The Truth About Choices, Panthers Rebuild, and the NFC South w/Guest Robert Nuccio [PART 1] | Ep. 15
December 13, 2022 • 49 mins
From our football team to how we respond to that person who annoys the crap out of us, our choices matter. Join host Delkery and Special Guest (and Panthers fan) Robert Nuccio as they discuss Choices, the Carolina Panthers, and the abysmal state of the NFC South.
This is the 1st of a 2-part Interview.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of cleats off the couch with your host Del Curry.
Today, another opportunity to be able to have a conversation with another average Joe.
He may not think he's so average, but another man of the couch, a fellow football fan, and this time a Carolina Panthers fan.
Last time, we had the privilege to sit down with Dan, the Colts fan, and talk a little bit about that, continue to pray for him because the Colts are still looking abysmal.
(00:36):
But today we'll have a little bit more conversation with somebody looking at the NFC and aside that we haven't had much privilege to talk about.
Robert, welcome in today.
Welcome in.
Yes, I definitely do not consider myself an average Joe, so I like to consider myself one of God's favorites.
Robert and I have had the great privilege of knowing each other for a few, many years now.
(00:59):
Well, privilege or not so much of a privilege that's for each of us to decide.
Football has been a thing for us that has always come up in conversation, always been a place for us to be able to sit, to watch, to enjoy, and to hang out.
First of all, Robert, why don't you introduce yourself a little? My name is Robert.
Yes, John and I have had the privilege of knowing each other for a few years.
We did ministry together several years ago.
(01:24):
I'm married, been married 16 years, got three kids, carolina Panthers fans since 95, 96, trying to remember when they came into existence, I'm told.
I can't remember.
You've been in ministry for, I think you said almost 20 years now, right.
And you're in full time ministry where you are.
That's awesome.
But also a full time football.
Well, no, you're more of a casual football fan.
(01:45):
Yeah, I'm a casual fan at best right now.
I'm in a busy season of life, and so I have NFL Sunday tickets so I can watch the Carolina games, because we would never get them on any channel up here.
Being in full time ministry, sundays are busy days.
I have three kids, two of them under ten, and my wife all vying for attention, and so I have to pick and choose how much I want to invest into things.
(02:15):
I may not know the roster.
Like, I was just looking this morning at some of the players.
I'm like, wow, this dude I don't even know did three carries for 40 yards or something like, wow.
And it wasn't Foreman or Hubbard, but he's injured.
Casual fan at best right now.
(02:36):
I still enjoy it.
I still I'm able to sit down on Sunday and catch a game.
It will except, like, yesterday, I turned it off.
So what you're saying, though, about choosing a team is actually right on par with a question and some of the conversation we wanted to have today, which was about this picture of what led you to choose being a football fan.
(02:59):
I know we started conversation and I know for anybody who heard the last episode talking with Dan, we had some conversation about how it was something that was handed down in some way, whether it was from a dad or from a family member or from those kind of interactions.
And it seemed to be a general conversation that I had with a bunch of different people when I would talk about how they were drawn into football.
(03:21):
And we started to have that conversation and you're just sitting there shaking your head no.
And so that bring okay, well, what brought you into football and what led you to choose being a football fan? I'm from South Carolina originally, and so when the expansion team started, I was a Carolina Panthers fan.
I was like home team, but I didn't really follow football up until that point.
(03:45):
I was a bought and paid for San Francisco 49 ers fan.
And that I had an aunt that lived in San Francisco, so when she came to visit, hey, here's all this 49 er merchandise.
I guess I'm a 49 year span, and I knew a little bit John Montana, Jerry Rice, and that awesome combination, but it wasn't really a thing in our house.
(04:07):
We didn't sit down on Sunday, watch football, we didn't do it on Thanksgiving.
I think we kind of watched the Super Bowl.
And so it wasn't really until I was in the military station in Iceland that a lot of people watched football because that was our connection to America.
And so everyone's like, hey, what team are you? And so I was like, well, I'm from South Carolina, so I'm a Carolina fan.
(04:29):
I decided that when Carolina came out, came into existence, that if I was going to be a fan, I'd be a Carolina fan.
And so we started watching football together.
And so it's how we connected and kind of maintained the connection of the United States while being abroad that just continued.
And further on, when I went from Iceland to Germany and more so there was more people, and we got just what we did.
(04:53):
We'd get together on Sunday and watch football together.
We'd talk about the stats and fantasy.
We had fantasy football leagues and such.
And it was nice because I was like the only Carolina fan, and so I didn't have to work.
You didn't care whether or not there was another one to band together with.
In fact, it gave you kind of that lone wolf of off suite.
I don't have to worry about anybody trying to talk to me too much about because we were from all over the US.
(05:18):
And stationed together.
We had fans from all the teams.
And so it wasn't uncommon to be the lone wolf for your team, and sometimes it wasn't even uncommon to be the lone wolf for your division.
So I may have been the only NFC South fan in our group at that time.
(05:39):
So we didn't really focus on that.
