What Then Say You

From Blame To Brotherhood: A Call For Men To Live By The Spirit

• Keith & Tunisha Barnes • Season 3 • Episode 3

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What Then Say You?

Stop scrolling and take a breath. This is a straight, unvarnished call to men to trade excuses for obedience and status for the Spirit. We start with confession—cheating, selfishness, gaslighting—not to sensationalize failure, but to strip away the polished stories that keep us from true repentance. Then we revisit Genesis 3 and notice what many of us skipped: Adam was present, silent, and quick to blame. That same reflex shows up in our homes, our timelines, and our choices. If leadership looks like blame-shifting, it isn’t leadership. It’s abdication.

From there we turn to Galatians 5, where freedom is not a hall pass for the flesh but power to serve in love. We name the works of the flesh—lust, envy, anger, factionalism, self-ambition—and ask hard questions about how culture rewards them in men. Why do we celebrate trophies, titles, and platform while ignoring patience, humility, and self-control? Why do we spend elite effort on bodies and brands, then offer scraps to our souls? The Fruit of the Spirit becomes the true metric of manhood: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control.

We also face how women carry the heavier cost of male freedom without responsibility. Objectification, exploitation, and silence from men keep the cycle alive. Real leadership refuses the fruit, protects the vulnerable, and speaks truth when it costs. We challenge the obsession with being known and offer a better aim: live as ambassadors who point to the King, not as kings demanding a crown. Let your legacy be faithfulness, not fame. Let anonymity feel like freedom because Jesus is the one people remember.

If you’re ready to stop performing and start transforming, press play. Bring a Bible, bring honesty, and bring the parts of your heart you’d rather hide. Subscribe, share with a brother who needs it, and leave a review with the one Fruit of the Spirit you’re asking God to grow this week.

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SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for tuning into the podcast. It's a place to let your guard down, be encouraged, and at times even be challenged. Here we examine the word of God. Have deep conversations leading to deeper relationships, change perspectives, and the deeper enemies of Christ. What then say you. Hey, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whatever time it is that you are tuning into the podcast. Today is a wonderful day that the Lord has made. Let us be glad and rejoice in it. Trigger warning, disclaimer, pause now, go to the next video. But this one's gonna be it's gonna get a little heavy. And um we gotta call some things out. And um just want to say I love you all. You know, I love you all, and each one of us needs sometimes to to just kind of hear the word, no fluff, um, no additives, uh, sugar-free. And uh, this is exactly what that is. Um, but if you are not subscribed, go ahead and hit that subscribe button or whatever it is that you do share. If this message encourages you, better yet, if it convicts you, right, and you feel some type of way after this video, and then you go read the word, make sure you share this with somebody else that might need to see it. Um, but today, uh, it's a man's world, right? Um, I can't sing. I'm not gonna try. I might try to add it, post-edit, you know, add like it's a man's world a song in there. But um, yeah, it's a man's world, right? Um today um I'm talking to men. I'm talking to um every male out there that that watches this video. Um, and I mean if you're a woman watching this video and and you like what you hear and it and it hits you a little bit, um, send it to a male that you know. But um all that shameless plug aside, no, seriously, today is is for the men. Um where do I begin? Y'all, I was a dirt bag. Let's let's start off with Keith. Let's start off with me, so then that way you don't feel like I'm just shooting the shotgun blast and and I'm holier than thou. Um I'm in my path towards righteousness and I am pursuing the Lord with all that I have. And um, but it wasn't always, you know, rainbows and sparkles with me either. Um I admit I cheated on my wife. Not once, but twice. Um I'm a very selfish person, uh gaslit like the best of them. Um man, so many things that that I've put my wife through, that I put my family through. Um, you know, and I and I can't even call it like, I guess now that I'm aware, now that I'm that God has like revealed to me my own ratchetness and and the ways that I used to live, um, and some of the ways that I'm still dying to, right? Um, you know, I think it's important, and it's important to own that. It's important to realize that no, Jesus came into my life for a reason. Um, Jesus came into everybody's life for a reason. The Holy Spirit is poured out amongst all flesh uh for a reason, you know, and that's to to kill your flesh, to to die to yourself. And, you know, as much as as my flesh wants to