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283: Pastor Plek is joined by his wife, Adrienne, and friend Machine Gun Nick this week to recap Sunday's sermon. They share candid stories that merge the serious with the lighthearted, offering a unique perspective on leadership responsibilities that span from accountability in the military to the influence of biblical teachings in personal relationships. We invite you to join us in this exploration of the profound yet personal aspects of our lives, encouraging a week filled with worship and a sense of community.
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00:06 - Military Leadership and Symbol Misunderstandings
05:14 - Leadership, Responsibility, and Trust
13:39 - Friendships and Motherhood Dynamics
21:40 - Overcoming Jealousy and Comparison in Friendships
26:51 - Overcoming Enemies and Misunderstandings
33:09 - Love Your Enemies and Justice Flow
37:57 - Interactive Discussion on Faith and Culture
I'm your host, pastor Plec, and joining me in studio is none other than machine gun. Nick, welcome back machine gun.
Speaker 2:Howdy folks.
Speaker 1:And then also in studio with me is Adrian.
Speaker 3:Plec and pull my sweet wife.
Speaker 1:Who's a great pastors wife Pretty much pretty much like every other pastors wife who says they're not like every other pastors wife. That's kind of like the standard protocol of every pastors wife. They say they're not like every other pastors wife.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't say that actually about myself.
Speaker 1:That's good, yeah, all right. And we're talking Exodus, and this past week we took a look at leadership in the framework of the community of God's people, where leaders are called to look out for the marginalized, execute justice on the wicked and provide the fabric society for the community. And one of the things that I talked about is that in the military and machine gun Nick is here specifically for this and I'm assuming you were told this but in the military a leader is responsible for everything a unit does or fails to do Was that kind of common. And so we were told that at least I was told that all the way from being 18 at West Point to being at the 82nd Airborne Division to being in the 2nd Infantry Division when I was in combat, and that was sort of like the deal. So, in fact, talking about divisions and stuff, adrienne, we had a little discussion about this because it is my birthday, which I'm pretty excited about on Friday and Friday and you were going to get me something really nice. I was, and you sent me like you did. That was sweet, and you sent me and I show this to machine gun. Nick. She sent me a picture of the. She's like can I get you this patch? And it was a half an American flag and half the patch of the 101st Airborne Division, which is walking chicken, the squawking chickens and if you are part of the squawking chickens, that's no offense to you. The sub-losk air assault school was very cool. I got to be a part of that Awesome. However, it is not the 82nd Airborne Division.
Speaker 3:I would like to maybe review what I actually sent in my text to you Okay, yeah. So I took a picture. I was trying to find a cool you know army. I was trying to find an army Ranger.
Speaker 1:Bad yeah, tab right Patch Velcro patch.
Speaker 3:Tactical excuse me, tactical Velcro patch for something that I purchased and I was struggling with a lot of vocabulary that I wasn't privy to and I came across this one that had a half of a flag and half of a cool look, masculine looking thing and I thought, well, maybe this works. And it pulled up when I pulled up, ranger. So I figured surely it's going to work. Oh well, guess what? So I texted my picture, knowing I knew there'd be a problem with it. So I liked to give myself credit and I said, okay, would this be too off for you If I got it? For something like is this when your perfectionist is going to come out? Because I was thinking the stitching was going to be too crooked on this flag, or like you'd have some visceral reaction to like how horribly like the font was slightly off.
Speaker 2:But oh, no it was the fact that there was a half patch with it says Ranger airborne which are two things that you were.
Speaker 3:And then there is an eagle. An eagle looked cool.
Speaker 1:The problem is they're not really airborne. They haven't been really airborne since World War II.
Speaker 3:So what I learned is this eagle head is not.
Speaker 1:I don't think they did.
Speaker 2:They were the first, they were the first to convert over to well choppers yeah, they were like they weren't the first seventh squadron.
Speaker 3:Squadron. Do people hear?
Speaker 1:this yeah, how more.
Speaker 2:But he didn't have a.
Speaker 1:We were soldiers. We were soldiers once young.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but they were something else. And then they got the helicopters. First, Right. And they became aerosol. And then 101st was still airborne in Vietnam.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, I don't think they were Nobody I think they were who was jumping in Vietnam.
