you do. So it is similar. That's so good. Background. You know, in some sense, in some sense, God will use your personality, right? It doesn't need you to be someone else. But there's some about the Holy Spirit complementing and coming alongside and shaping your personality even as you step out in obedience and faithfulness to God. I definitely know to say it in my life. And I didn't realize, but it sounds like you had a very similar experience where I feel like the power of God in my life, very, very much impacted who I've become. And where God is taking me. And so it's just very interesting. And as you said, beyond anything you could ever imagine, there's no way you could know that you're going to be speaking to as many people as you're speaking to now. I mean, this ministry that you have, and talk to us about that a little bit. Think eternity is, I think such an incredible name. He's most people are not thinking about eternity. Yeah. Well, it's we can't live our Christian life through the filter of just what we see God doing here, but we need to have an eternal perspective. I had heard about, so there was an author that I loved named Leonard Ravenhill. I know I read all his books. Read many of them multiple times. Oh, did you really? Oh my goodness. So tell, you got to tell us a story about him. Do you know any stories you learned from him real quick? How God leads your life. He knew we're hungry. When he knows you're hungry, he'll bring people into your life. And he brought David Wilkinson into my life. And Dave and Gwen ended up being our best friends for 40 years. And Dave moved from California. He was in California long enough to meet us for just a little more than a year. And he always said, I went to California for New York City to meet Barry and Karen. And then he went to Texas. And he ended up with a ranch out in Lindell, Texas by Tyler Texas. And it's a ministry center. And we were there as often as we possibly had. And I would be sitting there with him and Leonard Ravenhill talking deep theological thoughts and revival fires. And everybody, you know, I mean, you know, and I'm sitting there taking it out of this habit. I pedal car wax. Okay. I'm nothing. And I'm sitting between Leonard Ravenhill and David Wilkinson imparting knowledge in me that was so beyond he was preparing me for what the latter part of my life. But Leonard Ravenhill, oh my goodness, I knew him well. And so when you when you mentioned his name to his book and revival fires, everything, that's that's a huge, yet huge impact on my life. So go ahead. I'm all ears. Oh, well, that's amazing. I knew that you had been on the World Challenge board and, you know, for many decades. And I think teen challenge too. So I knew that there was a connection. But I didn't realize how close you were until you just shared and that to just sit there in the room would just be so unbelievable to hear that them bantering and encouraging each other. And what an amazing thing. I knew that they had ministry headquarters near each other at that, you know, at some point there. And so that's just incredible. And what an honor to hear that story from you. So, you know, let me let me take you to a moment is it's me and my my good friend from high school are then Bible college roommates at a small Christian college in Minneapolis called Norse Central University. And here we are reading the books on prayer, EM Bounds, Power Through Prayer and No Easy Road by Dick Eastman and Revival Prane by Leonard Ravenhill. And that set me on a journey to read all of Leonard Ravenhill's books. So I was very deeply impacted by that. But he he had in some of his stuff just that he would have a placard on his desk that just said eternity. Now, I don't know if if you ever saw that or if this was a certain season of his life, but he had and then he would say God stamp eternity on my eyeballs. So that was like a phrase that he would say in his in his writings. And what that what I think part of that came from Barry was there was there was a there was actually a missions college that he was here at here in Minneapolis before he was ever in Texas called Bethany. And you got Bethany House books out of there now and things like that. And they had a phrase by TA Heger, one of their presidents and pastors that said think and live with eternity's values and view. And so I don't know if that impacted Ravenhill if it was his time in the UK before all that. I don't know, but he had this you know, this call to an eternal perspective. How do we live in the here and now? How do we live in the day-to-day life that we're in now? For me, Barry, that's we have four kids now. So we just had our four, a couple months old, three boys and a girl. So we're in that busy season right of young parents. And I don't have a lot of energy or brain space or capacity for much anymore. We're loving it every second of it, but it's tiring. And so for our listener, you know, wherever you are in that stage of your life, whether you're a grandparent now or maybe you're a young parent like me now or maybe you're a young married and you're you haven't gotten to the kids stage yet. But in that busyness of the day-to-day life, your work, the grind, the family life that's that's incredible. How do you keep eternity in front of your eyes? And for me, that was just all very impactful. And so you know, I was coming up with a name now we're in evangelism ministry. We're sharing the gospel. We we believe that you know, most people are overwhelmed with the cares and pressures of life. And so everything that we're doing is sharing