vindicate myself for all of my own personal wrongdoings in my life as a as a man, um it's all it's all personal justification. It's all just a way to still gratify the flesh and continue to do me. Where am I going with this? As men, we got to understand one thing. Whether black, white, whatever your race, whatever, whatever your ethnicity is, whatever struggle that you think that you got, like whether you know you're a black man and you're like, oh, I got the black man's plight, or where you're a white man and everybody thinks I have privilege. Whatever the thing might be, let's squash all of that. Because no one, no, no person on earth has been more oppressed, has been more shamefaced, has been more objectified, has been more isolated and segregated than the woman. Right? And and if you want to take it all the way back to Adam and Eve, I just want to and apologize for clearing my throat all the time. But let's just take it all the way back to Adam and Eve. We're gonna get straight into the word uh today. And you know, we all we all think when we when we recall the story, we're like, yeah, man, Eve was deceived, and the Satan was out there, and he got her, and then she convinced her husband, and then he ate the fruit. Like she messed it up for everybody. I I think I've even said that a couple of times in my youth. Man, if it wasn't for Eve, we'd all be in heaven right now, or life would be great, sin would not be in the world, right? And Eve became the perfect scapegoat. But do me a favor, and when you have the opportunity, reread Genesis 3. Just Genesis 3, and we'll start. Okay. Um we already know we're gonna skip past the part where you know Satan was talking, um, and we're gonna go down to the section where in verse 8, I'll start there. It said, They heard the voice of Adonai, God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze. So the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Adonai among the trees in the garden. Adonai called to the man, Where are you? He called to the man first. Okay, just stay with me. He answered, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself. He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I ordered you not to eat? And listen to this real carefully. The man replied, The woman you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree and I ate. So I'm just gonna pause there. So first and foremost, reread it again. Adam was there the whole time, y'all. He was there when when Satan was was doing his thing, talking to Eve. Like it didn't say Adam, it was Eve was by herself. Adam was there, right? Like, and if you want some some verification there, um now the serpent, verse three, chap I mean chapter three, verse one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any wild animal which Adani God had made. He said to the woman, Did God really say you are not to eat from any tree in the garden? The woman answered the serpent, We may eat from the fruit of the trees of the garden, but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, You were neither to eat from it nor touch it, or you will die. The serpent said to the woman, It is not true that you will surely die, because God knows that on that day you eat from it, your eyes will be open, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it had a pleasing appearance, and that the tree was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband. So it doesn't say then she left the scene and like traveled on down the road to go find Adam somewhere. No, she it right after she ate, she she gave some to her husband, meaning that he was there. So, like one, why didn't he correct the whole scenario? Why didn't he s why didn't he stop that whole conversation and say, when she added on there, not even touch it or you will die? God never said don't touch it. He just said don't eat from it, right? She she added that extra layer of protection from from God's command that Adam had told her, but Adam was the one who received the command. So going back down into uh uh verse 12, the man replied, The woman you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate. I didn't realize this until the other day that Adam was the first person in the world to try to gaslight somebody. And of all people, of all omnipotent beings, he tries to gaslight God, y'all. He is, hey, I mean, I ate it, but it's the woman you gave me. Automatically trying to cast blame, right? And and we just slide by that, and we're like, yeah, it was that woman you gave. She came from you, Adam. She represented that that flesh side, right? She came from your flesh and your bone, and that's how she was made. You had the command. Just saying, but we we missed that, right? And over the years, the word culture, um, not the word culture, but the word, God's word, our culture, everything has just rolled with those punches, man. Like we take the context, we take it out of context. When Paul says Eve was deceived, you know, and because she was deceived, so on and so forth, right? We we keep rolling with that, and we're like, this is what makes women less than. Even though there's several instances, right, where