167. Freedom To Love Without Compromise

I found my freedom in you I found a joy I can't lose And thank God it's true You wrapped your arms around me And heaven broke through From the moment you found me I found my freedom in you Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James Safer and Brad Martin. Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast. It is a blessing to be back with you. What a wonderful day it is. Over this last week and weekend, we have been getting wonderful storms. We've needed some rain. We've been getting some rain here in North Carolina. And I know Arkansas and Tennessee have been getting flooded. My wife's family is in Arkansas. And I'm seeing roads have been flooded. It's reminding me of what happened with Helene here just a couple months ago with North Carolina. Lots of things going on in Tennessee with flooding, tornadoes, lots of those things. Brett, you're alive in Mississippi. Have y'all had any of these storms come through? What's it looking like in y'all's area? Well, we've had some thunderstorms come through. We had thunderstorms come through Saturday night, early Sunday morning. But for the most part, all the bad weather has went north of us and south of us. We've kind of threaded the needle as far as the really bad weather goes. And so we're blessed in that regard. And so, but we've just been enjoying this, these rain has come through making the grass grow. So we've been out cutting grass in between rainstorms. And so it's just, you know, it's that time of year. Yeah, I love it. I think it's great. And I love the spring, summer weather, fall weather, winter weather. I love all the weather, man. I love it when it's hot. I love it when it's cold. I don't like it when it's too hot. You love the weather, man. Yeah. And it's great to be outside with the kids. When we're recording this, I had a full schedule of stuff, right? I had Monday is when we're recording this. I had two football games. My son, Brody, had both football games as well. He had a baseball game this afternoon. My youngest son, Hudson, had a baseball game. And my daughter had a volleyball practice. It was crazy busy. And all of a sudden, like almost all at once, I'm getting text messages. Football games are canceled. Baseball practices are canceled. We still have volleyball practice to go to. But it's like I went from a slam-pack, a wide-open schedule full of everything to a schedule of nothing. Like I don't have anything to do this afternoon. So those things happen when you get these thunderstorms in the middle of the springtime. So I'll tell you one thing that happened to me is I had ordered – I wanted to do a big push for Easter. So I ordered 500 door hangers. I ordered 1,000 tracks. And I am getting ready to go out. And we're getting ready to go out this Sunday before Easter and pass all these out. And so I have all the tracks and door hangers in a box outside the church office. And I come in and I listen to a seminary class on spiritual warfare. And I didn't think much of it, you know, nice class. An hour later, I get a knock on the door and say, Brother Bray, you've got to come look at this. And so I went out there and there was an AC line in the attic above the church office that had flooded. It had water was, you know, full of – the light fixture was full of water. And it had dripped right on top of my box of tracks. And it ruined like 1,000 tracks. And I was able to salvage the door hangers. And we're still going to go out this coming Sunday and put the door hangers out. But I got up Sunday morning to talk about spiritual warfare and how the devil doesn't want us out passing out tracks. He don't want us inviting people to church. And then we went to go pray for the offering. And I heard a crash, boom, bam. The whole ceiling in front of the church office collapsed while we were in Sunday morning church. And then I got up and I said that when I got to preach, I said, You know, some people say that they don't go to church because the roof will fall in. I don't know whose fault it was. They got a laugh out of that. But, yeah, the spiritual warfare is real. The devil doesn't want us out passing out tracks and inviting people to church. But we're going to go out and do it anyway. So y'all are literally going to be raising the roof here in a couple of weeks. Exactly. Exactly. It's going to be on fire. Yeah. So, hey, got some great things coming up. We're nearing the end of this season of recording. We've got just one more episode, Lord willing, of this Woke series this week. And next week, we'll be wrapping it up. And then we're going to jump into some Bible college series, talking through some different forefathers of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement. We began when John started this podcast four or five years ago. He began talking about J. Frank Norris and what that looked like in his life. And he really led up to, like, the Bob Jones, Bob Gray, J. Frank Norris sort of Lord. He really ended there. So we're going to try to pick up a little bit with Howes Anderson and Jack Howes and sort of follow the thread of the needle from there over the last month of the podcast. And leading up into our summertime, we're already working on some great interviews for next season. And it's going to be a great time. Just excited about what the Lord has given us as far as vision wise and excited about some topics coming up. Hope you've tuned in and hope you've enjoyed it. We've gotten lots of feedback from this series of just talking through some topics that aren't necessarily talked about on our everyday issues. And we want to be faithful with that. And, Brett, we've got Dallas coming up. And, man, it's getting here quick. We are, I mean, two months away from being in