Full Transcript for AI Centers Concerns with Dr. Drew Dickens & How the Gospel is transforming Iran with Dr. Hormoz Shariat

schedules and our emails And I'm really starting to infiltrate kind of our day to day use of AI. 00:05:59 S5: Do you use. 00:06:00 S6: That? And that is exploding. You know what? I I've signed up for them all. I'm still on the waiting list for duet. Uh, I, I play with them all muse on Facebook is, I think, one of the more powerful ones right now. Um, and I'm kind of having fun with it, which is, I think, the intent of it. I don't see them as individually really influencing my day to day life yet. Um, but I'm having fun with it, just kind of thinking of new things that it might be able to help me with. But, uh, yeah, they're out there. They're out there. 00:06:29 S2: Yeah. I saw a commercial yesterday, um, for muse and it's this guy. He's out on a run. He's running through kind of a rugged terrain and, and all of a sudden he starts interacting with muse. And. And so then muse goes ahead and books him for or reserves his spot in some marathon. And then he says, muse, uh, you know, he keeps running and he's getting tired and he says, muse, book me a massage for tomorrow, for Monday morning. And, and it's and it's, you know, kind of got. 00:06:58 S7: This crazy feel good, sort of uplifting. 00:07:00 S2: Music of how muse is working with him to kind of help him live his best life. So the I thought, you know, it was a pretty well done commercial, but I thought, what, what does that really mean? So, so muse is acting on his behalf to, to kind of do the things that help him take his next step. Is that what the idea is. 00:07:21 S6: At 100%, the number one use case for it, oddly enough, right now still continues to be, um, it looking through financial, uh, history and finding, uh, subscriptions that you forgot about. So you know, that HBO Max subscription that you signed up for just once and forgot to, uh, to, to cancel. It'll find those things for you. I've got a friend of mine who's an avid runner, runs an hour or so every morning and spends the entire time, uh, with a private, uh, chat bot. It's in that case, it's duet, which is Claude spends an entire hour just talking to it as he's running. And so during that conversation, it's checking email. What am I going to miss today? What's my schedule look like? So it's his personal assistant 100%, and spends an entire hour of that kind of that running time just talking to it. 00:08:13 S5: You know, I'm big on leveraging AI for good stuff. I am really hesitant on going here. I don't know if I want AI knowing all my emails, all my subscriptions. But there's almost no way to stop this train, is there? I mean, it's going. I mean, now I call customer service stuff. I'm talking to bots all the time. 00:08:33 S6: Yep, yep. It's ubiquitous. There was an article in The Wall Street Journal last year, two years ago, that said in 2025, AI will become invisible. And what it meant by that is it's just going to become ubiquitous. It's going to appear in everything we do and that that that has occurred. And so the ship has

sailed as far as not using it, but man, it can get scary, uh, when it starts to, uh, you know, uh, make or operate on, on, on our behalf, not even make suggestions, but I, I did this, I did that, I was, uh, last night, uh, coding on something and it said, you, you didn't ask this, but I saw this and did this for you. It's like, wow, okay, thank you, but didn't ask you to do that. Maybe. 00:09:18 S5: Yeah. 00:09:18 S6: It's I didn't ask you to. 00:09:21 S5: Speaking of scary, uh, you and I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago and I said, you know what, man? What could we do around the issue of fear? Mhm. And I mean, we have events all the time. It no matter who you are coming off of midterms and situations in life, there's, there's there's endless supply to get freaked out. Right? I mean, I got a bug and so guess what? I'm going on AI to determine what kind of bug this is. And then Ali freaks me out a little bit more. So then I dig a little bit deeper because Ali's want to do that. She's cringing. 00:09:58 S7: What did I do? 00:09:59 S5: She's saying, I don't think you just have a cold. I think it's something more. And then I find out she might be right. So it's it's an interesting thing. All right. Tell us this tool that you came up with, bro. I'm fired up. 00:10:12 S6: Well, the latest obsession on the internet this past week has been this, uh, really an obsession over the the pending apocalypse. I don't know where it got started. There's been a big article. Axios had an article last week about this. Uh, somehow it bubbled up. Uh, my Instagram is full of, uh, prepper videos now. 00:10:32 S5: It's everywhere because. 