you know, from Deborah to Ruth to um to Mary Magdalene to the woman at the well, like God showed no favoritism. He he put the word on females as well. Females had a very important role in the scripture. Now, I want to say with Deborah, Deborah's instance, it was because a man wouldn't stand up that she had to do it. Esther, some women were put in different positions because they had a position to be put in. Even Abraham and Sarah, I'm just saying, so how are we here? What is today's conversation about? And that's as men, we gotta take some ownership of being groomed by society to believe that women are less than we can do what we want, we can, you know, as long as we're happy, like the majority of our lives, right? Um we we live in this idea, you know, especially as a as a black man, and I'm just speaking towards black men in this particular instance, you know, we have this black man struggle, right? And it's just like, oh, I I wasn't, I wasn't able to cry as a kid, and so that's why I am the way I am. Um my my parents was too rough on me, or my dad wasn't there, and that's the reason I am why I am, right? But in Christ, we're we're supposed to be new creatures. All that baggage, all that that excuse factory that we got building up in our flesh to give us the reason and the green light to do what we want to do, to treat women the way we want to treat them, to treat our children the way we want to treat them, and it's all about self-uh glory. That that was supposed to die when we became new in Christ. Hence why even Jesus says to the Pharisees when they was trying to catch him up about um the the woman and and her husband died, and then the brother died, and then the brother died, and then they were like, so whose wife is she gonna be? Jesus is like, Ain't nobody giving away a marriage in heaven. Y'all are gonna be like the angels. Deal with it from that angle. Even in that moment right there, it was not a male or female thing. Yes, yes, yes, I'm saying that males and females here on earth, yes, they have very particular functions. But men, men in particular, this message is for you, we have failed. And not just on the grand scheme of not being leaders and and not um you know standing in the gap, but we as a culture of men have have assumed the generational curse from times past and said, Yeah, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with with women being objectified and sold. What's the oldest industry in the build in history? The lady of the night, right? Prostitution? Right? And in America, what porn? Porn sales. I mean, actually, porn is free now. You know, every commercial has some element of a sexual element to it, and we're okay with it. And when I say we are okay with it, as as men in general, it's because we ain't we ain't doing much to stop it. You know, we might we might protect our daughters and say, no, you can't wear leggings when you go out. I mean, maybe you might do that. But going back, understand that I mean it was like in the 60s, 1960s, 70s, women were finally like fully able to even vote. Like, y'all thought slavery was bad? I mean, think about it. When Hillary, not that going all political, but when Hillary was running or when Kamala was running, people would not vote for her just because she was a female and just off the top, right? But then when you look at the men, when you look at men in leadership positions, when you look at men that are just living this life out there, you know, what is the standard? Bill Clinton? Just let that pause for a second. What is the standard, Obama? Because he was politically correct? I'm just saying, as men, as spiritual leaders of our home, as men as spiritual leaders in our community, and and the the aura that we should be carrying as ambassadors to Christ, oh, it's not looking good. So, today we are gonna read Galatians chapter 5. And I'm gonna start in verse 13. For brothers, you were called to be free. Only do not let that freedom become an excuse for allowing your old nature to have its way. Keith, what is that excuse? My plight, my struggles. Some girl broke my heart. Yada yada yada. I'm I got too much pressure on me as a man. We sound like the the men and kings during Deborah's age. I got too much pressure. Uh uh, the world wants too much from me. You know, I gotta be the breadwinner. I got all these things that I gotta do to take care of my family and lead. Like, yeah, that's what you were designed to do. God said, You're gonna toil, brother. But but our flesh says, well, you know, we we see examples out there in the streets of of big balling men, you know what I'm saying, where they they got the job, they got the money, they got the cars, they got the girls, and we we slick envy that. We're looking for this lifestyle of of having a trophy wife. Like even the thought process, right? The phrase trophy wife, like that's not a a novel concept, and it's sad because we want something to just put on our walls as look at me, look how fine my wife is. Now, granted, my wife is fine, but look how fine my wife is. I won, right? Like, there's this consistent struggle in a in a young man and a in a