Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: The desperation and miserability really came from a place of not believing that I was loved and accepted. That was at the core of a lot of what AA teaches. It's, you know, and in a lot of churches and a lot of Christians, obviously, you know, society and our culture, it teaches a lot of just wrong stuff. It's just flat out wrong, and it's not going to help.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: It's where even believers that have grown up in the church, they don't really understand or they can't believe, they can't accept this is true for them. They can't receive the reality that God loves them that much. It's almost like this is too good to be true. All right. Hello and welcome. It's. Let's Talk Life, our podcast. I'm Zach. Carl is away today, and so we have my good friend Kyle joining me for a little Q and A. Kyle and I, we met in Dallas where he lives, and we've attended, actually conferences together for a long time without knowing each other, at least a couple. Finally, our paths crossed, though, and it's been a joy ever since, getting to know Kyle, hearing his story. We call and keep in touch, really, on a weekly basis, just about and reminding each other of the promise, the original gospel, which Carl and I talk about here on this podcast every week. So, Kyle, thanks for joining. How you doing, man?
[00:01:14] Speaker C: Hey, Zach, man, so glad you invited me to this. Do it all right. Yeah, I appreciate you, Zach. Yeah. Just enjoying the journey, I guess.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: That's what we do.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: And. Yeah.
[00:01:22] Speaker C: Reminding each other. Stir each other up by way of reminder.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:01:28] Speaker C: Pretty simple most of the time.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. If you want to maybe introduce yourself a little bit about where you're coming from, whatever you want to share about you, and then we'll get into some of these questions, if you'd like to do that.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. So in Dallas, here. Yeah, Kyle is my name in Dallas. Tried moving away several times.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: I end up back.
[00:01:49] Speaker C: I don't know what that's about. But, yeah, had met Zach, I guess we met last year or so at the conferences, and I kind of came into the conferences by a dear friend of mine, a counseling mentor counselor. Spent 23 years on drugs and alcohol. Got saved at 15. Didn't really understand the gospel, though. Didn't understand what does it mean to be free, that if I'm free, I don't really. We don't really want to sin as opposed to the religious, you know, the religion messages that we hear, maybe even in churches where it's like it's like, well, sin's bad. You really want to do it, but you shouldn't. So try hard to not sin. And, you know, and here's some good stuff to do. And did it for years, decades, and was just, you know, yeah, I was a miserable religious person, you know, but kind of knew I was saved for a long time. But, you know, I didn't really understand this message. And it wasn't up until about, you know, the last little over a decade. Well, you know, when God started bringing
[00:02:48] Speaker A: people into my life and kind of
[00:02:50] Speaker C: work background was, you know, a lot
[00:02:51] Speaker A: of medical work, tried to go to
[00:02:53] Speaker C: school, did, you know, have done a bunch of different things.
But kind of the biggest thing for me today is it's. It's really getting to know God. It's like I get to enjoy.
I get to enjoy God enjoying me. And what is he going to teach me today?
You know, what is he going to do in and through me? And it really just kind of comes. I was chatting with a friend about
[00:03:12] Speaker A: all this before we got on the call.
[00:03:13] Speaker C: It's like, you know, it's really just giving up. And it's like we're not, we're, you know, and it's, it's needing to define. It's like, is self bad? No, yourself is good. You know, if you've received Jesus, you're good. We're good people because of the cross, because of the finished work. So you're not removing you, but there is a giving up on, on the fleshly behaviors, on the patterns, ways of thinking, attitudes, and, you know, as we go into this talk on the Galatians 2:20, you know. Yeah, I wish somebody would have broken down Galatians 2:20 to me that it's. That it's like, let the old you who love to sin die. Like, he's gone. Christ really is your life now. Like at the core of who you are, you're righteous, you're justified, you're sanctified, you're clean and close, and you are good. Your, yours, your. Your desires agree with the spirit's desires because it's what indwells you and that's at your core. Again, no, nobody was really telling me that. So, I mean, I spent a lot of decades just miserable not really knowing the truth.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Sure, sure.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Yeah. That's a lot of people's story. So we have been doing these podcasts, specifically calling them Identity Statement.
And last week Carl and I just shared our testimony just of how Galatians 2:20 has impacted us today is Kyle's turn to kind of share a little bit of his testimony about specifically Galatians 2:20, how it's impacted. The thing that we've been saying is that this verse is an identity statement, not a self improvement slogan. And so, Kyle, I threw a bunch of questions at you. You can pick, you know, what you want, and I don't know where you want to go with it. And we'll just see what, what God wants to speak through you. So take it away, Kyle, where you want to start? What do you want to talk about?
