How Should Men Protect Their Families? | Costi Hinn & Travis Allen | EP 169

Foreign. Welcome to the for the Gospel podcast, where we are all about sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Costi Hinn, and on today's episode, we are jumping into a topic on manhood that's in line with the series we've been on with Pastor Travis Allen that I think a lot of men want to talk about. And if you've never thought about this, you. You should. The main question, the title of this episode is how should men protect their Family? Travis, welcome back, brother. Thanks for having me. Kosti. It's looking forward to this conversation. I think it's, I think it's gonna be a good one. I love the questions you're posing in this, this episode in particular. Yeah. Well, I'm excited to have you for a few reasons. One, you're a pastor, a faithful pastor at Grace Church in Greeley, Colorado. So you know the word. You're theologically astute. I've known that for years about you and appreciate that on the other side, or I guess you could say along with that, you are somebody who has law enforcement background and experience. You're a former Navy seal. So this conversation about protection and the family is going to have a lot of balance. I know that, but also a lot of biblical clarity. Let me throw it out there and give you sort of the preface to this. You're in northern Colorado. I'm in the East Valley of the Phoenix area. Both of us live in places where we have guns, carry guns, we like to hunt. I mean, you don't have a problem with sort of that, that old school American way in our regions. Other people may live in other places that are completely different. Of course they do. And one of the most talked about hypotheticals in these manhood conversations that you may hear. I may hear is, you know, what would you do if somebody attacked your wife and kids? What would you do if somebody tried to break into your home? Or, you know, if a road rager was following my wife and somebody was bullying my kids, or, you know, a host of other unique situations filled with variables and nuances. I think there's something inside of us as men that thinks about those things. We watch movies. I don't know about you. I want to watch sanctified movies, in a sense, or not filthy movies. But there's this part of me, if a movie is not too gory and not too foul, it's got a good, clear theme where there is a man who is solving some major issue of justice or needs to protect the innocent. Those things get me Fired up. As a man, I love when men protect. There's something in us that God's put in us. There's ditches, two ditches, and then it's all you ditch number one, the bravado of, you know, come get some, let's see what you got. You know, a little bit of that cocky mentality where a Christian man uses that, that edge and goes after it a little much and then you've got the other ditch. I would say, and you tell me if I'm wrong, but of this over passive approach where because Jesus laid his life down, if you come and try to kill my wife, I'm just gonna say, oh, you know, let's go into glory. Take me too, or I, well, I just would never pull a trigger. All those things, a huge deal. How should a man's attitude and mindset be framed when we come to this subject? How do we avoid those ditches? Give us the Navy SEAL biblical wisdom. Should we do some jiu jitsu and be prepared to protect ourselves? Take us away, man. Let's go. Well, hey, great setup. Yeah, let me, let me see. Where to, where to dive in on this. First of all, let's just, let's just talk about the Lord Jesus Christ and, and I think that he is, he can be portrayed, I think, by both sides in the debate and used, you know, Luther talked about how his opponents used Christ like a wax nose. They would just form him and shape him however they wanted him to be. And I think that both sides of the debate, you know, on, on the, the, the gun toting, second amendment quoting side of the debate, they want to form Jesus into a lot like themselves, that if, if, you know, they, they always point to the temple cleansing and say, that's angry Jesus going in there, he's cleaning house and he's, you know, he's showing his power and all that. And, and on the other side of it, those who say, oh no, Jesus, meek and mild, would never, would never do anything violent. And I just have to say both of those positions are wrong. You know, Jesus, when, on the night that he was betrayed and arrested, when all the arresting authorities came to him and the soldiers were there, they came, he says, who are you seeking? They said, jesus, Jesus. And he said, I am he. And they all fell down. It just, just through his word. He didn't have to, he didn't have to hit them physically. He just speaks and they fall, they fall to the ground and he was showing power as, as they hit, as they hit the ground, they shake Shake, shake the cobwebs out of their head and say, what just happened? They step up and they say, who are you seeking? He says, who are you seeking? They say, Jesus, he said, well, I am. He let these ones go. What's he doing? He's protecting there, isn't He? Did he use physical means to protect? Absolutely he did. He protected his disciples. And you know, he's gone. He's of all that he is, that the Father has given him. He's not going to lose any one of them. The Father is a protecting father. He is, he is one who girds on his sword and the Lord Jesus Christ, when he returns, he's going to gird on his sword and come and, and deal down death and destruction in his justice and his judgment. So you know, I, I just don't want to characterize, characterize the Lord Jesus Christ as just being, you know, limp wristed or, or reluctant to use violence. There is