Speaker 3:What they're discussing. For those of you that don't know.
Speaker 1:Is this symbol? Yeah, that's Italy, I mean no.
Speaker 3:The symbol of the eagle head is actually a symbol of an entire people group within the army.
Speaker 1:It is totally another people group.
Speaker 2:It's a totally different division from the 82nd. The 101st division that's what I learned Screaming eagles, I'll be nice Is different division than the 82nd division. All Americans All right, yeah, very different.
Speaker 3:So, so what I thought was like an icon of something masculine actually represented an entire as Chris decided to finally inform me a different team. So within the army, within Rangers and within airborne Rangers, there are there are, in fact, different teams that you can be on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was not in the Ranger regiment. I was Ranger qualified, which is distinctly different. But I was in the 82nd Airborne Division as an armor officer, which is sort of wild to think about, right, because I was a Ranger qualified armor officer in the light cab in the air brigade, so like I was attached to the entire air brigade which is not airborne what is airborne but it was all helicopters and so we were the only ground troop of the helicopter brigade Might be. That's why I put that sort of wild Okay. Yeah, kind of fun.
Speaker 2:I mean in my 20 years in the army. I was with 10th Mountain Division. I was a 1509er, a Geronimo.
Speaker 1:Fort Polk.
Speaker 2:Louisiana I was. Then they put me in recruiting duty. We won't really get into that. Then I went to the 82nd Airborne Amazing group of people, yeah it was great, and then it all ended at first ID. So you know, and in the real, my last field job, I was in an infantry unit, I was in a cavalry unit which is crazy.
Speaker 1:The cavalry unit is the best. You've got all the combined arms right there. It's so great, okay, anyway, the whole point of that.
Speaker 3:And everything's represented by an animal, just like a mascot. It is just like a mascot and it's all camouflaged and it all has the same words that are in English, but different symbols that signify dramatically different groups of people.
Speaker 1:The whole point of that, though, was that a leader does, a leader's, responsible for everything that a unit does or fails to do, and that's what I was taught in the military, but then also that's what I now teach to families, like, whenever I marry a couple, I'll say like hey, husband, you are now responsible for everything that your unit does or fails to do, which sort of takes a huge load off the wife and puts a huge amount of pressure on the husband, as I guess it should be, and I feel that, in our marriage, like I feel like responsible. So, like when you're wanting to buy new dogs and stuff, I always am like, oh gosh, I don't know if that's the best move, and I feel responsible for that, which is why I might give you some pushback when you want to buy a new dog.
Speaker 3:That's great yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so are you going to buy the new dog?
Speaker 3:I've been excited, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. So we've been talking about that, and now, when we got into the message, though, we talked about how Exis 2228 says you shall not revile God, nor curse a ruler of your people, and what I did is I said that those two things are linked, because cursing a ruler of the people is like cursing God, because you are questioning who God has put in charge. Now, here's, here's. Sometimes it's really hard, and maybe you could speak to this Do you find it hard to believe, or hard to accept, that all leadership is God ordained? Oh yeah definitely Tell me why that gives you pause, ha.
Speaker 2:So currently. So I'm gonna have to grasp with the concept of I mean, there was some military leaders that you're just like, how did you get here, right? And then I mean, currently I think there's a huge group of people on the right-hand side of politics that are like are you serious, right, me being one of them, that Joe Biden I'm not really sure if he knows his name today definitely calls out foreign leaders that were 20 years ago. And you're like no, that guy's definitely not in charge of that country anymore. Like I don't remember the last time he was and God ordained this to happen to us.