Dallas and being right there at the convention and hanging out. And so we're excited about that being down there. And if you're planning on being there, please let us know so we can hang out. We've got some lunches already planned, some dinners already planned with some people. But we'll definitely have you come on, hang out with us. And we'd love to see you. Yes, me. I tell you what. We need a muster point. We need a rendezvous point at Dallas. And if you don't text us, you can meet us. If you go to the Luther Rice booth and you accost a man by the name of Marcus Merritt, and he's going to be our liaison there. And, you know, you tell him that you're for freedom and he'll give you all the free stuff. And so I will tell you that no, no, no plug here on Luther Rice Seminary. But if you want to go there, it's great. They have some of the best merch ever. Like they find some of the coolest mugs, some of the best hats. My son wears their blue hat all the time with the leather patch on it. And they've got some of the coolest merchandise out there. And it's always free. That's awesome. Exactly. And they've got some good swag. And, of course, swag means stuff we all get. And so they've got some good swag there. But also, don't forget, not only are we on the road to Dallas, but we're on the road to Israel. Because we've got Israel coming up in 2026, our Israel trip. It is happening, finally. Our dates are January 30th through February 7th. And we're looking forward to this trip. We've been looking forward to it for a long time. We want you to go with us. And the spots are filling up quick. We need you to, if you want to go, you've got until just a month or two to put in the deposit for that. It's a $4.50 deposit to reserve your spot. Get on the website. Go to our Facebook page. Go to our website. Check it out. See our itinerary on the TRIP website. And put in your registration. Get your deposit down. Secure your spot. We're going to spend over a week in the Holy Land. Going to different places. Places we've been before. Places we've never been. And it'll change your life. I guarantee it'll change your prayer life. Your Bible reading. You'll never look at the Bible the same way again. And I just really want you to go. If you ever, if you have an inkling that you want to go on this trip, check out the website. Read the itinerary. We've got a payment plan. We've got a year to pay on this trip to get it, to get ready to go. And so we are looking forward to our Israel trip. Absolutely. You know, we were talking about Marcus Merritt with his free stuff. Unfortunately, here at the For Freedom Podcast, we don't have the big money back rollers as Luther Rice does. So we have to have some fun adventures to pay for what we do, which is the For Freedom Cigar Line, which we're excited to have and roll out with. And we are excited about what the Lord's doing through it. And the sales that we've had have definitely helped the podcast and helped us update some of the things that we've been doing. Hope you've noticed that with some of our additional editing and some other things that we've been doing. So those things always help and always give value to what we're doing. And so we'd love for you to go over, check out the link to our cigar line in our show notes. And Father's Day is coming up. Maybe your dad enjoys some. This will be a great time for you to grab him a five-pack or a sampler pack for him to have there. And all the prices are on the website at a very discounted rate based on the premium cigar factory that we have. And so hopefully you'll go and check that out as well. And, Ben, we're excited about today's episode. And we're going to jump right into it. And Brett's got our cold open here in just a minute. We cannot truly worship God while we stay silent on injustice in all kinds of areas. And I know as a white pastor, I have blind spots. So I am part of the problem. James, Paul, elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures. And my friends, we must as well. White people fear black men. That's not fair. But it's true. Jesus repents of his racism and extends healing to this woman's daughter. I love this story because it's a reminder that Jesus is human. He had prejudices and bias. And when confronted with it, he was willing to do his work. I believe in the non-binary God whose pronouns are plural. I believe in Jesus Christ, their child, who wore a fabulous tunic and had two dads and saw everyone as a sibling child of God. I believe in the rainbow spirit who shatters our image of one white light and refracts it into a rainbow of gorgeous diversity. I believe in the church of everyday saints, as numerous, creative, and resilient as patches on the ace quilt, whose feet are grounded in mud and whose eyes gaze at the stars in wonder. I believe in the calling to each of us that love is love is love. So, beloved, let us love. I believe, glorious God. Help my unbelief. Amen. This woke self-loathing. And we will never let the woke left take it away. It's because they're putting woke ideology. To a woke mob that can't even tell you what a woman is. In this season of the For Freedom Podcast, we want to bring to you some enlightening topics that deal with the wokeness of the church. We want to bring to light some issues that are often overlooked. And we hope that it will be a blessing to you in your listening experience. There was a church in a small town that had always been a beacon of hope and truth in the community. Pastor David had served there for over 20 years. He was known for his unwavering commitment to God's Word, preaching with clarity and conviction, but also with love and grace. One Sunday after service, a young woman named Sarah came to him. Her eyes filled with emotion. Sarah had