00:10:33 S6: Of the. 00:10:34 S5: Advisories drew in Europe and all that stuff. 00:10:37 S6: Yeah, I know it, I know it, and it's just fueling these viral predictions and that and the elections on top of that, you and I were talking about this. I said, man, what? What if we could leverage the power of AI to help us come up with a spiritual tool to address fear. And so I did that, launched it this morning, launched it at what, an hour and a half ago. And it's already the number four tool out there. Um, and, uh, so what it does is it asks you for questions, kind of a guided, uh, simple little faith tool. Um, as you, you know, what are you afraid of? It gives you a bunch of different options on that. Or you can fill in your own. And then where does fear show up inside of you? Um, uh, Doomscrolling is probably the most popular. Uh, and, uh, so where does it show up inside of you? And then what helps you settle? Gives you a bunch of options on that as far as walking outside, praying, spending time in the word, those kind of things. And then then who could you tell about that fear? It has you list a couple of people there and then it comes up with a plan for you. Uh, you can print it off as a PDF. Um, it gives you prayers to read, gives you scriptures to go to that are very specific and tailored to the fear that you're struggling with

right now. Super excited about the tool and thank you for the inspiration behind it. 00:11:57 S2: So how can this help somebody? You mentioned the PDFI mean, and there are people who, let's be honest, the thought of entering this kind of information is in itself a little makes them a little afraid. What do you say? 00:12:12 S6: Well, you know what? You're you're spot on to bring that up. It's very clear in the in the tool all through it, it says this information just resides on your phone. It doesn't sit anywhere else. So nobody sees it other than just you and your phone. Um, which in and of itself may be scary. Um, but no, this, this doesn't live anywhere other than, uh, just the moment that you type it in and it comes up with a plan, then it disappears. So nothing to be afraid of there. Thank you for asking that. Um, but just just something to help you, um, put some of the fears in, in words and in writing. Uh, just that act alone can help alleviate a lot of our concerns. Um, but just a simple little four step guide to, um, it's a free tool. Uh, just a little four step question to guide you through how to articulate some of this fear and give you a spiritual plan on having the spirit work through that to alleviate, you know, 400 times in Scripture, it says for us to fear not. Yeah. It's one of the most common commands all through the Old and New Testament. Um, so we're not to be a people of fear. And a tool like this can help you navigate through some of that. 00:13:22 S5: It's pretty cool. All right, Ali, we got a key word to get people on to this one. Another great tool from Doctor Drew Dickens here. 00:13:28 S7: Indeed. 00:13:28 S2: Just text drew to 805 557898. Drew to 805 five, 578, 98. 00:13:37 S5: Yeah. And you're going to find it right there. You've got a catalog with other tools that are there, right, drew? 00:13:43 S6: Yeah. And the second one I've got up there is found in him, which is a new tool based upon your book, Unstoppable Gospel. Really excited about that. I encourage everybody, if they have someone pressing on their heart that doesn't know the Lord. Um, it's a great tool to, to, to offer their first name and have other people pray for their salvation. Um, it's exploding right now is one of the tools on the really on that, on that menu. So yeah, it's so great to see names scrolling by. Um, and having other people pray. I listed one of my dear friends, uh, up there and it's great to, to see her name scroll by and, and then it gives you an update on how many other people are praying for her. It's a great tool. Thank you again for that inspiration. But that's up there as well. People can see that. 00:14:29 S5: Wow, Allie, we got a resource here today. 00:14:32 S2: Don't we didn't know about that one text drew to 805 557898, drew to 805 5578, 98. 00:14:41 S5: Oh, what a wild world we live in, guys. Fear not reason. We hear that is because God's got answers for it. We got a tool. Techs drew to our number. 00:14:51 S1: He's a sports fanatic with a stat for anything you can think of. Young Thunder is in the crew. It's curl and crew on Moody radio. 00:15:01 S5: I think it's John Piper who coined the phrase. Risk is faith and faith is risk. You know, it's an interesting thing. We talk about walking by faith. And yet I think most of us would love to have a pretty clearly mapped out few steps that we're going to go walk before we take this journey into faith. 