middle-aged man and an old man to stay relevant, but relevant for all the wrong reasons. Relevant for man, I'm sorry. It's just this is hard because I guess that that that reality of all of this is really just setting in. And so, like, let's just take abortion, for example. You know, men, what are your consequences? What are what are truly the consequences of a man who has sex with a woman, she gets pregnant, and either is going to raise that child, and the men can bounce out, right? She can put you on child support and you got to pay a little cash, but outside of that, you get to live your life. Nothing is impacted with your body, nothing is impacted with your livelihood. If you if you decide to leave the country, if you decide to leave the state and just never pick up the phone again, you are good to go, sir. Like you have no responsibility in in that situation outside of a mental one or moral one. And that's only if you ascribe to the to the morality that is in Christ, right? And so all around in this country and in other countries, men are just living as they want, exploring that freedom, that freedom of joy, that freedom of I'm an American city, I could do what I want. I could get what I want, I can have what I want. And if you're not gonna give it from give it to me, I'm gonna get it from somebody else. That pride, that ego, that that strive to be known for something, for something's sake. Not even known for Christ. And I'm not saying everybody needs to be out here being a pastor or nothing, but we just want to be known in general. Did I get a good appraisal at my job? Right? We're always looking for this pat on the back. We kind of sound like Cain. Like we got a lot of qualities in us that has been described throughout the entirety of Scripture, but we got a lot of qualities specifically inherent to men because culture has said it's okay. Because society agrees that as a man, you have nothing holding you back from being as successful or as unsuccessful as you want. You have nothing holding you back from being celebrated, whether it's athleticism, whether it's your physique, you know, like this is what makes you a man, to the point where it it you have this phase, or I don't know if it's still trending, but you got sigma and alpha males and all this toxic stuff floating around, obviously having nothing to do with Christ, but we have all this information, all this data being fed down our throats as men as an excuse to do what we want. In the name of, you know, being a good man. What is a good man? What is a good husband? What is a good father? Let's keep reading. It says, instead, it says, okay, only do not let that freedom become an excuse for allowing your old nature to have its way. Instead, serve one another in love. For the whole of the Torah is summed up in this one sentence. Love your neighbor as yourself. But if you go on snapping at each other and tearing each other to pieces, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. What I'm saying is this run your lives by the spirit. Then you will not do what your old nature wants. I talked about the old nature, for the old nature wants what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit wants what is contrary to the old nature. These oppose each other so that you find yourselves unable to carry out your good intentions. Man, oh man, have I had some good intentions. Woo! I've had a lot of good intentions with my wife, with my kids, with the job, right? But they're served with self-interest. They're served transactionally, they're served, even if it's in the recesses of my mind, something that's going to benefit me still in the end, right? And and we got to check these intentions. We got to check these desires that we have. This sometimes our um our our creative rights that we have as human beings, right? Like our our entrepreneurship ideas and our our business plans and methodologies and stuff, what's the long, what's the end game of it? Is the end game of it self-promotion? You might not admit to that, but if you write it out on paper and read it from an unbiased, uh objective standpoint, you might see like, mmm, this is going to benefit me. Nobody else. Let's keep going. It says, but if you were led by the Spirit, verse 18, then you were not in subjection to the system that results from perverting the law into legalism. Mmm, let that sit for a second. Because you might be sitting here saying to yourself, oh, here we go. Keep talking about men and how we suck. Every society tells me we suck already, Keith. Like, I don't need to hear from Jesus to like, so let me guess. I have this check the block that I need to do in order to be a good man for the Lord. No, it's it's run your life by the Spirit. Run your life by the Holy Spirit. You should be so in tune with God and and and check it in consistently. God is uppermost on your mind that every decision is ran by Him first before it even comes out of your mouth, right? Hmm. Verse 19. And it is perfectly evident what the old nature does. It expresses itself in sexual immorality, impurity, and indecency, involvement with the occult, and with drugs, and