a place for violence. There's a place for, you know, use of violence and protection and for him to use violence in executing justice. Certainly Romans 13, you know, these are the government officials. They don't bear the sword in vain. They, they have the sword because they're going to use the pointy end to enforce law, enforce order, execute justice. And they are ministers of God for the sake of righteousness. So I, you know, I just don't want to go on that side, on the other side. I don't want to, I don't want to shape Jesus into justifying uprisings against the government and you know, undue violence and a go ahead and make my day kind of an attitude. I think that our, our mentality when it comes to protection, I mean, we're men and God is hardwired us to protect and provide, to care for people, to look out for the vulnerable and the weak. And that's part of our leadership is to, is to see those who need our protection, bring them in under the COVID of our protection, care for them and make sure that violent and you know, aggressive and evil actors don't harm the vulnerable and don't harm the weak. So that's, that's what our military is for. That's what law enforcement is for. I think that our, as Christian men, our orientation toward all these matters should be love. Christ commands us to love even our enemies. And so we have to have a mentality that is, that sees violence really as a last resort, not something that we're just waiting for someone to cross the threshold of our door so we can shoot him in the chest. That's. There's no. There's no sense of kindness. I mean, violence. You know, there are times we have to take measures like that, but violence against someone's person creates a barrier to the gospel. I would prefer that that guy who's going to rob my house doesn't cross the threshold and get. Gets shot. I'd. I'd rather say, hey, listen, let's talk about your covetous heart or your lazy laziness and not getting a job or whatever it is that's driving you. Let's talk about your drug, you know, your drug habit that you're feeding. Let's. Let's talk about whatever's driving you. I want to see you saved. I don't want to see him shot. I don't want to see my, you know, me be able to practice, you know, do target practice on a human being. So there are times you need to use. Take violent action to protect your family, to protect the innocent, to protect, you know, someone who's being hassled in a parking lot or something like that. You need to step in and intervene. That's. It's a manly thing to put oneself in harm's way and step between a violent aggressor, someone who has evil intent, and those who are vulnerable and weak and can't fend for themselves. That's a. That's a. That's a righteous thing to do. I hope that times like that are rare, not frequent. I mean, I think if they're frequent, you need to consider changing your zip code or maybe changing your behavior as you're. Where are you walking around? I mean, are you wearing red in Crips territory? Are you wearing blue and Bloods territory? Maybe you shouldn't be doing that. You know, maybe you should really take a look at your wardrobe and have exercise more. More wisdom. But, you know, when you think about. Think about a reluctance. Back to the people who are reluctant to use violence or for Christian to use violence. Just. Just take it into your own home. Think about a. Raising a family and a rebellious teenager who, you know, a young guy who's. Who's struggling with his hormones. His hormones and testosterone is flying all over the place. And he doesn't have control over his passions, and he's tending to lose his temper and creating a bad environment in the home. And then he starts hitting his siblings or even maybe raising violence, raising his fist against his mother. Is it a righteous thing as a father to allow that to happen within your own home? Of course not. No. Christian man is going to say that's acceptable. They're going to see that, that, that young man in their, in their home, their son, they're going to take him aside and say, this is not going to happen anymore. You're going to put a stop to that right away. So if you're going to do that within your own home and seeing, seeing that young man's siblings and that young man's mother, who is your wife, you're going to see them as the vulnerable who need to be protected. And that young man is someone who needs to be sorely corrected, rebuked and shaped so that he doesn't think that way anymore. How much more someone who's hopped up on drugs, who wants to break into your house and do violence to your family anyway. So that's one side of it, and there's another side of it, too. But do you have a follow up? Because I've got something else I want to say. I do. Let me ask you a question just so we can get a concise answer on this. That was phenomenal and super helpful. And I think I know where you're going to go next, and I'm excited. The question, I guess I would say is if somebody in your church or in mine or somebody comes up to you and says, so, Travis, you're saying that even though the Bible says thou shalt not murder, that somehow this would be the pushback. Somehow it's okay to take a life if it meant preserving your own or your wife or your children. How do you reconcile thou shalt not murder with if as a last resort, you had to take life or your actions took life, that that's allowable and that God sees that as acceptable. Yeah. So, you know, I think, I think our thinking as Christians has to be informed through Scripture. And certainly when we go back through, you know, I know we're not living under the Mosaic economy where, you know, we're living in a theocracy, God is our king, and, you know, we're living