powerful faith content at think eternity to help people find fulfillment in God. We want to lead non-believers to say, Hey, you can find fulfillment in your life, but not in yourself. It's in it's in Jesus. It's in what he's done for you. And we want to lead the Christian back to their fulfillment in God. We want to remind them there's a hope, a joy and a peace that you can have in your life and your Christian life. There's a great fulfillment that God wants you to live with. Don't get bogged down by the world. And so that's everything we're doing, but it's this eternal perspective, right? So sometimes in this life, it doesn't might not look like in a moment that God's answering your prayer. You need an eternal perspective. In this life, you might share your faith and you go, Man, I don't know if that went so well, but time will tell and eternity will tell the God always uses obedience to him. And so in so many areas of our Christian life, we can't just look at the world in front of us and what's happening right now. We need an eternal perspective. So it was really deeply impacted by that by Leonard. And again, we're evangelist ministry, but I just that man, think eternity. Like for some reason that it all came from that. I thought that let's pick that name. So we've been doing ministry now for 20 years, yet preaching the gospel, sharing writing books, sharing great content in a lot of different platforms and avenues and and doing podcasts now as well. Think eternity with Matt Brown. So it's just been a privilege and everything we're doing, we're just sharing the gospel, you know, and helping people find fulfillment in God. So how many people are following you on your podcasts these days? Yes, so that's been growing. And on social media together, we've had, you know, a couple of million people now that follow our channels. And the podcast has been, I know over 100,000 people have listened out of the podcast. And I've got other great avenues. Barry, there's a, there's an app that I've been able to share on recently with some kind of gospel presentations and scriptural content called Pray.com. And they've been letting me, they've been sharing my videos all the time. And I'll pop in on the app. And there's 7,000 people watching, or I'll pop in on the app. And there's 20,000 people. And sometimes I've popped in on the app. And there's 70,000 people watching. I'm like, there I am. I'm sharing the gospel right now with 70,000 people while I'm at home working. I'm at home with my family. So that's one of just so many avenues that God has allowed has allowed me to be able to share the gospel. But we're just, you know, to me, it's not just more people or more number. It's just, I don't have come to this point in ministry. Now I might look young, but I've been doing this for a while. I've come to this point in ministry. It's I just want to be faithful. I just want to impact one more person for Christ. And I'm praying that my prayer now is shifted to. Lord, as I, as I tweet, as I post, as I do this video, let the power of your spirit be in it. You know, let, let a greater anointing be on it. And so I've just been praying that God will just continue to use it and touch people's lives. Yeah. It's interesting. When you have that perspective, even the simplest of texts, you can move people closer to Jesus. You could add an extra thought that moves them closer, that puts a bounce in their step to get some more confidence, you know, in your emails every, every piece of communication, everything we do, everything we do and say is moving people closer further away from God. We can't get away from that fact. When we're Christians, if you know we're Christians, from the smallest, little insignificant kindness or rudeness, if that's a Christian, I don't want to be a Christian, or wow, I want to be, we should be representing Christ. We are representing Christ, where it's ambassadors, right? And so it takes it to comprehensively. So everything is about eternity. Everything we're doing is about eternity. And, and isn't amazing to you how few people, even Christians, are thinking about eternity today. Yeah. It's not something that's talked about a lot. And it shifts our priorities, right? If we focus on it and it's, you know, it's great to have a vision for your work, for your family, for the next 10 years, for your finances, for the next 10 years. But what about a spiritual kingdom vision for eternity, right? So it helps you think longer and bigger, and that God might use your life in amazing way. And the point here is, as a listener, I know that Barry's vision and goal for you is that you get in the game, that you get on the field, and that you're useful for God's kingdom. And so, hey, it's great to talk about what Matt Brown's doing. It's great to talk about what Barry's doing, but we're praying that God will use you in a great way. And the this conversation evil will further you just a few steps down the field to say, Hey, I'm going to be bold. And I'm going to speak into one of my relatives' lives. I'm going to be bold. And I'm going to speak to, you know, to somebody to day about Jesus. And it's not just one or the other of us, you know, it's about all of us being engaged and being committed to this great commission. Yeah. Yeah. So again, playing back this eternity thing, it's I just saw a statistic that I don't even know what evangelicals that term means anymore. I mean, happy evangelicals don't even have a biblical worldview anymore. And it's somewhere around happy evangelicals, even question if there is a hell. You know, God's