Speaker 1:Right and I think that is true that even you know Korea's Jean Pierre actually said that he's completely fine and anyone who doesn't agree with that has lost their objectivity in news reporting. But if you look at Joe Biden and you're like I don't know if I can trust you, you have to trust that God is in control of Joe Biden, like that's the part that is difficult and that's why we don't revile, we don't curse Joe Biden, we pray for Joe Biden. And I think that's the challenge that I think people have is they tend to curse the ruler. Like if you're looking on social media right now, people like mocking Joe Biden and you know just open like verbal warfare on him and whether, whatever your politics, you just go like even you know John Stuart like let him have it and he's pretty on the Joe Biden camp side of things and he is sort of mocking him in a really out like hey, outspoken kind of way. So I think there is just a culture, right and left, that just sort of curses the rule of your people and when you do that, I think there's a link that God's wanting to say like don't do that, because you are then not trusting the leadership that God has ordained to be there and what you could be doing is praying for them and then asking God to do something greater. And then also it puts you in the judgment seat when you don't know what's going on. I think a lot of times, like, for example, in Afghanistan, happened with Joe Biden and he pulled out all the troops and it was like a complete and utter disaster. When people would ask me about that, I would go like don't you have contempt or like frustration with Joe Biden? I said I want to be honest with that. I don't know what information Joe Biden was privy to, or all the leaders that had gotten the Oval Office or whoever was the decision maker at that point who said this is a good idea based upon the information they had at the time. I'm not going to go in there and say like you screwed that up because I wasn't there and it looks like such an obvious thing. All right, when you look at that and you go like you are complete, like vacant.
Speaker 2:Common sense says that we blow up the equipment if we're not going to take it with us. Could it?
Speaker 1:destroy that. This is where you go. Was that Joe Biden's fault? I don't know. Did he say like don't do that, or is that some general or some you know Colonel?
Speaker 3:But what about the leader fails to do?
Speaker 1:Right, sure, Everything that the leader does or fails to do granted.
Speaker 2:Everything that the unit, the division, the theater commander fails to do or achieves falls on them right, so they did a great job. Hey, good job.
Speaker 1:But they didn't?
Speaker 2:they did a horrible job.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure, sure. They should have blown up that the equipment.
Speaker 2:there's no reason the Afghanis should have tanks, have Bradley's, have armed fighting vehicles, the Afghanis, the Taliban, right right, who then turned those instruments on those people that helped us, and we didn't even get them out, we just were throwing people in planes.
Speaker 1:It reminded me of 1975, of evacuating Vietnam, and it was just a disaster.
Speaker 2:And maybe that's a problem with having older people in as leaders, because that's exactly what it looked like. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, but to be fair again, I don't know what was going on in those meetings. I don't know like hey, we need to get them out now. Like why the urgent rush? There could have been something that we did not know, and so I hesitate to curse the ruler of my people because of that. Now, fun fact and I know, adrian, you're probably like thrilled with this Did you know that the King James version translates God right here as judges? Did you guys know that? No, so you shall not revile judges nor curse a ruler of your people. Is how it's translated King James and other translations. And it's not because the word is wrong, it's the words interpreted differently. So the word is Elohim. If you're not familiar with Elohim, is Elohim is plural judges or singular God or the God? It could be the God's cause. It could also be interpreted as, like pagan gods. So, which is so all the judges back then were called Elohim, which is sort of a wild thing Anyway, cause they would make judgments on human issues Anyway. So this could be interpreted you shall not revile judges, nor curse a ruler of your people. It doesn't really matter how you interpret it, because ultimately it says don't curse God, and here it says don't curse the magistrates or the judges, the leadership, nor curse a ruler of your people. So either way that works. And then we connected worship with taking care of the judges or taking care of the rulers of the people, because whenever you worship God you take and you offer wheat or you offer wine or you'd offer sheep, and who would eat the sheep and the wine and all that? It would be the leadership. That was the tribe of Levi that didn't have a negrarian inheritance. They weren't given a geographical land to take on, but rather were dispersed throughout all the other tribes to be the leadership, judges and clerks and help out with ruling the country. So that's kind of an interesting sort of tidbit that God would interlink the leadership and they'd have to trust God for their food by trusting the people, and then the people would have to trust God by trusting the leadership that was put in place to help settle civil disputes. All right, any other thoughts there on those kinds of things?