00:15:21 S2: Not have to actually take a step of faith. 00:15:26 S7: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can. 00:15:27 S5: Relate. I think there's some truth in that. And then then there's others brothers and sisters around this globe that are forced into walking by faith. Their life is one of risk constantly. And those in particular. Today, we want to focus on our brothers and sisters in Iran with this doctor, Shariat. Let's give the full ID. What's this young man up to anyway? 00:15:50 S2: Doctor chariot is the founder and president of Iran Alive Ministries. They use satellite broadcasting and the internet to reach Iranians with the gospel. 00:15:59 S5: Yeah. So good to have you with us, Hormoz. Our heart aches. You know, I was cogitating on this recently. If you look at the battle of Gog and Magog, you can see that obviously there's no displaced mullahs. When that war happens, we see them aligned with Turkey. And Turkey used to be more of an ally, and now they're at odds with Israel, to say the least. It's wild hormoz, because we would love for the Iranian people to come out from under the regime of the mullahs. But wherever we are in history, when the end is drawing near and we believe it's drawing near, there's a lot of reasons for that, but we don't presume upon God. History can repeat itself. But there almost has to be this hatred in Iran with the leadership of Israel. And so the question is, have you wrestled with that theologically? 00:16:53 S8: Well, God is beyond our theology. He's doing something that wiping out the Islamic theology and everything else. What's happening in Iran is supernatural. It's the Spirit of God, for example, changing the hearts of the most of Iranians towards Israel and the US. They have a very positive view of US and Israel. You know, I was in Israel a few weeks back and before, you know, we hide it. Oh, no, I didn't go to Israel. Don't call me a Zionist. Now I'm not I'm not a spy of Mossad. No. But you know what I did this time I used it. I came on, on on our satellite channel. I said, hey, guys, I've been to Israel as an ambassador of peace between the people of Israel and people of Iran. You know, our audience, they clapped. They were happy. They were happy. So there is a change of heart among the people of Iran towards us and Israel. And it's a major way. You talk about coming out from under the Islamic regime, the government. But I want to tell you it's deeper than that. They have come out of the slavery of Islam. Islam. They are free from Islam. They're free spiritually now. They're seeking

freedom politically. So major things are happening both physical, political and spiritual. And by the way, biblical. They're biblical prophecies being fulfilled. 00:18:15 S2: Doctor chariot with us right now, give us a little bit of your own story. You are an Iranian Muslim convert now. For over 40 years, you've been reaching Muslim background believers. Go ahead and tell us a little bit of your own testimony. 00:18:29 S8: Yeah, I was born in Iran. I was pretty devout Muslim, early years, but then I focused on studies. I said, I'm going to go to United States. I'm going to get a PhD in science and be a research scientist. I don't care about religion. But when I came to us, it was the beginning of the revolution. And I said, hey, hey, there is God. There's Allah and you need to serve Allah. So I said to serve Allah. As a researcher, I need to know what I commit my life to. So I read the Quran very carefully. Even though I knew a lot about it. But this time as a researcher, I read it. Nothing added to my life. Where is God? How does it relate to my life? So thinking that I'm open minded person, I said, I'm going to read the Bible. I don't think I'm going to find anything new. So I read the Bible, compared it to Quran, and I realized there day and night. You know what? Before that, I had this intellectual idea that many intellectuals even believe today. What is it? All religions are the same. Hey! Be tolerant. We are all the same. God. And it's just that. Why do you fight? Basically, you are the same. That's what I thought before I started. But the more I compared the Bible with Quran, I realized there are two different gods there. The characteristics of God in Quran is different than the Bible. To sum it up, the characteristics of Allah. According to Quran, is the same as the characteristics of Satan in the Bible as Jesus described it. He said, Satan is the father of lies lying mandated in Islam. He comes to kill, steal and destroy. That's what is mandated in Quran. That's what the Prophet Muhammad did. And that's what those who are serious about following Islam, like Islamic Republic, they're following. So I came to Christ by comparing the Bible and and Quran. I realized Allah is not Jehovah. 