We poked fun if we had games against each other, but we just stayed unified in that.
Let's just get together and watch football.
I think I shared with you a little bit.
Like for me in the past, obviously, there were pieces about where it was hand, like being drawn into football.
And and choosing choosing to be a football fan really came because of the interactions I had with family and the the enjoyment of the game.
(06:05):
It just it was that that became a part of me.
And my family actually was a Miami Dolphins fan.
And so you were bought and paid for.
49 Ers Fan and for me, it was a Miami fan because my mom and dad and Dan Marino, that was a big piece that drew me into that.
But then it came to a place where I had the opportunity to begin to make a decision for myself.
(06:29):
And we were in Pennsylvania.
Podunk, Pennsylvania.
Why in the world is my family cheering for the Miami Dolphins? And so I really, when I was younger, got the opportunity to look at other teams similar to you.
You became a Carolina Panther fan because that's your state team.
Like, that's where you were from in Pennsylvania.
(06:51):
I'm looking at Philly and Pittsburgh.
Without upsetting too many Philadelphia fans, there were a lot of things that actually pushed me away from the idea of being a Philadelphia fans fan.
But there were a lot of things that actually drew me into the idea of Pittsburgh.
And this was before Ben.
It was before a lot of the success we've seen over the past 20 years.
(07:13):
It was during, like, Tommy Maddox and some of the Cordell Stewart years, stuff like that.
I just love some of the story behind the franchise.
Even even some things as such as like those little details about the team with the logo on the one side because you couldn't afford to both sides and stuff like that.
It just drew me into them.
And so then I made that decision that, you know what? I'm going to cheer for the Steelers.
(07:35):
It's kind of been a mix within my family, but none of my family stayed Miami Dolphins fan.
It's been a while since there's been a reason too.
We see that up here.
There is no main team.
So it's the New England Patriots.
And so that's the team for up here.
But when he left, we saw quite a few Tampa Bay fans show up.
(07:59):
And I'm like, hey, you can be a fan of a person.
That's totally fine.
We're just going to give you a hard time about it.
I have favorite players in the league right, that I want to see do well.
I love watching I mean, a lot of people love watching a certain quarterback in the league that isn't on their team.
You know what I mean? Like a Patrick Mahomes or a Josh Allen.
(08:21):
A lot of people like they're fun to watch, and sometimes you have the ones that you want to cheer for because you enjoy that player.
But it doesn't mean that you have to completely flip flop to a new team.
Well, it's expensive.
Oh, I got to get a new jersey.
I haven't bought a jersey.
What's the jersey cost nowadays? That's a good question because they're definitely not cheap.
(08:44):
Unless you go to those websites that offer authentic jerseys at discount prices.
Right now from the fanatic store NFL shop, we're talking $100.
Yeah, it's been traded three times.
I got all three of his jersey.
$300.
(09:05):
That's like groceries for a week.
I want to buy three jersey.
I mean, food only lasts a week, but the jersey one of the things that came up in our conversation planning for this episode was about choice is an all life thing.
(09:25):
Choice is something that affects all parts of life.
It's not just obviously people listening and the the premise of different conversations out of cleats off the couch come around.
The idea of football, who we've chosen to be a fan of, who we choose to cheer for, all those kind of things.
But if we're honest with ourselves, obviously choices affect all of our life.
(09:46):
As we've made a choice to cheer for a certain team in football, how can that relate to our other choices in life? We make choices every day that are similar to the choices we make as fan as football teams.
In 1995, I had to choose whether remain a 49 Ers fan or move to be a Carolina fan.
(10:10):
I think at some point, fans, as long as they're with their team long enough, they're not playing very well.
They're making poor coaching decisions, understanding no one has ever paid me for my sports or athletic advice.
Maybe there's on the team that have made some questionable moral choices and the team doesn't seem to be doing anything about it or things like that, we have to choose.
(10:35):
All right, we're going to stick with it.
We're going to move on.
And after yesterday's game, maybe that question might have popped in my head and we do it across the board.
Hey, am I going to watch another episode on Netflix? Am I going to try to get, oh, 8 hours of sleep tonight? Am I going to hit this news button for the fourth time and skip breakfast? Be on time, man.
(11:01):
Sunday is supposed to be really nice and you've had really bad weather.
I really want to get outside and do some stuff.
Or am I going to choose, keep my commitment and go to church? This morning, man, I've been having a string of bad things happening.
God, what are you doing? Are you going to choose to forsake your faith? Because in the moment, it seems like God just not on my side.
(11:26):
You're going to forget all the things he's been there for and done for you in the past, are you going to choose to remain faithful? We do it all the time.
And I was just trying to look at the statistics a little bit ago for our youth ministry.
I couldn't find it.
But the amount of choices and decisions we make daily is huge.
(11:49):
From simple things like what shoe you're going to put on first to what you're going to make for dinner, whether you're going to start your day with coffee or not.
Yeah.
Whether you're going to lean on that crunch or not.