Speaker 3:Oh, I think that's good.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the other part that we looked at was this was fun. Remember how Jesus said and I brought this up there, you've heard it said that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I said you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. When I look at that verse and I tie this into Exodus 23, specifically verse four, if you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. I think a lot of times people will say like hey, you've gotta unhitch the Old Testament from the new and Jesus is completely a different guy and almost a different God than the Old Testament. But all Jesus was doing was expounding upon Old Testament themes. So, adrian, have you ever had your enemy's ox or donkey going astray near you? Or how about your enemy's dog?
Speaker 3:I've definitely had my enemy's enemy is people that aren't my favorite people Was that would be that?
Speaker 1:be enemy. Sure, I mean like people that you have a little bit of a rift with.
Speaker 3:Yeah, have I had them reach a point where they were in need?
Speaker 1:Yes, and then did you meet the need or just go?
Speaker 3:Oh, both. I think I've done both, but I think that what I've experienced is Well, I'm trying to think of one example, but I know that I In some of these situations. It's easier when you have young kids and you have a bunch of moms, because it's very common that you would have a rift like a minor. Oh right, mom yeah you would have a disagreement on parenting style.
Speaker 1:Is that a thing like when you talk about like young moms, are they? I don't say competing is the right word.
Speaker 3:Yes, well they are, it's a natural thing. It's like there's you're new at being a mom and you're full of Hope.
Speaker 2:but also fear right and so like is?
Speaker 3:you want your kids to turn out, you want to, you want to do a good job, and so there's a lot of the fear that your kids are gonna be screwed up.
Speaker 1:There's a fear that you are gonna have a hard life. What's the fear?
Speaker 3:I think for every person it's slightly different. Okay and so I think for me it was like I'm afraid that my kids might not turn out to be like confident, independent, successful people, like that's my fear. But I think for a lot of moms it's like a fear that they might not Look like they're doing a good job or like they care enough yeah or it's a fear that their kids might not perform academically or athletically or or fit in like there's like a lot of moms who have a huge fear of their kid not fitting in, and so I think every mom has a different fear. But I think, generally speaking, young moms are have more fears and either a false sense of confidence or a false sense of Like, of control, right, and I think that that can create rifts very quickly in friendships because you find it almost threatening if somebody is either over confident or over critical. Either they're over confident in themselves or they're over critical of you or maybe a style that you like and that's like that's very Managing style yes, yeah. Yes, I think that can feel very threatening and Something happens, as you were, after you've been a mom for ten years. It's like you. Graduate it's like you just I don't know what it is. It's like you've been humbled, like a lot of your things didn't work like you thought they would. Yeah, you've seen some of your friends techniques like fail them also, and then you've also just like, it's almost like you reach this point. I was watching this reel the other day about how, if you have more than three children, you've reached this point of Zen and like there's nothing, there's no noise. It can come from the other room that like alarms you right. I'm like that's very accurate in our home. Yeah, I mean, when I went, austin drilled his face on that we both rolled our eyes and said you better not have broken something. Right and we did not care and then his mouth was bleeding out. So this is where I do think that's like you do expect that the kids are always fine and like even the kids are jumping off the loft beds, I mean our loft beds oh.
Speaker 1:When they friends over, they're jumping off them. Yeah, they are like from the top. From the top that's like a good solid five and a half feet yeah it is, and if you go over the thing that's like six feet and if and you didn't know.
Speaker 3:So that's what I mean. Okay, yeah, so we have. There's something that happens when you have you've been a parent for longer, you have more children and it's like, okay, there's just some things that don't matter and you've kind of like Seizened your way out of some of the fear and competitions. Like I still have fears, I still have concerns, but like when I see another mom doing it differently, I'm like, yeah, her way might work better than mine, and like I'm, and I you Kind of own. It's almost like what people say happens in your 40s. It's like you own your weaknesses and you're comfortable a little bit more in them and you kind of just know who you are right and that happens as a mom, I think, and so you become less threatened. So anyway, early in those years of being a young mom, there is a lot of I think there is some kind of threatened feelings, especially if someone even just has opinions about whether you stay at home or do you work, like I couldn't give two craps right now if somebody has an opinion about how I spend my time. I could not care less, but there are, I think, new moms told you, you're very sensitive to that, very highly sensitive to that, and so, anyway, I just think that that that is normal.