00:20:22 S5: That's beautiful. Doctor Herman Sherry at our guest. So we have a lot of Christians in name only. How many are Islamic in name only in Iran. What percentage would you guess? 00:20:34 S8: I would say over 80, 80%, 85%. Because you're automatically a Muslim. It's not a choice. You're born in Iran, you're automatically Muslim. And if you come out of Islam, any reason you're infidel. So everybody born in Iran and their ID card. Muslim, Muslim, Muslim. So most of Iranians have rejected Islam. So there you can call them nominal Muslims. They are Muslims, but they don't believe in Islam. There was a survey done by two university professors in Sweden. They asked 50,000 Iranians, what do you believe? That's pretty solid research. 00:21:08 S5: Yeah. 00:21:09 S8: And less than one third said, we believe in Islam. Less than one third Islam is dead in Iran. Islam is finished in Iran. Iran will never be an Islamic nation again. Islam is God. 00:21:21 S5: Why? Why is it dead? 00:21:22 S8: People don't believe in Islam. Actually, there is a movement in the last few years, you know, in the past, people were coming to Christ through us and they were saying, hey, Islam is not for me and I respect Islam. I just want Jesus. But the last few years there is a movement, I call it militancy against see. What I'm saying is the young people in Iran are saying this. If we want to have a future for our country, we need to get rid of Islam. It's not just tolerate. We need to wipe Islam off. If the government changes, unfortunately, you will see many of these mullahs being executed on the streets by common people. 00:22:03 S7: So let's talk a little. 00:22:04 S2: Bit about Iran, our Lives channel. It's the most watched Christian channel in Iran with over 7 million daily viewers. What's your approach to speaking to people? You said many of them they reject Islam. Maybe in Muslim in name only. Are they rejecting religion? Are they skeptical of anything that sounds religious? 00:22:25 S8: Yes. That's a that's a growing number of Iranians say if the best religion, Islam is like this and I don't want Islam. So forget about Christianity, forget about God altogether. So there is a tendency towards secular ideas and atheist ideas. People are moving in that direction. Now what do we do? Our channel. We never bash people. We call our channel, you know, telling the truth with love. So that's how we brought so many people to Christ over the years. We have the names of over over 130,000 that have contacted us and prayed to receive Christ with us. But then we realized the last 2 or 3 years that there is a trend. People are rejecting God altogether. So we have a new approach for the younger generation as how to talk to them. What we realized we did a survey two years ago ourselves, and we realized the younger people, if you talk to them, they say, there's no God. I'm not interested. I'm not saying any religion. I'm an atheist. But when you talk to them, which we did in survey, we realized they have rejected God because they're hurt by Islam. Deep inside, they are seeking a true God, an experience with God. So we are we have changed our approach of how to share the gospel with younger generation. And good news, good news. Since the beginning of 2026, we see a big jump in the number of young Iranians coming to Christ. 00:23:52 S5: That's beautiful. Doctor Moshiri, our guest right now. And we're going to have a link for you in just a moment to learn more. And even prayer points how to be praying. But her most. Matthew 516 Jesus said, let your light so shine before men, that they will see your good deeds and give glory to our father who is in heaven. How do you let your light shine in Iran? But it must be. I asked that question,

but it must be because it's the fastest growing church in the world per capita. How do you do that, Hormoz? Well. 00:24:26 S8: Yeah, the truth. The gospel is broadcast. But unless people are not transformed, they don't become sources of light. They are. They are people who come to Christ in Iran. They are transformed. They're transformed in such a major way that they do not need to even speak up. People around them, family members, they look at them. What happened to you? Tell us you're different. You used to be angry. You used to be depressed, suicidal. Now you're not. You are a drug addict. And we spent so much money, put you into rehab, and you were not successful. Now, overnight, you're saying Jesus appeared to you and now you're free from drugs. 