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Sounds great. Now, as I read through the list, there were so many good questions that you posted there. I'm pulling it up here real quick. I think one of them was, you know, name an experience, you know, one time where I really saw, I was really experiencing this of, you know, Galatians 2:20, Paul saying, you know, you know, it's, you know, I've been crucified with Christ, I no longer live. Well, is Paul dead? And no, that's, you know, Paul's not dead. His old man's dead. So the person, you know, we were in Adam died. And now we're new creations in Christ. And Christ is our. Is our life. He's our identity now. And, you know, never understood that verse up until, until I, you know, come into contact with these, you know, Network 220, some other guys teaching identity, you know, that you're. We're not our sin, we're not our failures, you know, we're not our past. We're children of God, you know, you don't really want to sin. Man, I wish somebody would have told me that growing up, you know, in all the churches that I went to, you know, I wish somebody would have just been like, look, you know, the behavior is not your problem. It's what you're believing about yourself and the real you, the real self. You don't really want to get away with sin. You don't want to sin.
You love God because he first loved you.
And so now, just by default, you love others. That's your natural state.
You have become a partaker of the divine nature. 2nd Peter so I was thinking about an experience, you know, I'd really just come into this the last three years, about the last three years since 2023, you know, I'd been hearing and reading books and, you know, really getting around some people that really understand this message of the real gospel. And, you know, sue is over about course of maybe about 12, 13, 14 years or something when I'd first heard identity and it was really just up until the last three years when I really embraced it. And I was on a lot of drugs, a lot of stuff I was into, even through learning this message. And so for me, I don't know, I was sharing with a friend earlier. It's like, I don't know, I guess for me, God kind of had to have a big, big bang moment with me and all the drugs and psychedelics, all the stuff I was doing and you know, for me, I call it just a. There was just a big giving up day. And, and what I was giving up on was, man, here's all the ways I've been trying to live the Christian life. I wouldn't even just try to live the Christian life. I'm just trying to live, you know, it's like, how am I going to live life?
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Right?
[00:07:24] Speaker A: So I had a lot of resources, you know, education, you know, came from a family, highly educated, highly performing, you know, so I had some resources there. But it wasn't helping me live life though. Couldn't get off the drugs. And finally for me, it just a big, a big giving up day where it was, it was just me, it was me in a car. I was in a car, homeless and, you know, just bawling my eyes out. Had already kind of heard God. Had already heard God speak to me the, you know, the day prior and you know, just hearing him saying, you know, I love you, I accept you, you know, there's some identity right there. I love you and I accept. And that was God speaking to me.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Beautiful.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: And the next night, you know, I'm homeless in the car and I needed to give up. And, you know, I'd been listening to a lot of an exchange life teacher, Mike Wells and, and Thomas and John Lynch, Andrew Farley, Ralph Harris, Tim Challis, you know, all these guys that I really look up to, my, my dear friend Counselor Charles, you know, all these people. And it was, you know, it was kind of the same message. It's like, you know, you, you really need to give up. And what you need to give up on, you know, we want to clarify some things here. Self is not bad. Yourself is not bad.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: And so, and if you do hear grace teacher saying, you know, we need, we need to give up on self. Well, I think what they're really saying is, you know, I need to give up on all these learned old ways of thinking and believing and attitudes.
I loved it when somebody broke down sin for me. They're like, you know, all sin is. You're just trying to get needs met apart from Christ, whom God said he would meet all your needs. That was a really comforting and really kind of an encouraging thing. That's all sin is. I'm just trying to get needs met in a counterfeit way.
Who was it? Oswald Chambers. You know, drugs, Drugs, sex, all this other kind of stuff that's just an ecstasy of, you know, just a counterfeit way of, you know, having your needs met in the spirit, by the spirit, by Christ in you, the spirit in you producing those things for you. And so, you know, over the last three years, man, I've seen God do some really awesome things in and through me.
One of them was, I was working at a company and headed this lady that wanted to commit suicide. And it was so cool. And you know, obviously she. Not that she was going through that, but that morning, you know, I was fixated on, you know, a passage in the Gospels. It shows up three times. I think it's Matthew, Mark, and in Luke, and, you know, it's Jesus. And he's talking, he's like, you know, you know, you don't even need to worry about what you're going to say in that. You know, you're going to be taking the synagogue rulers. You're going to be presented before people. Don't even worry about what you're going to say beforehand. The words will be given to you. And it's not going to be, you know, it's not going to be any other source than it's the spirit of your Father who speaks in you. And I was fixated on that and already started experiencing that, you know, over the last several years. And it's really just this simple thing of, you know, I've got Christ in me. He wants to do the producing. He's inviting us into this participation thing where it's not 100% you and none of God. And it's also not 100% God and none of you. No, it's 100% you. With 100% Jesus in you, the hope of glory. It really is. Christ is your life. We're just like, how Andrew Farley puts it, we're just learning to let. I'm just learning like this real genuine place of what does it actually mean to. I'm just trusting Jesus. I'm trusting the life of God in me to produce, in and through me something that I can't manufacture or produce apart from him. I can't produce the life. Like only Jesus can do that. What's my role? What's my thing to do? I let And I don't have to really. You know, it's not. It's not some deep theological understanding on this. It's just a let. It's just coming to understand. Jesus wants to express his life through me. Do I have a choice? Do we have a choice?