Speaker 1:So what you're talking about is frenemies. Let's just yeah, those are the frenemies, but I do think, in a church community they're not necessarily friends. They can be people that are just acquaintances and, to be fair, this is when God's talking to the nation of Israel. These are people supposed to be relatives, right? So this should be. This is exactly frenemies that we're talking about. It's like someone who might do you wrong, in a sense, but they're not Like literally trying to hurt you, they just want to get ahead of you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure, I For sure, so I, or they're just afraid and so they're coming at you instead of like addressing their fear. Regardless, I think that sometimes there was tensions and those people and what I always found is, in any time I would have a friend where I would feel a little bit of tension or a rift that was like temporary all it would take is to go be there for them. Yeah, in a time of need, even if it was a very minor one, and it bonded us like, and then it was like we Capitalized on all this history that we had that we were kind of willing to just throw away in one second over the tip for the argument or the awkwardness. It was like the second that I was. Either they were able to be there for me or I was able to be there for them in a time of like Mild or moderate need. It was like, all of a sudden, we feel bonded and then we like, we feel the blessing of all this time investment.
Speaker 1:Do you feel comfortable telling that story about Megan what? I'm not sure if you do, but like the one, why don't we get into it? But like you don't talk about where, like you felt like real up, real Emotional sense toward her and they had to call her and be like, hey, I've been feeling these things, oh, Like jealousy, yeah, oh, megan to Zalo, yeah, yeah, that'd be fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I haven't talked about that in a long time.
Speaker 3:I, first of all, who made the sticker on your microphone that says PLC K.
Speaker 1:That would be Cody Sparks band.
Speaker 3:Hey, uh, plecumpolis spelled P, l, e, k, Just Okay.
Speaker 1:I did cross that C out on my pack.
Speaker 3:Okay, so so back when I had my second son, jet, megan and I were friends and and Megan is Grayson's pastor, great pastor officer Grayson's wife, who's been at the church really since before we were here and I had known Megan forever and you knew her in high school or I had known her in high school, when she was in Middle school actually, I was in high school but yes, and so We'd had her. So I'd had one baby and like gotten back to my pre-baby weight after him, which felt like a Monumental like, honestly, there was nothing I could have desired more in my life than that nothing. Okay, that's the level of like vanity and idolatry that I had. I still have, frankly. So I I finally achieved it, but it took me a year and took me like 12 full months, and at the end of the 12 full months, the weight didn't look quite the same like in pictures. I'd be like, huh, I'm at the same weight, but like this dispersed it. I'm sure it was because I was lacking some muscle and so therefore, I it was not quite the same, and so I was never like feeling super good about myself, but feeling good enough. And then I got pregnant with our second son and I and we and I had just had him and my friend Megan had a massive infant, like twice the size of mine, in utero and she had him and like she left in her like double zero genes from the hospital. Okay, she was one of those there's not very many of those, but she's one of them and I and she comes in them because she's able to just put a little hair tie and she was always like I don't know why people buy maternity clothes, you just need a hair tie. And I was like, oh, some of us are putting on weight everywhere and so a hair tie is not going to cut it anyway. So she, she leaves in them. And I, um, and I had just, and she'd had her son, I think, in November and I had mine in January and she's already, like in January, not only has she left the hospital, you know, probably less weight than she started the pregnancy, but she's like completely snapped back enough to where, like maybe looks better than before she was ever pregnant with children. Yeah, and I'm over here and I'm like it's going to be a year and I'm mad and I am, you know, not, not, not happy about this. Pretty jealous of the fact that somebody can like not have to spend this year, and I have fear too. Fear that again, I swear that's always the driver, but fear that I'm not going to, that it's not going to happen for me the same way. But also jealousy over the fact that, like she had no effort or her effort. No, I actually thought she spent a lot of effort. I actually thought that I think I was wrong in assuming that, although I'm still still not convinced to this day, but she and I talk about this rather frequently, but anyway, I was like she just learned how to starve to death and like be happy about it, and I'm like, how can I become like that? I thought that that was what she learned, okay, so I was angry. I was like very angry and jealous and finally one day I was like I was going through this book on comparison. That was like touching on several areas.