feuding, fighting, becoming jealous, and getting angry, and selfish ambition, factionalism, intrigue and envy, and drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you now as I have warned you before, those who do such things will have no share in the kingdom of God. Dang. Take a good hard look at yourself, men. Take a good hard look at what you've um you've you've approved in silence as you look at the women in our lives, as you look at your families, as you look at maybe the woman that you're courting right now, right? Is self-ambition there? Is is factionalism there? What is factionalism? Are you are you divided over so many things? Because every every guy has an opinion about something, right? Um are are we feuding and fighting and envious, you know? You still struggling with porn, you still struggling with lust? Sexual morality? Like you might say to yourself, well, Keith, I'm not like you. I never stepped out of my marriage, you know. But sexual morality can come by ways of the eyes. Sexual morality can come by ways of what you look at and what you spend a little too long looking at, right? But society says that's that's okay. And then you tell yourself, well, it's not like I really did anything physically, so I'm good. I just looked. I should be able to admire God's beauty. That's what society tells you. That's what society tells you when they throw it at every ad your way. But the fruit of the Spirit, verse 22, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, self-control. Y'all, I'm not gonna lie. I don't I don't know not one man in my life. Not one, including self, y'all, that displays every fruit of the spirit. I'm calling myself out, I'm calling you out as a as a brother in Christ, because in chapter six it says, brothers, suppose someone is caught doing something wrong, you have the spirit, you who have the spirit should set him right, but in the spirit of humility, keeping an eye on yourselves so that you won't be tempted too. And so in this moment right here, I am I am saying, then, will you be the one? Will will you join me in an attempt at dying to self so that the Holy Spirit can live in you so that you could be the one male that might be in your block, in your radius, that legitimately displays the fruit of the Spirit on a day-to-day basis. Let's hear it one more time. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. Self-control is the big one, right? Because self-control taps into our self-ambitions. Self-control says a thing that might look good because, like Paul says, you know, all things are good. Not all things are beneficial. Self-control looks like not doing the thing that's good because it's not beneficial to the kingdom of God. Self-control and humility, realizing that you you're not top dog, that you're not the one that knows all and is all and and and got it all going on. Humility, not false humility, but humility is realizing that you're a wretched mess, just like every other person there is on this earth. And that's the whole point in Christ. Faithfulness, goodness, kindness, patience. Ooh, have I struggled with patience in my life? I I I even I'm sure you heard the anecdotal quote, you know, ask God for patience and watch him show you something in your life that's gonna cause you to have to be patient and show you how much patience you really don't have. Maybe we need to start praying that prayer more often. God, allow me to work on my patience today so that you can know when the situation comes up. All right, God, this is that time, this is that work. I mean, oh, I can think of so many things that I've put work into, right, as a man. Being a soldier, you know, it was veterans day to day. And um, you know, my son was asking me about memorable moments in the army, funny moments, you know, scary moments, whatever, whatever, right? And I can think of times like uh in airborne school, you know, doing some crazy training, some crazy stuff. So, so I can get a little badge on my chest that says I'm a paratrooper, so I can wear some jump boots in my class A uniform, you know, uh rocking the maroon beret. Because you can't go to Bragg, can't be a Fort Bragg with a with a with a with a black beret, huh? It's Fort Bragg, right? So that pride in you, right? That work ethic and that drive that literally pushes your body and mind to a place that says, I didn't think I can do it, but I proved myself wrong. Okay, before that, football, man, two of days in the summer sucked. But I did it. I did it. I don't know if I was trying to go to college football or go to the pros or whatever, but we put in some serious work. Um, man, when I was in the archery, like actual compound upright bow archery. Like I put in some serious practice. I could hit a squirrel 20 yards away in the face, right? Like, dialed in, and it took hours and hours of shooting and hours and hours of practice. We put in a lot of time, energy, and effort mentally, physically, and and it has nothing to do with the spirit. Zero. It doesn't. And so then we have to ask ourselves, why do we put in so much effort for things that has no eternal value, things that have no eternal