under the times of, of Moses and the prophets or the judges. We're living in the time of the, Israel's monarchy, where we have the, the law of Moses. It's basically our law code. We're not living in that. But I do think that that is a very high form of, of jurisprudence, probably the highest form. It is, it is excellent for its day, for its time, for what it was, for what it was shaping and forming and protecting in, in Israel's society, Israel's economy. And I think we need to go back and see that there are times when taking of a life to protect property and, and person is justified. So God did say in the Ten Commandments, thou shall not kill. And the reason you said thou shalt not murder is because that's the implication of the law. But it does say thou shalt not kill. And yet you see God commanding Israel to go and kill. And, and you know, there are people who would accuse God and Israel of genocide because God did say, I want you to wipe out the Ammonites, I want you to wipe out the Amalekites. I want you to wipe them out completely. Don't leave anybody alive. Why is that? Just because God is the just giver of laws. And when he says, it's time for me to use my theocratic nation to execute justice and judgment upon these people, that nation needs to obey what God has told them to do. And so we see that there's a killing there that the nation is commanded to do. And it's not murder. It's the execution of God's judgment. It's not okay for us to take that and apply it personally. It's not okay for us to, for any nation to take those laws and apply them basically arbitrarily to themselves. But you can also see where God is no respecter of persons, even though that nation Israel is his covenant people. He also commanded Babylon and commanded the Assyrians and commanded, you know, commanded them to go and execute justice on his own people. So God does uphold justice and he brings other nations in to judge his covenant people. And that resulted in death, resulted in the judgment of wicked people. So you could see also the, you know, there are, there are capital offenses that God commands. You know, if you take a life, your life shall be taken from you. So a life for a life, the eye for an eye, the lex talionis. So I think that, you know, again, we need to go back in the Old Testament and see that not all, not all killing is murder. And there is, there is killing that is justified. There is killing that's a part of jurisprudence that must take place. But otherwise you're robbing humanity of justice, robbing your society of justice. So when it comes to, when it comes to personal issues, again, threats against personal property, fear of death, fear of harm, concern to protect the weak. That's defended in Scripture. And I think, I think we need to, you know, I think that again, when we just look at our own country and where we live, that's what the second Amendment provision is for. It's so that you can protect your life and your property, you can protect the people that you're, you're kind of mandated protect by God. You know, you have, you have the means to protect yourself through bearing arms because the government, you know, police force cannot always be at your doorstep immediately when you need them, you know, so then you're going to have to take matters into your own hands. I just think that your, your instinct as a Christian should not be to, to really long for that or fantasize about that or hope that that's going to happen. You, you don't want to, you don't want to execute people. You don't want to execute violence against them. You want to, you want to protect and preserve life. But it's that desire to protect and preserve life that, that desire to protect and preserve life means. It's, it's, it's the life of your, the ones you're most responsible for to protect and preserve, but your desire to protect and preserve other people too. So sometimes that desire to protect and preserve life means that somebody else who's threatening that they've got to go down, they've got to be stopped, you know, But I would say even love for your enemies, even love for someone who's coming to do harm to your family if you just, if you just let them have their way, what you're doing for that, that perpetrator, that aggressor, is you're allowing that person to pile more and more sins and guilt before God. So good, great wisdom. Can you take us where you want to go now on the other side of things? Yeah, Yeah, I just, I just think that in, in this convers, I, I, I, I don't mind the question and I, I'll have that conversation at any time. But I think that, I think that sometimes or oftentimes we like to consider the extreme cases and, and kind of, kind of let that, the extreme infrequent, less common, rare situation, let that dominate our mind and our conversation and think we've kind of done justice to the topic. I think we need to consider what is the biggest concern we have about men providing and protecting for their families. Say the biggest concern isn't the rare and extreme case of a violent aggressor coming into Our homes, because that is rare, hopefully rare. We need to consider more in the issue of provision, protection, the subtle effect of bad influences and weak churches on our families. So let me give you an illustration. Suppose that you had your wife, your family, you know, you're going to work all the time. Your wife and your family, they're going to a doctor pretty regularly, maybe every. Every six months, every quarter, whatever. Kids have to go get a general practitioner. Your wife and your family go in there for a few years. You really like. They really like this dog doctor. He does a good job. He's very friendly. He's. They've actually