Yeah, yeah, we got a choice. You know, I can.
Bible calls it a walk. I can walk by the flesh or according to the spirit. You know, I can walk by this, by the flesh or by the spirit. It's a choice. I get to choose in knowing, you know, what flesh is, and then who we are in the spirit really helps with that.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: And so, you know, this lady calls, she's flipping out, she wants to commit suicide. It's. It's pretty bad stuff. And I just have that peace and just knowing of what to say. And I'm just sitting there. I'm just learning to depend on Christ in me. Gives me the words exactly to walk her out of that. And then with the company, it was, you know, it was a disability company. And just. It's like, what's the next right? You know, what's the next step? I'll just walk her through this process. And then it even brought up, you know, Jeremiah to her.
You know, my dear friend Vernon Terrell, you know, had told me this before of how, you know, it's like walking with God. It's. It's like Jeremiah in the desert. He doesn't know where he's going, what he's going to do.
So he just prays. He's like, well, Lord, I don't. I don't know. Like, I don't know what to do. Just what's just the next thing? Like, what's just the next step? And another grace teacher that, you know, used to listen to. It's like, you know, God's not going to give me the blueprints and the plans for my life. He wants me to just take the next step, trusting him. Jesus, like a shepherd, lead me so I don't know where I'm going and I don't have to. It's like, that's up to God. He's the one sovereign. Do I believe he's good?
[00:12:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: Do I believe? It's like, is my next. Is so my sin. I've tried, you know, we've trusted Christ with our sin. And if you haven't done that, that's a really good place, you know, trust Christ that. It's like, yeah, he's already dealt with it. His attitude's, I don't remember your sin. It's gone, it's gone now. Trust him with your life. And, and it's like, it's like being able to just look at my life. I wake up in the day and I just kind of look around what looks good, well that looks good. I'm going to go that way. And if it's not the way God has for me, he has every right to just deter and redirect it all has this foundation that, that he's good and he loves me and Christ is my life. Like this is my new identity, you know, bringing it all back to identity.
Do I believe he's already got good works for me to walk in? Do I really believe that? Ephesians 2:10 and I love the original language of that is, you know, that you know, you're God's masterpiece created in Christ. You know, pre advanced works to walk in. And the final phrases that you would walk in these as a way of life. As a way of life. You're just walking and going, you're, you can. I have Bill Gilham used to put it, you can tie your shoe in this. You can do it in the flesh. You can pray in the flesh. You can pray in the spirit.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: You can read your Bible in the flesh. You can read your Bible in the spirit. All coming back to this has to be. So we, we got it. We got to keep this simple, you know and it's, you know, right.
It's like I'm just learning to just trust. So Christ is my life.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: You know, and I can keep. And it's like really the battle of focus. It's like where am I going to have my focus today? The gospel is, it's already all been done and Jesus is inviting me us into this moment moment by moment. Rest of what does he want to do in me, through me and for me, what is he wanting to teach me? I'm supposed to be enjoying how much God enjoys me today.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: So. So Kyle, like you know I've been journeying with you for this last year and it's been so amazing having you on our book study call to for a number of weeks and just so like just what I'm hearing from you like the last three years. For me similarly like 2023 really is kind of the starting point for me as well.
However you have just clarify this with me. You had many more years of hearing this teaching though, right before that, is that right?
[00:15:01] Speaker A: I did, yeah. I was a slow learner on this.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: Yeah, well we all are. We all are. But that's what's so interesting about just, you know, our paths and our walking into this and we're kind of in that same timeline as far as finally stepping into understanding this, like about three years ago.
But you had like a, you had heard this message and you were. Because you can spout this stuff off really well. Like you're coming from a lot of stuff that you've heard, you've read, you've understood. But before three years ago, even though you were hearing it, what was the difference? Why were you still in drugs and alcohol?
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Man, it was, you know, I just, I didn't want to give up on trying to get my need met that way. You know, Again, it all came. Sin all comes down to. It's like, how am I getting my needs? What am I? What lies am I believing that this is promising to satisfy? I spent a lot of decade, you know, I spent a lot of time in a, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous being around all that kind of belief.