consequence, things that that's not gonna make me a better uh uh person that lives in the spirit of God, but just a someone who's known? Like you can think of every male athlete that's that's the goat, whether it's Jordan or LeBron, or you know, you're thinking football, and you can think of all these dudes that play sports and so on and so forth, and how great they were at the game, and how much drive, like you can't mention Kobe Bryan without putting some reverence on his name for what? Because he was good at basketball. And and no disrespect to the dead, but I'm just saying the thought process, the premise is there. Our society has taught us to elevate men who have done great things for no real great reason. Our culture continues to promote uh uh Napoleon and the Andrew Jacksons and and the gangest cons of the world. We we talk more about Trump because he's he's the president, and and Obama because he was the president, and and we have Martin Luther King because he had a dream, he was also cheating on his wife, like Malcolm X and the things they done. But but I I want to argue that even though MLK and and and and Malcolm X and those that had a semblance of trying to do the right thing for the right reason, that list falls in in pale comparison to the men that you know for reasons outside of God. I mean, everybody can spout out some biblical characters. I'm talking about like new age people and and not TD Jakes and not just the mega pastors that you see on TV or that you read about because of the drama they got going on in their lives, but just famous people for the name of Jesus outside of the disciples. The number of random athletes in your mind right now outweighs that. The number of random millionaires out now, right? You could think of Elon Musk and whoever came up with Microsoft and Apple, Steve Jobs and them. Like you can think of all these people, and sadly, subconsciously, that's what we strive for. We strive to be among them. You got people who've been playing basketball all their life since they was like five, so they can make it to the NBA, but don't realize because they 5'7, it's not gonna happen. Football, soccer, baseball, acting, rapping. Everybody thought they was gonna be a rapper in the 90s because they're trying to make their name known for something. And so I I I guess what are we really trying to be known for, men? Are we trying to be known that we just filled the status quo? That, you know, can I can I say that I'm better than you because I I my wife stayed married to me? Can I say that I'm better than you because I've I've helped raise my children? Even though the majority of those years was assuming proximity meant the Same thing as actual like a relationship presence that I that I assume proximity was presence because that's what I saw as a kid and that's what my dad said as a kid? Can I assume that the generational things that have trickled down to me is the reason why I am who I am, but then also claim Christ at the same time? Can we claim Jesus? Can we claim Yahshua the Messiah as Lord and Savior over our lives? Can we claim the Holy Spirit is in us and also claim all that other stuff? And can we say that's why we still do the dumb things that we do today? Just saying. I don't think you can put the two things in the same category, unfortunately. Like, as convenient as it would be, if I wanted to pull a gaslight moment with God and say, but God, you you gave me a dad that didn't really hug me a lot. And that's why I didn't know how to love. It was the dad you gave me, God. Can I pull an atom? Can you do you pull an atom daily when you justify the things that you do because of somebody else, or because of what you saw on TV, or because of some book that you read about, you know how many books there are for men to do great things as men that have nothing to do with the Lord, or is a way to manipulate the Lord for your for your earthly gain? It's wild. It's a whole thing. Because, see, the thing that will challenge us most as men, and and God has been trying to teach me this lesson since, ooh, for at least 18, 19 years. But I I I would like to say it, it's I liken it to how the CIA does it. When an undercover agent dies in the CIA, they don't get a name tag and a headstone, they get a star on the wall, right? Like it's just a star on a wall. You'll never know who they were, where they were, what their name was, so on and so forth, right? And and they signed up knowing that, right? Did they die for nothing? But it's arguable because if if their death had nothing to do with Christ, if their lives wasn't set in Jesus, it it I'm just saying, it is what it is. But for the most of us, for the majority of us, we want to die being made known for something. We and Christ is calling us to this to this life that's you know subservient in nature, right? This life that is so dedicated to him that we're just a dot dot dot on the paper, but we're not the main sentence. The main sentence is the gospel, right? Like the holiness that's in us, the the fruit of the spirit that's lived out in us, right, is just pointing people back to Jesus, not us, right? It's