met the wife, the family, they do play dates together. They, you know, just. There's a. There's a real flow of life and enjoyment and all that and a real trust. You discover, though, that he has been administering to your wife and your family treatments that you've discovered are actually harmful. That the treatments that he's been giving them with every single visit, over time weakens their immune system. It starts to run them down. It makes them more susceptible. It makes them more susceptible to serious disease, defects, disabilities, and will eventually lead to death. So you go and talk to the doctor, and he not only hasn't really researched the treatments he's giving, he just. He just thinks that it has a good effect in the moment. He sees that, that their spirits are uplifted, that they feel better. And you're saying, listen, I've seen some research on this. I've got some good data behind me. And he says, yeah, I don't really care to investigate that. I'm going to keep going. So you go back to your wife and kids and say, I'm sorry, we're not going to go see this general practitioner anymore. Here's what I found out. And your wife and your kids violently protest your. Your kids throw tantrums because they love those kids. And your wife says, I know his wife, she's a dear woman and he's a very friendly guy. And we're embedded. We've been doing this for years. What are you gonna do? What's your responsibility to do as a man? It's to stand up and do what they can't do. It's to break those relationships off and pull them out and get them into a good doctor that you trust. You know, he's given them good treatments, good, sound advice. That is the situation that what I've just described. That's the situation that many men, many husbands are in with regard to the weak churches that they attend every Single week. They're putting their families underneath a pulpit that out of it is flowing this insipid stuff that's not just weak, but it's really bad doctrine. And they're poisoning their families with awful theology that's, that's maybe not going to. Maybe going to lift them up in the moment, but over time, it's weakening them. They're slowly poisoning themselves, their families. But because the wife and the kids are happy and because they have good relationships there, they don't want to rock the boat and they don't leave. They just stay put. And the effect of all that poison eventually is it's debilitating them. It's making them more suggestible to other bad theology. It's making them. It's weakening their. Their immune system, which is called discernment. And eventually it kills them all over a lifetime. So I just wanted. I just want to say that's. That is actually the more, the greater danger than an actual robber coming into your house or, you know, a heroin addict or a meth addict coming into your house and robbing you. The greater danger is what kind of influences are you putting your family under? How. What kind of influence are you. Are you allowing what's getting in underneath your radar? Because you're not. You're not really equipped. You may go out to the gun range and really tune up your shooting skills and make sure you got side alignment and trigger control and all that stuff, and you can shoot really tight groups. Okay, great. That's. That's for that odd occasion that may come up once in a lifetime, twice. What about what's coming on into your family week in, week out? Are you actually sharpening up your skills to discern between good and bad men? That's your job. It's your job to make sure that the influences that you're taking your family into in, In a church on a regular basis or also this. Do you know what your kids are looking at on the Internet? Do you. What kind of stuff are you allowing your family to be entertained by? Years ago, I remember, you know, there were a number of Christian families just, you know, raving about certain Disney movies. And I'm. I'm just saying, man, that is the most woke garbage that I've ever seen. Are you. Are you serious? At least if you're going to take them and just at least have the conversation after to say, totally, kids. I know that's a. That's a very beautiful song. And I know, I know the artistry and everything is incredible. You know, the beautiful Images and stuff like that. But let me just tell you what's coming. What's being freighted in through, totally through that. It's. There's doctrine there. Yeah, The. The movie theater is often. That's. That's Satan's pulpit. That's the devil's pulpit. He loves to preach and, and use that medium. So let's talk about the theology. Let's talk about the, the. The views of God that are coming out of that. Let's talk about the views of humanity. Let's talk really. Are we all really good? Do we all have a little light of the divine in us? Do we. Do we just need to believe in believing? Is that really. What does the Bible say about this? Men aren't doing that because they're not really engaged in that level. It's because they said they think. That's not my job. No, it is your job. I mean, go back to Genesis 1 and 2. What, what, what harm did Adam see right there in the middle of a beautiful garden, one tree. You eat of that fruit, you're gonna die. And that. That's gotta. That's gotta, you know, grab his heartstrings and make him love his wife and say, I don't want to see any. I don't want to see her die. So I'm gonna teach her. I'm gonna. I'm gonna instruct her. I'm gonna help her to understand not only the physical threat, but that physical threat just a consequence for a moral concern. And I want to teach her moral reasoning and moral thinking. Because our relationship with God is based on obedience and submission to his will, submission to his