00:25:05 S5: Love that. 00:25:06 S8: So this. This is the light inside of the people. You cannot hide it even if they don't. Iranian Christians don't speak their action, their voice, their their words shine for them. I've heard many stories of people, Christians walking in a shopping mall, walking in a drugstore, and multiple times they say, people come to me in the crowd and say, you are a Christian, aren't you? So how do you know? He said, your eyes are shining, your face is shining. Wow, it's full of light. You are a Christian. It's a major transformation. Thinking about persecuted Christians in Iran. Don't think of these people weak. Of course they're in trouble. Some of them are being killed. We have 14 of our our people in jail right now. Several of them are on death row. But, you know, I get reports from our people in death row. I get reports that they are not afraid to die. They're sharing their faith with many and have led many people on death row to Christ because they come to say, say you're so joyful, you're so calm. At any moment they could execute you. Why? Why aren't you afraid like us? And they are shining in the darkest place, like a prison on death row. So persecuted Christians in Iran, full of the spirit, full of the light. Even if they die, many of them say I die. Go with Jesus. I'm not afraid to die. 00:26:28 S5: I want to ask you one last question. We're committed to making disciples. We really talk about that a lot here on our morning show. Disciple making has become a lost art in the West. What is the one thing the American church, the Western Church can learn from our brothers and sisters in Iran? So if we were to have a conference and they were to come and speak to us, what would you hope we would hear from them? 00:26:56 S8: In America, salvation is just. Did you pray this prayer of salvation? Okay. Now you're a Christian, okay? But in Iran, they know they have to pay a price if they say a Christian. So that prayer of salvation is very serious. It's not like, okay, yeah, I believe in Jesus. I need his grace. They know if they say they're Christian, they have to pay a price. So the entry point is different. Here is easy. And sometimes even people not really born again Christian and they say they go to churches. Can I say our churches sometimes are people there who are not saved because they are not disciples of Christ, and they just like the environment that they're used to. But in Iran, if you say a Christian, you have to pay. Pay with your life. Maybe. So they're more serious about their faith. And they really they they they know they have to let me put it this way in Iran. They know they have to pay a price, maybe the highest price, which is death for their belief in America. You don't. So I appreciate disciples in America. I will say that those in America. Hey, you're listening to me. I want to encourage you. Those who live in America and you're serious about Jesus. I admire you because you have a choice. You can just you don't have to read your Bible. You don't have to go to church. You don't have to follow Christ. You have a comfortable life. But when you decide in America to be a disciple, true disciple of Christ, what does it mean? The true disciple love Jesus more than anything else. Deny yourself. Yes, carry your cross and follow Jesus. If you're making that decision in America. I admire you. You're doing a great job. 00:28:42 S5: Hermosa, you don't even know how spot on your testimony is to what we talk about here. The church in America is filled with lost people every weekend at good Bible preaching churches. Loaded. Thank you, my friend. 00:28:57 S2: If you want more on this ministry, Iran Alive Ministries, just text alive to 805 557898. Just text alive 805 557898. 00:29:11 S1: Walking closer to Jesus every day. You're listening to Carl and crew. 00:29:16 S5: Uh, you guys have been sat down by someone and said, hey, make yourself comfortable. We, we need to have a, we need to have a tough conversation here. Um. 00:29:26 S9: I'm trying to think. 00:29:27 S5: First time I had it happen was Mister um. Oh, Mr. Hayes, Mr. Hayes, principal of my elementary school and, uh, I'd been kind of leading some shenanigans out on recess. And my teacher told me, and it's a long walk. I'm convinced it's psychological warfare. 00:29:49 S10: Oh, yeah. Well, it is. 00:29:50 S5: But it's. 00:29:51 S10: Uh. It's the purpose. 00:29:52 S5: Hey, Carl. Uh, principal Hayes. Mr. Hayes, he, uh, he left word that he needs to see you. I said, oh, well, when. And she said that would be right now. Carl. 00:30:04 S10: Yeah. 00:30:04 S2: Did you know? Did you have a pretty good idea? 00:30:06 S5: Yeah, I was a good kid, but we had. 00:30:09 S7: What kind. 00:30:09 S2: Of shenanigans were you doing at. 00:30:10 S7: Recess? 00:30:11 S5: No, no. Here we go. Well, they had done some construction on the recess grounds, and there were surveys that had to be done. Anyway, I'm off on the, uh. This is almost embarrassing to say I was a better kid than this, and I just had, you know how kids do things, and it's just like a harebrained thing flips. And it's like, why did you think that was okay? 00:30:34 S3: And they. And they don't have an