give us the like the ultimate rewards and punishments to you don't want to go there. It's like if you're fair, you say, if you do that, I'm going to grant you for a month, you know. And if you do good, he's giving us the oldies, give us hell, but we've stopped talking about hell. And so we've taken half the God's bull way. There's no fear of hell. And then there's if there's no hell that heaven is not all that important. And it's more and more just focusing here. We're not thinking about eternity. So your message of thinking eternity, I think is is huge. It's just huge today. It really is. Right. It's the it's it's our why, right? Why we're sharing our faith all the time. It's God's heart, but it's also eternity. And you know, Jesus spoke about hell actually more than anybody else in the scripture. He didn't do it because he delighted and he did it because, you know, kind of like Spurgeon said, he said, if people are going to go into hell, at least they have to leap over my body. And so it's this desire that we would warn people in a scriptural way. And you know, Jesus didn't give his life on the cross because there was another way or because there wasn't danger ahead if we don't turn to God. And so it's so important that Christians obviously get this this eternal worldview. And it will it will change a lot of our priorities, but it will also help us to be motivated for the kingdom and every day and the things that we're doing. And Barry, I think you know this, but I wrote a book called Truth Plus Love. And in that I kind of talk about how I learned over the years of ministry that is not just my intensity, right? And my passion, but it's about growing more in the fruit of the spirit. And there's something about the fruit of the spirit and you kind of talked about this in the beginning. When we grow in our love and God does this in us and our joy and our peace, people are drawn to us and we can give them the truth. Yes. So something about truth and love and how they go together. And so often Christians leave lean to one side and so often all of us really lean to one side or the other, right? And so a lot of times when we're sharing even our faith or we're sharing biblical truth online with friends or we're speaking, you know, our thoughts into what's going on in the world. We've got to be careful on how we're coming across that it's a good balance, right? A biblical balance of both truth and love. We never should stop speaking the truth, but people should also see our love that it's coming from this heart and this desire. And it kind of goes back to when I was 17 when God put a burden, all of it came from that place of a burden. I sense God's burden. It's easy to look at the world and be bothered, but I think God wants us to look at the world and be burdened. He wants us to give us his heart for people, you know, even for political leaders, we don't like even for people who are wicked. And he wants to help us to see that, you know, people need to turn to him. Now, it doesn't mean we give anyone a free pass, right? Or that we we don't speak into what's going on. I think how do you find that balance? I'm not exactly the one to tell you. I think it's always a thing we're working on. But God wants to make us people of both truth and love. Yeah. Boy, I hope you're all listening to Matt real clearly here. You know, the fruit's spirit of always been as important. But in the darkness of this world, they really make us stand out. They are making our light a lot. The light in a dark world, the match in a dark room is a lot brighter. And we have to stop thinking of people as like counting scalps. I need to get them saved and go over. We just need to love them on them. He said, they'll, they'll know you're by just having a by your love, not by your presentation, your recitation and your four points and your life story. But by reading the fruits of the spirit, isn't it? And she everything all came to Jesus. Everybody came to Jesus. We have this stern image of Jesus. And, and right from the soul, he's, he's awesome. God. But there's also you just know he was engaging. Everybody ran to him. If we should not be putting people off, we should be the fruits of the spirit. I think what you're saying is, is so important because when we do that, then people realize it's by the Holy Spirit that our love is real. And in an amazing, how fast they'll open up and tell you things that they probably wouldn't even tell their closest friends. And you, you find out where their needs are. And then God gives you the, the Holy Spirit gives you the, the, the right words to say. And those moments, I mean, talk about those a little bit. I know you have all kinds of experience in yourself on spontaneous moments. And you weren't even expecting it. All of a sudden, there it is. And what that does for you. Yeah, no, it's been life changing. And I've had the opportunity personally to share my faith with thousands of people now. It's something that I always need to keep on the forefront, even in this season and stage of a family. And then also having the opportunity online to do it every day. And for me, on Lineberry, the simple way that looks is, I might share a thought that, a scripture or a thought that God puts in my heart throughout the day. And then when, when it's fitting, I'll point people to like a gospel presentation in the comments or in the post. And it's, it's kind of a simple way. Now, you might not have a video of you sharing the gospel to our listener, but maybe you can grab something from berries where he's sharing the gospel. And so