grown up in the church, and Pastor David had seen her grow from a child into a woman, always a part of the congregation. But recently, she'd been struggling. She had made choices in her life that didn't align with Scripture, choices that Pastor David had always taught against. With a trembling voice, Sarah said, Pastor, I need you to understand. I need your support. I feel like I'm losing everything. If I'm honest, I feel like you're turning your back on me because of my choices. Doesn't love mean accepting people for who they are, no matter what? Pastor David paused, looking at her, his heart heavy. He loved Sarah like a daughter. He had prayed for her, walked alongside her, and wanted nothing more than to see her walk in God's truth. But in that moment, he faced a dilemma. His love for Sarah was real, but so was his commitment to God's Word. Sarah's words echoed in his mind long after the conversation ended. Doesn't love mean accepting people for who they are, no matter what? It was a question that many pastors, churches, and believers are wrestling with today. The culture is pushing for a love that accepts everything. No questions asked. No boundaries drawn. But the gospel tells us something different. It calls us to love without compromise. To offer grace, but also to speak the truth in love. This story, while deeply personal, is a reflection of the larger issue the church is facing. Can we truly love without compromising God's truth? Welcome back to the For Freedom podcast. I'm your host, Brett, here with James. Thanks for tuning in again. And we're continuing our series in Freedom from Wokeness. And where we're discussing how to live out God's truth in a world that often tries to, you know, redefine truth. We've talked about that a lot through this series, James. And today's topic is so important. It's close to my heart because I've got family members. And not only church members that I'm having to navigate this subject with. And I know that there are other listeners out there that they have family members also that they may be working through this with. But the title of the subject is Freedom to Love Without Compromise. And this is just an important discussion because so many people today think that in order to love someone, it means that we have to compromise what the Word of God says. Yeah, exactly, Brett. And, you know, the truth is true love is rooted in God's truth. It is where we get truth from, where we get love from. The Bible says that love is from God because God is love. And it's about standing firm on our faith and loving people without watering down what we believe. So today we're going to be discussing this topic and we're going to dive into this topic of how the modern culture has pressured us to compromise love. How the church has responded and what scripture says about loving without compromise. Right. So let's get into it. So let's start with the culture that we live in. It feels like everywhere we turn, we hear that loving people means accepting everything about them, even behaviors that go against what God says in scripture. How do you how do you see this playing out today in society? Yeah, modern culture often promotes the idea that love equals total acceptance of someone's actions and their lifestyle, regardless of whether those actions align with biblical truth. The idea of loving without judgment is often twisted to mean that if we disagree with someone's choices, we're not loving them. In reality, true love cares enough to speak the truth, even when it's uncomfortable. You know, there's often times where we are the voice of reason in the desert and our voice of reason is what is going to cause someone to begin that journey of questioning. When we speak the truth in love without compromising what we believe. Exactly. You know, there are so many people out there, their life verse is, you know, judge not lest you be judged. It's the only that's the only verse in the Bible that they know is judge not lest you be judged. You know, you're not supposed to judge me, you know, but I think the pressure to accept and embrace things that go against God's word has really ramped up. You see it in the LGBTQ plus debate, for instance, where people are told that if they truly love others, they have to endorse things like same sex marriage, even if they don't align with what scripture says about marriage between a man and a woman. You know, how do we navigate that, James? We've seen so much. We've seen these people, these Christian business owners that they work on wedding cakes or they have wedding venues and they're having to, you know, deny doing business because somebody's that because a same sex relationship doesn't align with their with their beliefs. And then they're these only business owners. They're persecuted because of their religious beliefs and they're called haters and they're called prejudice and things like that when it's actually a loving thing that they're doing. Yeah, but I think that's a perfect example. This is a great thing to look at. And I think the first and foremost thing and really the most biblical thing we can do is be clear. Loving someone doesn't mean I'm going to affirm every choice they make. I think that we've confused love with approval. We can love people while calling while still calling them to something higher, the gospel. But it's about speaking the truth in love, not compromising the gospel just to make someone feel comfortable in today's day and age. Right. We want to show love towards people, but we don't want to accept and feel like they were accepting what they're doing. For instance, if I have a friend who is LGBTQ and they have a wedding, I'm not going to go to that wedding because as a witness of that wedding, I am endorsing what