answer for it. 00:30:36 S5: Yeah. So I didn't have an answer for Mr. Hayes, actually. But here's what happened. I and a couple of guys found like a six pack of bright orange fluorescent surveyor spray spray paint. Yeah. And we didn't know what it was because all the labels were worked off of it. And we thought, let's just charge the playground and go tease the girls and we'll spray them down with fluorescent spray paint. Yeah. 00:31:05 S2: The kind they mark roads with. 00:31:07 S5: Yes. And I didn't tag a lot of them. It dawned on me right away. A friend of mine, Ditan, he went crazy. Um, but I, I got a couple of, uh, pieces of apparel on a couple of girls that I probably had a crush on, because that's what boys do. They harass girls they have a crush on. And, um, and I knew this is not going to go well the minute I did it. 00:31:34 S3: Yeah. You can usually. 00:31:35 S10: Tell. 00:31:36 S5: Well, the minute you do it, you're like, what are you thinking? Yes. What what's what's going on in my home? My mind flashed to Mom and Dad at home, and they did, in fact, hear. 00:31:45 S3: All the consequences start to run through your brain. 00:31:48 S5: So when the teacher said, hey, uh, uh, the principal wants to see you. Yeah. Mr. Hayes wants to see you. And I'm like, oh, no. And this guy was notorious. He had one of these paddles that had holes drilled in it so that there was no friction with the air, so the air could pass through and get a full wallop on you. But what was worse is he sat me down and he said, Carl, your dad's a principal of another school down the road. What do you think he'd say about what you just did? 00:32:19 S7: Which was which was. 00:32:21 S5: Worse. 00:32:21 S7: Yet? 00:32:22 S2: Yeah. 00:32:23 S5: And so it was it was tough. It was tough. He was actually pretty gracious with me. I, I'm trying to recollect I did get a paddle one time from him And that was all she wrote. Man, I didn't want to end up in there again. 00:32:37 S3: You learned? Yeah, learned pretty quick. I don't want that experience twice. 00:32:41 S5: But but I, um, it was, it was worse than that. It was one of those. Carl, you know, better than this, man. 00:32:47 S3: Disappointment is worse than. 00:32:48 S5: Yeah. It's worse. It's like. 00:32:50 S7: Give me more out of you. 00:32:51 S3: Yeah, absolutely. 00:32:52 S5: More out of you. 00:32:53 S3: I got, uh, I as you were talking, I remembered mine. Mine is prank, uh, you know, or or shenanigans. Yeah. Shenanigan based as well. But mine. I was in college, so I was an adult. Uh. 00:33:06 S5: Moody, no less. 00:33:07 S3: At Moody, no less. Uh, and I. 00:33:09 S5: Won't. 00:33:10 S3: I'm not gonna share what the prank was. I just, you know, I, I got into it was a bad prank. It was. I created some property damage was included. Minor, minor property damage. I even paid for it myself. We got it all cleaned up, all figured out. And, uh, and I remember me and my buddies, uh, you know, did this prank, and the next day you are a is on. All the floors are running around like with their chicken like chickens with their heads cut off, you know, trying to figure out who did this. And I was talking to my girlfriend who's now my wife, uh, about this on FaceTime because she went to a different school. And I said, I said, yeah, we did this thing last night. And I was like, if I ever get caught for this, I think I'm gonna get in a lot of trouble. And I got a knock on my door while I was on this FaceTime conversation. Yeah. There you go. There it is. You can feel it now. And I said, come in. And it was my RA. And he said, Jonathan, can I talk with you for a minute? Oh, no. And I looked at I looked at my now wife. And I was like, here it is. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. So I went and had a conversation with him and yes, I was caught. No, I didn't get kicked out of Moody. Everything was fine, but I thought I, I thought I was gonna be in big, big trouble. And I was in big, big trouble. So. 00:34:25 S5: So you paid the bill. 00:34:26 S3: Till I paid the bill. 00:34:27 S5: Okay. We're telling stories that Ali could never relate to. 00:34:31 S2: Ali. 00:34:31 S3: What shenanigans did you get in trouble for? 00:34:34 S5: Oh, she popped a bubble with her bubble gum one time. 00:34:37 S2: No, I mean, I didn't really get in a lot of trouble. We know, I know, I'm just just speaking very objectively, I just didn't I really, really the thought, the thought of getting in trouble so terrified me that it. I mean, so it wasn't like some moral high ground of like, I was virtuous in every way. I just was really, really afraid of, of ever being in trouble. I remember in elementary school, actually accidentally, the teacher thought that I had done something that someone else actually did. So there was this card system. I don't know if you had this in elementary school. Everybody started out the day with a green card, and then if you did something throughout the day, you would have to go turn your card and it would go to yellow. That was kind of your on the warning. And then if you really, you know, messed up, then you'd get to red and then you had a problem. Well, never in the history of like me in elementary school, did my card ever be on anything other than green? But this one day, somehow I got accused of something and she was like, Alexandra, I need you to go turn your card. And when I tell you, all it was going was from green to yellow. I like walked. It was like the walk of shame, the tears. I couldn't hold back the tears. They started to flow. I felt like this great injustice. Like, no, it wasn't me. 00:36:00 S3: I like that the time that she had to turn her card, it wasn't even her. So she didn't even get in trouble. 00:36:05 S2: But I couldn't like prove my case quick enough. And so literally, like, I could feel my face hot with the tears as they started to flow of like, my life is over. 00:36:16 S3: I'm never gonna get into college. 00:36:18 S2: My perfect streak has been

broken. I'm sure by the end of the day, it was back to green because it was like, no, of course we understand you. You never could have done such a thing. But you guys go ahead and enjoy your shenanigans. 00:36:31 S5: No, I didn't, I didn't. I was, I was rightly. 00:36:35 S3: Say we both of us were pretty embarrassed by it. 00:36:37 S5: Because it caused me to be calm. Yeah. This metaphor went to a place that I didn't even intended to go. It went too heavy. But, um, you know, and so I want to loosen it up a little bit, but I do want to tell you, we've got two places. If you have the time, I want you to be get comfortable because we got some tough stuff to talk about. And it's not about you per se, but it's about something that's going on in the church in the West. That's a deep, deep passion of my heart and our whole team here. And you can come to our new campus, 180 Chicago northwest suburbs, and you can be live, or you can be in the comfort of your home or with a group of people. But this is going to be one of these sobering conversations where we look at, boy, what is the gospel? What have we missed about the gospel? What are the ways? Surprising ways. Can't wait till session three on Saturday that God's going to save those that we love. Because when you get kind of alone and you really start thinking about this, your heart begins to go out, maybe to yourself for assurance of salvation. But then to so many that we love who were raised in church and maybe still there, but you just wonder, do they really know Jesus personally? And that's a that's a moment where you just sit and you've got. It's not an easy moment, but it's, it's imperative that we walk through that and really wrestle with it. If we're going to see an awakening in the church, I'm convinced the biggest mission field. Ah, be careful here. One of the greatest mission fields that we have is right under our nose in weekend services, because the illusion of salvation, hallucination of salvation, people that see something in themselves that isn't there is such an epidemic, guys. And I'm not trying to be ominous or theatrical, I'm just stating a fact. I'm pouring out my heart. And, uh, whether you can grab a seat live or you've got a seat where you can sit down and digest it. Saturday, Saturday, 830 central till 1230. Central can have four sessions. It's going to I'm I'm prepped, I'm ready to rumble boom crew. And I'd love to have you be there to prime the pump to kind of let you know kind of where we're going on Saturday. We've got an intro for you if you haven't gotten it yet. Maybe you did and you didn't read it. I want you to read it right now. 00:39:06 S2: Yeah, just text intro to get the intro to the book, plus the sign up link for the conference, the Unstoppable Gospel this Saturday. Text intro to 805 557898, intro to 805 557898. 