that's one way to do it, messaging people personally and talking about their faith. I mean, just yeah, just every single time I've done it, it's just been absolutely, you know, life changing. And going back to what we were saying, too, I've never met an encourager who doesn't have any friends. Like, if you think about that, like, if you think of someone with a whole lot of love and a whole lot of joy and a whole lot of peace and a whole lot of kindness, we are drawn to people like that. And so how, when we incorporate this in our witness scene, and there's so many ways you can do it. I was just, uh, just with Mark Middleberg and who's Lee Strobel's best friend. And he was talking about how he's led a whole bunch of his neighbors to the Lord in this little community. And one of the simple ways, he does it is he gives them a book. So a lot of times, he'll start by giving them a book. And then they'll, they'll start to talk about it. And then he'll cheer a clear gospel presentation with them. So we need, we need to go on and on. But just talk about the personal impact on your life. When you're sharing your faith with somebody, and you know, God's using you, what is, what's the payoff for you? What does that do? People don't only think about that. You know, they think, I gotta share my faith. I need to do this. And it's hard. I might get persecuted. And I, you know, I gotta get it all right. And the focus all over there, they don't realize that God's real purpose is asked because when, when we do that, we come so much closer to him, our own relationship with God explodes. And so you know that so well. Put that in your words. How, you, you grow personally from, from your ministry to others. Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's what it's been. And whether I was doing this as a minister or not, it completely transformed my life, sharing my faith with people every time I do it, it gives me such a joy like you've talked about, but also just a sense of purpose. And, and so it's just, it's really truly the most incredible experience and feeling. And I think that every single one of us needs to, you know, it should step into that and needs to be doing it. And so I haven't had very many experiences where like anyone got upset with me or angry at me when I was sharing Christ with them. It's, it's most of the time it's just that people are grateful, right? They're they're kind about it. And, and in the times when it's like led to someone coming to faith in Christ, it's just, I mean, you just can't beat that. Like you're, you're literally seeing an absolute transformation in someone's life. And that's something that isn't inheritance almost for all of us, right? And so, and we have a generation in the past of David Wilkerson and Leonard Ravenhill. But God's calling new people to step up and say, Hey, I want to be, I want to be wholly surrendered to God. And I want to be wholly available for him to use. And I pray for you, our listener, that that's you that you'll step into the mighty works of God for you. It starts at home with your family. And then it starts when you have opportunities to share Christ with someone. And as you walk in truth and love with eyes for eternity, there's no telling how God will use your life. It's not about anyone else. This generation is so focused on comparison. It's just about you being powerfully used by God. It's the most incredible life you can live. It, it, it, it so is. And when we do that, that Romans 8, 28 scriptures, so well known, but not really understood. I mean, you said, God, it's going to work all together for good, but it's not working all together for me. You know, what do I miss? Well, you miss the full, the full verse at the end. It says, if all things are worked together for good, if you do two things, you love me. And secondly, that you live for my purpose. And his purpose is to seek and save the lost. So when we folks, when you move into this area of focus that Matt and I share, we're living for his purpose. And then he's directly our steps and the joy and the peace and in the midst, it doesn't matter what's going on. And when we have that joint piece, people want to have what we have when they come to us. And the fruits and spirits are there, the spirit of the spirit is there. And then people see that and they run to us. I mean, people literally run to us. We're not pushing people. I never offended anybody. You'll get people mad at you when you tell them God loves them. I don't care who they are. They may not believe them. They may feel like they've done so much bad that God can't possibly, or they may say, I don't believe in God. And just love and say, well, he still loves you. He don't have to believe it. And for God to love you, have fun with it. You're just, you represent the King of kings and the Lord of Lord and the greatest story ever. And we get the opportunity to share that. You and I and you do it to a whole lot more people than I do it. I just I thank you for coming on the podcast with me. I want to thank you personally and for everybody. Thank you for what you're doing. The impact you're having. Your heart is solid. You're you're living what I call the fog. You're living in the favor of God. He's blessing everything you're doing in that. And it just keeps getting better and better. And I watch you. Oh my goodness. And I know this guy. He's my friend. So it's it's great to hang out with him for a few minutes. The world very. Thank you. You as well. God bless you. All right. All right. We'll do this again. Okay. All right. Plus you see it. Bye. Bye.