just really saying, no, God is gonna get the glory. I'm just a part of the story. Like, I'm I'm not even the main character, believe you me. I'm like an extra. I'm somebody that's in a movie set, I'm the dude that's like that, even if you tried to take a still shot of the picture of the scene and zoomed all the way in, I would be pixelated. I'm in the movie, but you you would never see my face. Like that's the goal, that's the drive, that's where we should be striving to be as men. We're impactful, we're doing what God has called us to do. We're out there in the field and they with, you know, being unknown, never known for anything, but in reality, we're being useful for the kingdom. We're just ambassadors. We don't represent the president, right? So if we if we tie this back into kingdom principalities and kingdom concepts and ideals as ambassadors, and and if our effort is really just representing the kingdom, but we're not the king. And see, culture would dictate and tell us that, yeah, you have a king, but you know, you got some star people in the government, right? Like you look at you look at U.S. politics and you you can name the vice president, you can name members of the Senate and members of Congress, and you can name all these people, your governor and your mayor, your chief of police, and all these other people. They all have these positions and titles that that are known as representatives of blah, blah, blah. But in reality, the citizen has more umps because we should be pushing everybody back to God, right? God is the only one that gets the glory. Yeshua Messiah is the only one who's the king of kings and every knee shall bow. Has nothing to do with Keith. I I'm just a clap back at Satan at this point. I'm just another, ah, see, I told you, to Satan. I'm just a pun at the end of a sentence, at the end of a joke to Satan to show that God has the ability without making us uh uh slaves to him mentally and making it, giving us free will, he still has the ability because his love is that great that we still choose him and not the enemy. We just the pun at the end of a joke. Right? But culture would just tell you otherwise. And so why why the delineation between male and female in this junction? It's because when we can't see what's right in front of us, when we can't see the oppressive nature of the world towards a part of God's creation, the part that actually continues to produce. If we can't realize the significance of the women and how they've been manipulated and used and oppressed to kind of curtail men, it's used against us in the court of law. Like Eve, Eve had a very prominent role that she played in that scene, right? Because of her actions, it justified the man's actions. But did the man really want to eat too? That's a question to ask yourself. That's a question to pray about. If Adam was all about business, he would have been like, he would have slapped that apple out of her hand and been like, well, you can die, but I know what God said. No, he he ate too. And see, so there's a dynamic in the kingdom. There's a dynamic on this earth. It's a type and shadow of how things operate, right? But if if the woman is held down in every single nation, trafficked and objectified and used as a tool for the enemy to engage in the lust of man and engage in the superiority of man, then then she's given that apple. We're saying, hey, I'm cool with it. We it's a win-win, and nothing changes. That's the importance. That's the why this is for men only. I mean, you got folks out here selling they they feet picks, y'all, and dudes are buying them to make money, to to eat, to ball out of control, to be successful too. They're like, well, well, fine, if this is what my life is gonna be regulated to look like, I'm gonna figure out how to do what y'all are doing. I could be a boss too. I can have a beehive, right? Just saying. And so, man, we gotta we gotta really take a hard, close look in the mirror. We gotta really look at these justifications that we've been giving ourselves, these excuses. And if you feeling some type of rape right now, if you're in your feelings and you're like, ugh, you just sitting there stank face, like I can't believe it if you even made it to this point in the video. Praise God. Because it's time to call it out. It's time to say enough is enough. It's time to stop trying to be known and just and just run it, run your life by the spirit. Run your lives by the spirit. That's all he said in Galatians uh 5. Galatians 5, 16, if you want to write that down. Run your lives by the spirit. I was I was talking to the missus the other day, and I was just like, you know, because um she just she just flows with the spirit, man. It's a beautiful thing to see. But I was like planning, right? Because the word says a man plans his ways, right? But God authors the steps that he takes, right? And in my mind, I got wrapped up in that for a minute because I was like, I I think I'm supposed to plan in very I'm a detailed planner. If I got a thing that I'm trying to do, I will plan it out all the way to the T, right? And but then there's a lot of me in that, right? We