00:39:20 S5: Yeah, yeah. Tough, tough talks are good. Have you ever known a time when you came out of a tough talk, when you were really humbled before the Lord that you didn't gain something mightily from it, right? 00:39:33 S2: Yeah. When you're humble enough to receive it, sometimes it takes a minute because I think. 00:39:37 S5: Yes. 00:39:38 S2: I think the instinct is to want to like, we put up our defenses really, really quick, but usually with the benefit of some time and the and the help of the Holy Spirit to get to a humble place, you there's something that can be gained. 00:39:51 S5: Yeah. Big time. So get the intro and look at the bottom and get registered for this conference. If you can text intro. Just read the intro. Free intro. We got it all loaded there for you on one click. Text intro to 805 557898. One word intro to 805 557898. This is challenging conversation, but really beneficial. Really beneficial. 00:40:22 S1: Tune in whenever you like. Check out the Carl and Crew podcast wherever you like to stream. 00:40:28 S5: So one of the things we're tackling this whole week is walking by faith, not by sight. Faith and risk are interchangeable. Love. John Piper did a really good message on that a number of years ago. Uh, but the, uh, we've been calling it this this morning, it's that oh boy moment where you feel like, oh boy, God, you're gonna have to show up here. And so I just wanted to pitch it to the team and, and let Ali and somebody kind of. Excuse me, Ali and Young Thunder, um, illustrate this for you in a really practical way. So when you think about times in your life when you've had to step out by faith, you knew God was calling you somewhere, but you didn't have the whole roadmap mapped out at all. And it's a step of faith. It's like, get out of the boat moment. What do you say, Ali? 00:41:16 S2: I mean, I think, uh, the times where I've been called upon to lead in, in ministry settings, I think have, have definitely been that for me. And that may seem like small potatoes compared to other people's steps of faith. Um, but I never saw myself as somebody who would lead others. And so I remember specifically when I got asked to take on some leadership in this mom's ministry that we had at the church that I was going to and still a part of and, you know, getting asked to share a devotional or to speak or to help lead worship, these were like little steps of faith that I was my everything in me wanted to be like, nope, you got the wrong gal. Ask somebody else. Somebody else is way more qualified, way more talented, way more everything. But with each step, it was built. My faith in learning what it felt like to really have to rely on God. 00:42:17 S5: Yeah. 00:42:18 S2: To know that I would get up there and open my mouth, whether it was to sing or to speak, and that there was nothing that I felt like I had that was particularly compelling. But trusting that if God was going to ask me to to do it, then he was going to give me what I needed. And so it was it's each step has been very, very intimidating and even felt kind of scary. This job maybe being at the top of the list. But each time seeing God move and God show up. 00:42:48 S5: It's always been rewarded. Right? 00:42:50 S2: Yeah. And it's rewarded with with, I think the faith building has been the biggest thing is that then you start to develop the history of seeing God show up in those areas. So the next time you still feel that fear, but now you've got some history to look back on and go, okay, here we are. God, you've done this before. We've been here, you and I. 00:43:13 S5: Yeah, it's really cool. What do you say, young thunder? 00:43:16 S3: Yeah. I think for me, one of the biggest ones is or was getting baptized as an adult. Uh, I was as a kid, but didn't have real faith, A real relationship with Jesus. And when I came to a real relationship with Jesus, I felt his conviction that, hey, it's time to time to go public with that testimony. That's a that's the first step of faith for a genuine believer. And I was scared to do it because I, I just was too nervous to tell people close to me, you know, my story. And it made me scared. And Satan kind of put some shame in there. And I backed away from it for a long time. But I felt God's just gentle, gentle nudging continuously. And I finally decided, okay, I'm going to do it. And I was so blessed by the experience to be able to get baptized as a genuine follower of Jesus and see how he would just build everything from that. 00:44:07 S5: Yeah, yeah, walking by faith and not by sight taking risk. I don't know what God has on your plate today, but there's probably something that's going to require you having an oh boy moment. Let God use you today. Watch him work through you today.