Speaker 1:Sandra Stanley.
Speaker 3:Sandra Stanley. Yeah, she has a book called Comparison.
Speaker 1:Trap.
Speaker 3:Comparison Trap and it was a great little workbook and it helped me tackle, like, a lot of the comparison issues that I was having in kind of a young mom stage of life, yeah, and you're still a young mom. Well, not really. I have like I have a bunch of like kids that go poop in the toilet.
Speaker 1:That's a really big deal. Actually, that's a good deal, yeah.
Speaker 3:So they don't pee yet always there.
Speaker 2:But that'll never happen.
Speaker 3:So anyway, so I was like I was comparing parenting styles, I was comparing my house, I was comparing my like everything. There's not one area that you feel confident, that I felt confident about at that time, and so I was going through this book and it comes across like if there's an individual specifically that you are struggling with, then you probably need to go like love this person or serve this person or even tell them. And I was like, oh heck, no, I'm not doing that. And so I, for like three days I had just avoided that page because I was like I can't fill it out, I can't like mentally admit that.
Speaker 1:I have to do this Because it was a workbook where you went through it and said, like who's the person You're like?
Speaker 3:yeah, I can't write it down Like I can't write it down, I can't admit this. But after about three days of fighting it I was like, okay, there's like I had. There's like Megan and I weren't as close friends at the time as I wished we were and I and I always felt like part of it is my issue of like I kind of hate her a little bit, and so I was like I think that could prevent us and she had so many things in a friend that I knew I needed and wanted and like just a lot of things, and the fact that they were at the church on staff like there was no reason for us not to be much closer friends, right. And so I was like this is silly. Like what if my sin in this?
Speaker 1:area, her parenting styles. One of the things you always told me was like very similar.
Speaker 3:Yes, we did have similar parenting styles and we just had like I don't know, I don't know what it was. I felt very sure that I needed that her and I being close friends was the right move, and I possibly my sin was possibly preventing that and I thought, well, that would sure stink if I was single and handily able to like prevent this entire relationship because of my, like petty vein jealousy over this right.
Speaker 1:So how'd you remedy?
Speaker 3:So I didn't know what to do. So I was like it's way too awkward, like I'm for sure never calling somebody A and B. I don't really know how I was going to have an in-person conversation, so I just texted and I was like at this point I was kind of like I felt like I needed to be obedient to God in the conviction, like I did, genuine conviction. So this is obedience to God at this point and God can handle my text Like he's big enough to handle a text right now, even though the book says to call Okay, that's fine. So I send a text and I'm like, hey, I just am going through she knew I was going through the book and I tell her, and I just was, like I just am. So I just am so jealous at the fact that you walk out of the hospital and you're double zero genes and just seem to like live your life happy and disciplined, and it just works If. I tell you that maybe I'll be set free from how pissed I am at the reality of it and it like and of how poor things she had to receive that text Like. I mean, how awkward to see that I think there's two sides to that, like when you, when you like, hey, you're actually my enemy and she's like and I don't and I know I'm not the first person to probably like give her a hard time for that reality and so, like that stunk for her to have to receive that and I felt that, which is partially why I hadn't ever sent it. But I'd reached this point where I was like I really think this is the right thing to do, Like surely it will work out.
Speaker 1:Did you ever talk about her? Did you just like leave it on text?
Speaker 3:I think we've like we referenced it. I talked about it at a women's retreat. I did like the next fall.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So, but we she received it well, like she responded well in a way that was like she's like oh, you never know the whole picture, kind of like admitting that there was more factors to this and she's right, she was right, and like that was a super humble way of like owning that.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 3:And it was great and it completely like from then on it was like a huge block was lifted between her and I and she, to this day, is like my closest friend.
Speaker 1:So I love that from a frenemy standpoint. How about you machine gun, nick? From an enemy standpoint?
Speaker 2:I killed three Afghan donkeys one day with my truck.
Speaker 3:How did that feel?
Speaker 2:Oh well, after the third one, the driver was like sorry, john, I'm not doing that again. I'm like all right, every time we killed one, we had to like stop and pay for it. Now it's getting pissed.