is going on there. And so I'm going to love them. I'm going to care for them. I'm going to have lunch with them. I'm going to have dinner with them. We're going to hang out. I'm going to share the gospel with them. But I'm not going to show up and support what they're doing in a public manner because that is me endorsing. Still can love them, but we're not endorsing what they're doing. Exactly. What was in that? I can't remember the name of the preacher, but it's the same pastor that talked about. He had a video one time about the man on the middle cross said I could go in. Was it Sinclair or was it a. No, it wasn't Sinclair. It was a. I don't know about them. Yeah, I'll look it up while you're talking. But he's you know, he said that that same guy he had made this this this pastor had stood up and said this woman had asked him, should I go to this LGBTQ wedding, even though I don't align with it? And then this pastor, same pastor, said, yes, he would go. I think that's a compromise. OK, I don't think that's that's the right decision. I agree with you in there. Alistair Begg. Alistair Begg. That's it. That's it. He said that he would go to the wedding to show them love. I don't know. And the point of what we're talking about today is that's actually not a loving thing to do. It actually shows that you love yourself more than you love that person or that you love God's truth. Let's talk about the church. OK, because unfortunately, it has been it hasn't been immune to this cultural pressure. Many churches have compromised on biblical truths in an attempt to be more inclusive, especially issues like sexuality, gender and marriage. How have you seen this play out within the church, James? Yeah, you know, there's been a trend where churches soften their stance on sin, especially sexual sin. They avoid alienating people. But the reality is the church's mission isn't to make people feel good about their sin. It is to help people understand that the grace and freedom found in Jesus Christ by compromising God's truth. We're not loving people. We're actually enabling them to stay in bondage. But I'm often reminded of how many times Jesus sat down with the prostitutes and the tax collectors and he had a meal with them and he told them, go and sin no more. He didn't sit down with them and say, well, it's really nice that you guys are here with me. Isn't the weather nice outside? This is great. Let's have a great let's let's do this again someday. No, he sat there and he he brought them in and he said, what you're doing is wicked and it's wrong. And I love you so much to tell you the truth. And therefore, he loved them and told them that they need to repent and sin no more. Exactly. How many how many Pharisees actually came to a saving faith in Jesus because he wasn't afraid to tell the Pharisees the truth? He wasn't afraid to hurt their feelings because of that, you know, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. And there are other Pharisees that came to faith in Christ because Jesus was not afraid to tell them that they were on a destructive path. And I think that's the key. Love doesn't let someone stay on a destructive path. So when the church compromises, it may look loving on the surface, but it is not helping people in the long run. People need to be set free from the lies they believe, not just affirmed in their sin. James, I scroll through TikTok probably more than I should, but I scroll through TikTok and I see these videos of these churches, these progressive pastors promoting a church that, man, we are all inclusive and we're LGBTQ affirming and and all this stuff. And that's not what what true love is. True love is not affirming sin. It's not redefining what the Bible says. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. You hit the nail on the head. And, Brett, I'll tell you, I've seen churches where they've accepted all kinds of behaviors just to be relevant or culturally acceptable. Our line goes right now to the United Methodist Church where they accepted homosexuality. They've accepted transgender pastors and they've accepted women pastors. And at the end of the day, that's not what God has called us to be. God has called us to be a beacon of truth and a beacon of light, a city on a hill. And what we have done, even when it's difficult, is we've avoided that. And when we begin to see these other denominations and other churches and other organizations accept this, we begin to see the gradual downfall of them accepting sin versus accepting the righteousness of Christ. The Bible says that when we lift up Christ, he will draw all men unto himself. We are not responsible to stand up and accept people and tell them that what they're doing is right. We are to get up and preach the truth of Christ and let Christ bring all men to himself and let him be the judge and let him be the one that convicts their soul. Our job is to get up and tell them the truth and tell them the truth without compromise. Exactly. The church's message isn't come in and stay the same. Yeah, the church's message is come in and Jesus will change you. He will make you a new creature. He will he will do in your heart a new thing. He will, you know, take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. The church should be a place where people are shown the way to freedom, not a place where we compromise God's truth to fit into the world. We're called to be separate from the world, to be separate from the world's sin, not make the world's sin acceptable in the church. But, you know, we need to ask the question. What does scripture say? So we're going to turn to the scripture now because that's where we find the foundation for how we're supposed to love others. We're the who what defines this for