word, loving his goodness and obeying and following his restrictions. So anyway, men, I just want to call you to be the provider and protector in all things. And do not neglect the most common threat to your family, which is oftentimes coming out of weak pulpits and coming through your. Your TV screens and your. Your video screens, wherever they are. So good. So what I'm not hearing is you say, you know, protection is stick them all in a bubble. You can't go to the movies. You never engage in anything. You can't watch sports. You just like the holy huddle and, you know, go live on a farm and. And be a. Be Amish. I didn't hear that. What I heard was you take the same approach that most men would if their kid was in sports. They're not silent about what went on on the field. They just shape and train. What? My last question, then we'll end the plane on this one. Because that. There's not much more to say. You've literally hit the bullseye on this one thing though. Help us pastorally. What. What keeps men from seeing that, that gap. Like, my voice is still a little bit like this because this weekend, you know, fired up my boys basketball playoffs. Like, I'm not silent cheering my kid. I'm also not silent about, like telling them, hey, here's the four things you nailed. Hey, these two things, let's work on that. I'm vocally like, whether that's diet, food, physicality, sports. As men, we're not silent about all these things. We're going to be an expert on last real quick. I gotta tell you this. We have a group of guys at our church that we have a strong security team that just the way the Lord did it. There's a bunch of guys in law enforcement, like, we want to serve. Can we start this? And I was like, no green room, no green room. And I don't. Like, my uncle had eight of them. So just, you guys can do your thing to keep. Keep the campus safe. I get it. Watch the pastors, watch the kids. But like, please don't nothing weird. Like, we don't need headsets and suits and ties and like, you know. So in that though, those guys go shooting and they hone their skills. It's so fun. I hear about the shooting range. I hear about the things they do. This is what men do. We go all out to train, to sharpen, and then we share that knowledge. What's the gap? Why do we go all of a sudden to a church and go, well, you know, I don't want it. What is that? Is it fear? Or is. Is Satan really good at pr? Like, are we buying into the lie that. That, like, why do we go all out? I'd fight just to use the term. I'd fight my wife, if you will, on what my kid needs to do to be better. Like, honey, I know what he needs to do. I got this. Like, a lot of men will say that. Or, sweetheart, I need to go like, why do we have to have guns? My wife doesn't say that, but if she did, I'd say, sweetheart, it's good to protect. Like, for as men, we fight for so much and we stake our claim in the home and we steer the home and man our wives, eventually they may be like, what are you doing? They follow because they see the man is passionate. Yeah, why don't we do that with the church stuff and the culture stuff and just Teach, what's the gap? How would you encourage me if I was one of your congregants? Yeah, yeah, great question. I love the way you frame that. I, it's. There are instincts, you know, instinct sounds too much like we're part of the animal world, but you know what I mean, their instincts within a man. There are instincts within a woman. You know, a woman becomes a mother for the first time. You've watched it with your wife. I mean, when my wife had our first child and then I just saw it continue with all the kids. But when she, when she had our first child, it was like a switch was flipped and all of a sudden just something turned on that I hadn't seen before. She just knew what to do. I mean, not perfect, she had things to learn, but man, she just knew what to do. She just, it was instinctually wound, you know, wired into her where she knew, here's what he needs and here's what I need to do and here's how this got to go. And I mean her, her whole mentality changed. Not. And my, my respect for my wife just shot through the roof. And as I continue to watch her sacrifice and give herself and nurturing and caring for the kids, men are, men have those instincts as well, but just in a different direction for a different provision and protection for the kids. You know, a lot of times moms have that short term compassion for the kids. You know, if they fall down, skin their knee, they're, they're there to, you know, wipe away the tears and you know, help with the kiss, the boo boo and all that stuff where men are like, ah, you know what? Life is filled with pain. Just rub some dirt on it, get back in the game. Because life is pain, you know, and why? Is it because we don't care for our children? No, it's because we know that life does have a lot of that kind of stuff and you gotta, you gotta work through pain and difficulty and challenge. So yeah, I mean, we have long term compassion, our wives have short term compassion, but those are kind of instinctual things. And I would say the same thing with, when bringing it back to your question, things like physical violence and protection, the world we live in need to be tough and hard and all that kind of stuff that just kind of instinctually makes sense to us. It's easy, you know. You know what's hard is to fight for the fruit of the spirit. That's hard. It's hard to, it's hard to deal with the heart. It's hard to deal with subtle bad doctrine. Those things are really difficult. And that's difficult across the board. Men and women, you know, we have to work against maybe, maybe our instincts can lead to like an overreaction with