[00:15:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: And, you know, before, man, I was, you know, the, the desperation and miserability really came from a place of not believing that I was loved and accepted, you know, really. That was at the core of it. And a lot of what AA teaches, it's, you know, and in a lot of churches and a lot of Christ, obviously the, you know, the sec, you know, you know, society and our culture, it teaches a lot of just wrong stuff. It's just flat out wrong and it's not going to help. And man, I was so clinging to a lot of what I believe.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: It's where most people are at. Even believers, even believers that have grown up in the church, they, they don't really understand or they can't believe, they can't accept this is true for them. They can't think and they can't receive the reality that God loves them that much, that it's almost like this is too good to be true. So, yeah, that's why I love what you're sharing because it's so relatable to people that are wherever they're at in their journey, processing this, that might just listen and be like, okay, I can connect with that because I'm struggling. Yeah, we're slow learners, for sure. We need the school of hard knocks for some reason, just to figure it all out.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think there's another way.
Having to go through the pain.
Another question you brought up, you know, another question you had was, you know, how can we practical, practically, you know, for our listeners, you know, how do we, you know, how can they really begin to see this as their identity as a child of God.
Yeah, dead to sin, alive to God in Christ. Meaning you are a new creation. You only love good stuff, you actually hate bad stuff. What's a good practical way? This all really started to change for me even you know, when I really started coming into this. Yeah, the 10 plus years ago, started hearing identity, it all kind of came down to a really simple prayer. And you know, you know, I love how you share this a lot. Zach. Of it's Ephesians chapter one and chapter three where Paul is just like, you know, praying that God would just open the saint's eyes, that God would just open your eyes to what is the truth. You know what is the truth. And Jesus said, well then, you know, you'll know the truth and you'll walk free. Well, what's the truth? Well, the truth is, you know, your old self died. Not only, you know, the cross didn't just take care of your sin, it took care of the sin loving sinner that you were. The Bible never uses the word sinner as in a relation, as used in a term of somebody who sins. That's bad grammar in Hebrew because it doesn't explain it that way. It says a sinner is somebody who's dead in Adam, not somebody who is sinning. If I sneeze, am I a sneezer?
No, you know, I just got it. Foreign agents in my upper respiratory tract, you know, all that kind of, excuse me, you know, so it's like, yeah, you're not a sneezer, you just got a cough. You're not a sinner. You just, you know, you're, you're not a, you're not dead in Adam, you're alive in Christ. You're a saint who sometimes sins.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: Right?
[00:18:46] Speaker A: And so the practical thing, you know, for the listeners, man, just ask God to open your eyes to this. I don't know how he's going to do that. You know, we, you know, we read the Bible, we know it's all just a deep revelation. It'll be in the spirit. There's no formula to it, you know.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Well, there are, there are so many things to trust with God and so it's even a wise approach to say in a prayer. God, would you help me to. It wasn't his disciples that said, help my unbelief, help me to trust this truth. Because I'm reading, you can read Ephesians 1 and say, I don't, I don't agree with all these statements that it says that I am. And it's like, well, are you in Christ? It's like, yeah, I am. I do believe in Jesus. I. Well, then this is. This is true for you. And it's not because I'm saying it. It's because God's word is saying it and it's true. And so, yeah, I love that. That is our message all the time is ask God. Ask God for that wisdom, for that revelation. Ask God to open your eyes. And it's just so crucial.
So, yeah. So good hearing from you, Carl. Carl. Carl's my cousin, Kyle. I got Carl and Kyle here. I think we're pretty much out of time. This is going to boot us off if we. If we try to go too much longer. But is there anything closing that you want to. You wanted to say, Kyle?
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Yeah, just. It's just encouraging, you know, it's like God wants you to experience freedom more than you do. And a dear. A friend of mine, Mike Q. Daniels, once said that to me when I was, you know, going through my stuff. And. And it's like, yeah, hey, you know, God wants you to experience this more than you do. And, hey, and just know and trust that, you know what, God's going to open your eyes to this stuff, you know, and it's. Yeah, we still get the choice, you know, we still get the choice of am I going to embrace this new identity? Am I going to embrace rest where, you know, somebody else really wants, has already done all the work for us to be free and now he wants to now sustain. It's really just coming to that place in my, you know, are we ready to embrace this? Jesus, I see you as my life. I can see this scripture, open my eyes to this. I want to experience it.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Amen. So good, Kyle. Thank you. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing your heart. And it's been a blessing to get to know you and be friends this last year and. And moving forward, you know, man, for sure. Fellow travelers and all. This is just such a joy. Yeah, that's it.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Well, it was really encouraging. I was just gonna say it was real encouraging. When you sent me the message the other day, if you want to do the podcast, I was like, oh, yeah, thank you, Lord. You know, and I was just needing that uplifting. Like, yeah, let's, you know, this is my calling. This is, you know, it just in it's calling, whatever. Just enjoying chatting with people about this stuff.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: You know, this truth.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: Amen. So good. Awesome. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Anybody that's out there listening let's talk life. It's amazing. Talking life in Christ.