Speaker 3:It was Afghan donkeys. I don't know if the donkey part came out very loud or clear Donkey.
Speaker 2:It was an Afghan, so they used donkeys in Afghanistan to move seeds and stuff. I remember this quite frankly because the first one we had to stop they're like, I forget my call. Oh, my call sign was a 2-2. They're like 2-2. Second like squad Second platoon second squad. Later they're like 2-2, hit a donkey and we got to stop. And I'm like why do we got to stop? Who cares Right?
Speaker 1:This is a very hard human being.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is on the net. I'm like I don't care, we hit a donkey, the net's the radio. He should have got, yeah, the radio. He should have got his donkey. Like they were weaving the donkeys in and out of traffic, how fast were you going? Well, it was one of those, not real fast, but enough to run it over. I just said, just keep going. You knocked out three of them, yeah, in a row. I think what happened was, after I hit the first one, he got on his phone, called his donkey, handling friends up, and we're like, hey, they're paying if you get your donkey ran over. So let's put some more on the road, because we had to stop. There'd be seeds all over the place. All right, so can we?
Speaker 1:go to a story about where you had to overcome. Your enemy had something against you and you responded with hate your enemy or love your neighbor, or love your enemy. Did you ever respond with love your enemy or did you have an opportunity to do so?
Speaker 2:I never. I didn't grasp that concept really until quite a little while, though. So no, I mean, there was the neighbor who aimed a weapon at me. Yeah, and you did not kill them. We did not kill them, but we did. There was four other neighbors one night, all of us with pistols, because he was acting really weird. He would go in the corners and stuff and be videotaping me or something, and I all came to a head one night when me, a guy who was standing with me and two other neighbors were on my property with pistols, walking towards him to make sure that nothing happened. And then the cops came out and that night had he pulled his phone up like a gun. I was going to end it Right, but I didn't. That was really good. There was restraint.
Speaker 1:That was well done.
Speaker 2:I didn't burn at Fire Bomb's house. That was another concept.
Speaker 1:I was rolling around Is he still your neighbor?
Speaker 2:No, he's moved to Florida, thank the Lord.
Speaker 1:OK, all right. Well, that's good, that's good.
Speaker 2:Because that really I'm not much sure if I got PTSD or not, but there might be something there, because after that I was walking around my house in full body armor.
Speaker 1:OK, how about at Walmart? Did you ever have any incidents? Oh, boy.
Speaker 2:So the Walmart incident? This was the. I didn't even think of this. So I was in Walmart as a manager over the tires and oil area and the Taliban walked in one day.
Speaker 1:Wait, when you say the Taliban walked in, you're talking about Round Rock, texas, you're working at Walmart. And the Taliban walks in, explain that.
Speaker 2:OK, well, so all right, maybe he was in Taliban, but we will go with this. All right, you felt he looked Taliban. Not all Pashtun are Taliban, but all Taliban are Pashtun. Ok.
Speaker 1:Pashtun is.
Speaker 2:Pashtun is a language in Afghanistan a dialect right. And they're more prone to do hostilities, act as terrorists or mafia threats, and I mean I've lost a few brothers to them. So I'm in there, this guy is trying to. He comes in, he doesn't speak Spanish, so my Spanish speaking guy can't understand him. And he's talking and I heard it and I was like, oh, and I go to him. I'm like are you Dari or are you Pashtun? He said Pashtun and I went from everyday, ordinary calm, like I thought I had my stuff together to. I shot up to freaking. We were ready to go to war right then and there At Walmart. At Walmart. I was about to see Red.
Speaker 1:You were about to be a Walmart meme.