Christians is the Bible. So, James, what do you think are some key verses that speak to this idea of loving without compromise? Yeah, I think let's start at Ephesians. You know, it's a passage that we are familiar with. And then we'll go to some more that we're maybe not as familiar with. But Ephesians 415, it says that a foundational verse that what we should have here is it says, instead of speaking the truth in love, we grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head that is in Christ. It's clear here that love doesn't mean avoiding hard truth. It says we speak the truth in love. And that's how we grow in Christ and help others grow as well. We begin to challenge. I was meeting with the counselee this morning and I was telling him, I said, we begin to sharpen iron with another harder substance of iron. And it's not a fun process. I said, it is painful. There are sparks. I said, but in the end of the day, they both have become sharper. And this is what love does. When we begin to sharpen each other with love and speak truth and hard truth to each other, we both begin to get sharper. And we must be people who are speaking truth and love. That's really, that's a really good verse that you brought up. I want to go back. I want to read the verse before that verse. It's verse 14 says, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human coming, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather or instead speaking the truth in love. So that right there. And that's what the new church, the modern church, the progressive church is doing. Tossing about, you know, to and fro with all this different doctrine. Let's redefine words. These these orthodox truths that the church has believed for 2000 years. Let's redefine them. Let's bring in a new doctrine. Let's bring in a new teaching. And, you know, Paul said, no, no, don't don't do that. Just speak the truth in love. Don't speak the truth as a way to because you hate someone, throw a verse at them to condemn them. You want to speak the truth in love. Say, look, this is the way that you need to believe or, you know, it's not going to be the right way. So that's a powerful, powerful verse because it shows that love and truth aren't opposites. In fact, they work together. Another verse I love is John 15, 13, where Jesus says, greater love has no one than this to lay down one's life for one's friends. Jesus is the ultimate example of love. His love wasn't about compromising God's truth. It was about making the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. And James, just like you said earlier, you can look at the example of Jesus's life. Jesus didn't sugarcoat it for anyone. He told the woman that was caught in adultery. Yes. Yes. He, he loved her. He protected her. He said, where are thine accusers? Neither do I condemn you. But then what did he say? He said, go and sin no more. He didn't say you didn't do anything wrong. He didn't say we need to accept you for who you are. He said, go and sin no more. Yes, I forgive you, but you need to not do that anymore. Okay. You, you need to repent and you need to get right. If I could say an amen to that preacher, Brett, let's go, baby. As we continue on looking at some passages here, 1 Corinthians 13, six classic love passage. I'm sure you thought we were going to get there and we are. I read this passage yesterday. I did a wedding for my, my nephew. I was there to help marry him and his new bride. And, and I always like to read 1 Corinthians 13. If they don't ask me, I will anyways. If they want it there, then of course I do. But this is, it's one of those classic verses. And, and 1 Corinthians 13, six says it like this. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rather it rejoices in truth. You see, love is not about excusing sin. Oftentimes we want to say, I love you and I'm okay with what you're doing. No, it says that if we do that, we're rejoicing in the wrongdoing, but it's about holding onto the truth of God's word and deeply caring for other people. Who are we to look at someone and not tell them they're drowning and about to die and allow them to go under without giving them the life giving, the life saving power of the gospel. What we're doing is, is it's, I give this illustration often. We're seeing someone drown in a pool and we're walking by and saying, Hey, hope you get better. As we walk away with the life jacket wrapped around our arm. Or we could throw that into them and we could say, Hey, grab onto this, grab onto the truth. This is going to save you. And yet we don't do that. We hold onto it because we like holding onto it and just hoping that someone's going to get better. When we have the gospel, we have the hope of Jesus Christ. And it is telling the people there, we love them. And this is what they need to do to change for the gospel. And yet we hold onto it without telling them. That's really good. That's really good, James. And, and then of course, let's look at Jude chapter one, verses 22 through 23. It gives a powerful example of how we can love without compromise. It says, be merciful to those who doubt, save others by snatching them from the fire. The others show mercy mixed with fear, hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. This is a picture of loving people enough to pull them out of the danger. Even if it's uncomfortable, we have to snatch them out of the fire. I was thinking of an illustration of when I took my boys hunting this past year. We're walking to the deer stand and one of them is holding the gun incorrectly. And I, I could say in my mind, you know, if I got onto him, he might not like me. So, you know, I'll just stand clear and, and not, you know, I want, I care about what he thinks about me. But my real love