gotta not just make room for the Spirit, and you probably heard that preach before. Don't make room for the Spirit. It's the Spirit's room to be in anyway. The Spirit is being able to just say you're in the room. You didn't make room for the Spirit, the Spirit resides in you, it's poured out on all flesh, not the other way around. We didn't we didn't teaspoon the spirit and put him in with us, it's poured out. I don't know if you caught what I just said. But it's it's not about making room for the spirit. That that that allows too much of you. Right? And so whether it was you planning, whether it's you trying to figure out your path in life, whether it's, you know, whether you're in college, whether you're, you know, in your profession already, whatever that thing is, just really reevaluate and say, hey, did the spirit get me here? If no, which is probably likely no, God, how do I get back on track? Let me just die and whatever you say, I'm just gonna do. And it's gonna feel weird because you're not used to it. I'm what, 40 years old, so that means I got a good 40 years worth of grooming and conditioning by society that says, this is what success looks like, this is what a man should look like, uh, and and my life has been defined for me, my purpose has been defined for me, and then Jesus took hold and said, nah, this is actually how it's gonna look. You gotta think about it. Paul, Peter, and them, they weren't writing to be famous, they weren't apostles to be famous, they weren't disciples to be famous. Every person in this word was not living out their life like they're gonna remember me like MJ. They're gonna remember me like Kobe. They was writing and they were living this word out, and they were teaching and reproofing and providing correction and broading providing edification and and and being used by God to write this word for our sake so that we would not get caught up in the lights. We wouldn't get caught up in the same thing that that was probably running rampant then too. You think the New Testament, they had Roman imperials and and Caesar, the the the cycle had already started in the midst of the text. There was a Pharaoh when there was a Moses. You feel me? There was Philistines when there was Abraham. Right? So there was already this cycle that had been started that had a version of the kingdom but played out in the way Satan wanted it to play out. The way the world wanted to play, the way sin and the way our flesh wanted it to play out. Orgies wouldn't be mentioned in the Bible unless they were already happening and that women were being used in that way in that time of culture. I'm just throwing out facts. Right? Detestable acts, sexual immorality, some of the the things that people were doing. If you go all the way back to Genesis and Lot's day, the things that they were trying to do, that was already there. The lust of the flesh, the pride of life, that was already there. That's the generational curse. You see it in fatherless homes. I don't how did you get there? Well, lust and sex. And it's my right to be free to have sex with whomever I want to. And then the consequence was a baby, but I don't really like her, so I'm gonna just bounce out. I'll send$20 here and there,$200 here and there,$2,000 here and there, but I'm gonna still go live my life. Like that was already established well before American politics, well before uh uh a child support was established. Men have been doing men-like things since the beginning of time, as long as it self-served them. But what the word is instructing us is that we are not to be like that. As men of God, we are not to be in the same mention, in the same at, in the same chat as the world. And so the time is now. And this message was heavy on my spirit to just call it out. So, in the name of Yahshua the Messiah, our Lord and Savior, if you are here right now, in this moment, I pray that that God opens your eyes, opens your heart, removes the insecurities, remove the definitions, the titles, the labels that's been given to you and that you have ascribed to, and replace them with the Holy Spirit. Allow the Holy Spirit to truly engulf and envelop your life to the point that God is truly uppermost in your mind. That today, in this moment, you're no longer the same. You're no longer you. You're his. You submit. You're okay with not being known. You rejoice in not being known and that he's known instead of you. Ask for the Holy Spirit to give the the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. In Jesus' name. Hey. I love y'all. I pray that you guys have a blessed and wonderful week. Um, think about what I said, man. Read run everything I said back against the word. Go look in Genesis. Go go read through the word yourself. Don't rely on nobody else, not even me. Go read it for yourself. Pray for yourself. And as much heartiness as you may or may not have, when you look at yourself in the mirror, you'd be like, well, I'm good. I don't I don't really have any of these qualities. Then run it again. Go look in the mirror again. I guarantee. Guarantee. But until next time, y'all have a great week. Love y'all.