Speaker 2:Yes, there was going to be a new. It wasn't going to be going postal anymore, it was going to be go Walmart.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And he's in there trying to tell me how he's going to get his tire worked on for free, because that's where he, that's how it used to be in his country and I'm over here. It doesn't work like that, but the whole time, like, my adrenaline is pumping more and you can't carry a gun as a Walmart employee. But I was still ready Like spray paint him in the face. I didn't know what it was going to take, but he was going to end up in a somewhere not in a good spot. It didn't. It came to a head when two team leads and I'm a full on, like they call them coaches now, but they're ma, but I was a manager, right. A two team leads, two people below me, come in there and, like Nick, you got to leave your area right now or you're going to get yourself fired, like I'm. Like, all right, I'll walk out. I'm going to walk out, but he's paying. You know, I think I might have been by this time openly cursing, right, and so I walk out and go and it's about half an hour, maybe an hour Me just walking back and forth behind my shop, like trying to calm myself down, trying to like graphs, that I have a problem now because you know I thought our life was peachy and this wasn't going to happen to me Like.
Speaker 3:I'm good, I'm not going to go to jail, right.
Speaker 2:No, I was ready to go to jail.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I don't, and I guess I was triggered, as the word is yeah.
Speaker 1:And so, to be fair, I think that's where a lot of us struggle is that when we come across our enemies right, I think there's, and it could be your enemy in your house, with maybe an ex-wife or this could be just someone that hurts you, betrayed you, whatever it does create a lot of angst within. And so when Jesus says, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that is a wild thought. I think in our Americanese we can turn it into our frenemies. But the reality that Jesus is talking about like literally, people who are not looking to do you good and not even like just passively do you bad but actively harm you. And so Jesus says something that do something utterly radical, which is love your enemies and pray for those who persecute, which is why this becomes so important into the Exodus law structure. Is that the reason why it was said, hey, love your enemies by bringing the donkey or ox back is that was an active way of not feeling love but loving through action. And you could only do that if you trusted the leaders who were gonna be over your law case, because usually I'm gonna talk about enemies, of somebody suing you, somebody taking your property or some sort of issue and that's exactly what he was getting at and that's why this is. It feels like this is thrust in here without any context, but it's under a court system where if you have an enemy, the enemy's probably trying to sue you. And that's where Jesus says, say, if your enemy has something against you, go and make it right with him before you get to the court. Just make it right, or else you're not gonna have been jail, probably because you're not thinking this through. All right, we're gonna kind of wrap this up. And the other part was they also talked in Exodus. We also talked about not perverting justice to keep the vulnerable behind, and I thought that was sort of an interesting thing. Like in our own culture there has been a tendency to keeping some people disadvantaged. I remember when I was first learning about the civil rights movement, one of the big advocations of Martin Luther King was that back in the day, whenever land grants were given to Americans to go settle the West, they weren't given to African Americans and so that pretty huge disadvantaged generations down, and so that kept people behind, and so that was a real struggle to kind of wrap your head around of how you can actively keep a certain group of people behind, not letting African Americans kind of buy into power lines or have to live in a certain district where housing in real estate would be worth less, and so that was a real issue that our country had to overcome by implementing spiritually minded laws that put the Advocated for the Amago Day equal across all people, which is sort of why it's important to sort of understand generational wealth passed down from generation to generation. If you're sort of neglected in that sort of wealth distribution on the front end, it's gonna really come back on the back end. Anyway, that's how I saw that really kind of coming out. And so one of the huge things for us as Christians is we don't wanna pervert justice to keep vulnerable people Speak specifically. Here was the migrant, it was the fatherless, it was the widow and it was the poor that you could keep behind by perverting the justice. Although, on the flip side of this, what God also institutes here is don't be partial to the poor just because they're poor, which I thought was sort of a wild thought, because you'd be like, hey, the rich guy over here has enough money they can stand to lose a few bucks and help this poor guy, but what happens? You dishonor the Amago Day, the image of God in that poor person, by advocating on them just because they're poor and you'll never be able to change your circumstances. It's kind of like the victim mentality propagated. So I thought that was sort of fascinating and a neat way for God to sort of bring together his law in Exodus and then Jesus expounds upon it to really show us how it is completely hitched and linked. So all right, hey guys, if you got questions, text in at 737-231-0605. We would love to hear from you. We talk faith, culture, everything in between. Thanks so much for listening, especially on this sermon recap. We'd love to hear from you. So make sure you let us know how you're doing. So to kind of wrap this up, from our house to yours, we have an awesome week of worship.