is to say, hey, you're holding that gun wrong. You're going to hurt somebody. This is how you need to do it. And, and it's a snatch others from the fire, show mercy mixed with fear. So that, that, so now that we talked about culture, the church's compromise and what scripture says, here's the big question. What should the church do to love without compromise? James, how do you think the church can stay faithful to God's truth while still showing love to the world? Yeah, I think it's part of what we've been saying the whole time. Something that I'm really passionate about. When I, when someone steps into the counseling room, I don't know how long I'm going to have them. I don't know how long they're going to be in that room with me. And if they come back. And so what I want to do is I want to give them as much truth as I possibly can. I want to give them the clear picture of the full gospel. And I believe that's what the church needs to do. We need to get back to the basics. We need to get back to preaching the full gospel. We can't water down God's word. We can't avoid conflicts. The church must be a place where truth is spoken in love and where people are challenged to live according to God's word. We must create a space for people to hear truth, even if it's hard, but with grace and compassion. I just got done this past Sunday, Brett preaching on Stephen's faithful message to the unfaithful people. And he got up and he preached on Moses and Abraham and Joseph and how these were the patriarchs. And yet they rejected them. They rejected true worship. They rejected their forefathers and they ultimately rejected Jesus. And I believe that is what has happened. We have rejected the gospel and we have replaced it with something that makes people feel good. And we must get back to the place where we stand up and we stand firm on the word of God. And we preach the word unadulterated. We preach the word fully and we allow the gospel to penetrate our hearts. Right. You know, I think that the church needs to I agree with that. The church needs to be bold. There's a fine line between being compassionate and being afraid of confrontation. We have to stop being afraid to speak the truth, even when it goes against the grain of the world. We can't allow cultural pressures to shape our theology. And excuse me, you talked about you preached on Stephen Sunday. One of the people that I preached on was Pilate and Pilate's sin for why Jesus died was feared because he was trying to he was. Pilate was trying to have his cake and eat it, too. He was trying to let Jesus go. But at the same time, he was trying to pacify the Jews. So he's trying to be just and unjust at the same time. He was he tried four different times to compromise Jesus. But never once would he stand firm and assert, look, Jesus is innocent. I'm not going to do anything to him. I'm going to let him go. He refused to do that because he was afraid of the people. And I think that that's what the church is doing today. The church is afraid to stand with Jesus because they're afraid what the world will think of them. The other day I called myself an evangelical and I had somebody say, why do you use that word? People today, the young people, they hear the word evangelical and they just get turned off. You're just turning people off the church by using that word. I'm not I'm not ashamed of the word evangelical. It's a biblical word is from the Greek word. You on the lay on. And I'm it's a biblical word. And I am an evangelical. And it means reaching people with the gospel. And I am not about to let that word be ruined or compromise. I'm not going to be ashamed of it either because we don't need to. We don't need to be compromised. To compromise with Jesus is to reject him because there is no compromise with Jesus. And that's what the church has been doing. Yeah, absolutely. And also, we cannot forget this main power, the power of prayer. We need to pray for wisdom and discernment to know how to love without compromise. And we need to pray for the courage to stand firm on God's word, no matter what the world says. Exactly right. And we need to be a place where people can come as they are, but aren't expected to stay that way. When people encounter Christ, they should experience a transformation, not just an affirmation. The church is a hospital, is a place where people or sick people come to get well. You don't have to get well before you come to the hospital. But also, you don't expect to come to the hospital and stay sick either. You want to come to the hospital and get well. Yeah. Well, that wraps up our discussion today. The truth is love and truth are not opposites. If we want to love others the way God loves them, we have to speak truth and love and never compromise on what he says. Yeah, you're exactly right, Brett. And as the church, as the body of believers across the world, we've got to be the ones that lead by example. We've got to show the world that real freedom is found in loving others without compromising God's truth. And I believe we can do that through the model of Jesus, the model of Paul, the model of the apostles, by allowing us to love without compromising the truth of the gospel. Exactly. Exactly. So thanks for tuning in today. We hope we challenge you today. We encourage you today. And James, why don't you give us our final word? Absolutely. Until next time, to God be the glory. Great things he has done. Found my new name. Found that good grace. Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. Has no ending. Found that second chance. Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. Found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast. For Freedom Podcast.

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