violence. We easily justify that and just kind of excuse it and say, well, you know, had to do what I had to do. You know, men got to be men. A woman who goes, you know, she's a little bit too strong in her short term compassion. And so she's always chasing her husband away every time he wants to teach longer term compassion, she's letting her instincts go too far and she justifies it and excuses it as well. You know, I'm just, I care for my child and I, you know, don't want to see him hurt, don't want to see her hurt. I think, I think we always are warring against maybe a, a distortion of our instincts because of the sin nature, because of the fallen world we live in. And so it is hard for us because we are born into this world, spiritually dead, need to be born again before we have spiritual life. Once that spiritual life comes to us by the Spirit's regeneration being born again, we have a new nature. But that new nature isn't, is really an infant. We're babes in Christ. And so we need to, as we grow in Christ, we're having to grow against habits, against temptations, against patterns of, of acting and reacting, patterns of thinking. All our growth takes place through great, a really hostile environment which is our own heart, our own sin nature. And so the, the, the growth of the new man and the new woman in Christ, it happens through a great travail and difficulty. And it means that we have to there, you know, the, the, the virtue that require, requires most of us is faith. Trusting in the things we cannot see, trusting in a God we cannot see, praying, developing a habit of prayer to a God we can't see. But we trust that he's going to act and hear our prayers and he's going to teach us and lead us and guide us. And those are difficult things. I remember going through different training programs or especially say like in Bible college or in seminary and guys knowing my background would say, ah, this whole thing must be easy for you because you went through this training or that training. And I'd say, you know, not, not really. I mean, going through those, going through that training, as difficult as it was physically or mentally or the different mind games that are played, I could do that all in the flesh. It didn't require me to be a man of Virtue didn't require. Under my breath. I'm swearing at my instructors while they're, you know, and there's just like this game you're playing, and it's all fleshly oriented. When you're going through seminary and learning, you can't have any of that fleshly stuff going on. The flesh. The flesh completely thwarts your study. It completely undermines all your. Your sin undermines everything you're trying to learn. So I would tell the guys, no, actually, I'm. I'm learning right alongside of you in developing the habits of self control, self discipline. I think that's why. So back to your question. I think that's why it's. It's a challenge for all of us to. To walk in the spirit and not in the flesh. It's just easy to go to the gun range and shoot and feel like. And maybe, you know, go earn a paycheck, go buy a gun, go to the gun range, get really proficient in my skills and call it good. I'm providing. I'm protecting. Good to go. That stuff is easy for us. We can do all that in the flesh. What, what. What really quite requires us to dig deep and deal with our hearts before the Lord is walking in the Spirit, not in the flesh. And so that all the stuff that I'm talking about with regard to spiritual provision, spiritual protection, that requires us to be Christ like men, men filled with the Spirit. Amen. So good, brother. That's so balanced. I think of how much we need Christ and the importance of the gospel and the impossibility of it all if we don't have the Holy Spirit filling us. If you're listening to this and you say man, I want to know more about that. This last year, I did a series on the Holy Spirit, and there's a whole episode on walking by the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit bearing the fruit. You wrote a book on that, too, didn't you? I did. I did write a book. Would you say it's good theology? Would you allow it in your home? Absolutely right, dear. You You heard it. Take Take it in. I passed it out to my church. Deal. Well, yeah. Knowing the Spirit's available, too, and that would be maybe a great segue, as we close, is for men to be strong, to be focused, to be providers, to be protectors. But in all of those things, if we're not filled with the Spirit bearing the fruit of the Spirit, it's all just of the flesh. Travis, thank you so much for your biblical wisdom, your practical wisdom, your pastoral wisdom. Grateful for you, brother. Yeah. And thanks for teeing all this up, Costi. It's again great to talk to you. So good. Well, thanks as always, everyone for listening, for watching, for supporting. I hope this series has been a blessing to you, whether you're a mom raising boys or a father doing the same. Maybe you're a grandparent encouraging and nurturing your children and grandchildren along, or you're a pastor or a young man, a teenager, high school or college, wherever you're at on the life stage spectrum, how important is it that we understand our role and what it means to be a biblical man? I've roped Travis in, although it wasn't hard. He's wise on these issues and gracious to help us for one more episode. So next time we're going to talk about what the role of men in the church is, should be. This isn't just for pastors and trying to tell all y', all you got to be, you know, doing this or that, all the it's for every man about what it means to be a man in the church. We'll see you next Monday with another episode. For now, keep on living for the gospel. Sam.