Or are you going to engage with your teenage daughter about an awkward situation that's going to be awkward to talk about, but you need to or you're going to discipline your son because he did something, or you're going to let it go.
(12:15):
We do this all the time for men in particular.
We can get hyper focused on sports, and so we focus in on those choices, and we don't see how they affect everything else.
I've been friends with football fans who will yell and scream at their TV and like, man, this dude is angry.
(12:40):
But they are the gentlest person when it comes to being a father and husband.
You're like, really? But he's made that choice, like, hey, in my house, my home, I'm going to lead like Christ, and I'm just going to yell at the TV because I disagree with him.
And it doesn't really affect much.
I think we downplay the effect of our choices and our decisions.
(13:03):
We were just talking last night at youth group.
A lot of us, we are eternal beings.
We do have eternity, but we focus on that little bit while we're here on Earth, and so we make decisions based on that little bit instead of the eternal, and we focus on that so much.
(13:25):
Yes.
It's because my team might win the Super Bowl.
What are you talking about? Okay, what changes in life? If your team wins the Super Bowl, you buy a new shirt.
If Caroline wins, that's about the effect it has on me.
(13:46):
It actually costs me money if they win the Super Bowl because I'm going to buy a shirt and wear it for the next 20 years because that's going to be the next time they might win.
Yeah.
It's so true that sometimes we deal with I mean, there's a big word within the Christian faith tradition, idolatry.
(14:09):
A lot of people might not know that word outside of the faith, but the idea where we take something, that we take anything, and we make that the focal point of who we are and what we do right.
And people do that with sports all the time.
People do that with gaming, people do that with work, people do that with family.
Even things that are seemingly good.
(14:31):
When we choose to make that literally the focus, complete focus of our life, we idolize that thing we make that the god of our life.
And idolatry becomes a thing that we all interact with, we all face.
We have those choices that are available to us every day, whether it's about those little everyday things, little things that affect, like you said about putting on what shoe you put on.
(14:57):
Or you could be the crazy person who puts on one socket, one sock and then one shoe and then the other sock and the other shoe.
Or you got to be the guy who puts on both socks first and then both shoes.
I don't know.
You got to make that choice every day.
And you have those little choices and then you have bigger choices and then you have what I think are the most mattering.
(15:19):
Choice.
The most mattering.
Is that even a way to say something? The choice that matters honestly the most to us, which is a choice of faith, a choice of belief.
And there's many reasons to that.
And I want to hear from you, maybe, what you have to say a little bit on why does our choice matter so much? Choice matters, obviously, because it affects the outcome of everything, of what's next.
(15:47):
It affects the outcome of things.
But when it comes to why would someone in my shoes, why would as a dad, as a husband, as a football fan, as anything, why would I ever say that the thing that matters the most, the choice that matters the most is that of faith.
Well, yesterday we had a huge blow up.
(16:09):
We lost 21 42.
I could have chosen to let that affect me the rest of the day.
Yes.
Do I like it when Carolina wins and I'm able to watch that game? Yes.
But I'm a youth pastor.
My youth group, I'm at church at 430 every Sunday, and I have a three hour program that we run.
(16:35):
And if I chose to let that dictate my mood the rest of the night, we had a fantastic night last night.
It was one of our messiest nights, which I'm not super wasn't super excited about, but we had a great discussion and everything.
I didn't choose to focus on, man, we just got creamed because that's not where my hope lies.
(16:58):
I didn't grow up in a christian household.
I'm the only one of faith in my family.
19 years ago actually got the memory on facebook Saturday.
That had been 19 years since my dad had died.
I choose not to focus on that.
(17:19):
I wouldn't have even known if it wasn't a facebook memory that I was tagged in from my siblings from a long time ago because I choose to focus on what has happened in those 19 years since my dad has died.
When my dad died, I have five stepsisters and two brothers.
The second oldest, when my dad married my stepmom, we got the five steps.
(17:44):
My brother was on his way out in high school.
He's like the last few months of high school, so he didn't really connect with the family.
I was a freshman, and so when my dad died, I became the head of household for our family.
And that they're looking me be that father figure at 21 years old.
And I didn't know what to do.
(18:04):
And so, like, I'm in Iceland calling back nightly, checking on the family, having my friends go by because my sisters are doing things or my mom's out of town and we need to check to make sure that my sisters aren't doing things.
And it got heavy, and so I just started drinking every night to ease it because I just can't handle the worldly pressure they were putting on me.
(18:28):
And then a friend invited me to church and I'm like and I've told my wife this, that the only reason I even went is because she was cute.
I'm 100% transparent with her.
If some dude had asked me, I probably wouldn't have said yes.
And so I went and it was a sermon where I don't know if any of you have ever had this, where it felt like I was the only one in the room because Pastor kept looking at me and I've spoken sermons for, and I try not to look at one person because I don't want them to feel like I wrote the sermon for them.
(19:04):
Hey, we're talking about not gossiping today.
And I keep looking, but it was somebody is the point of who you're thinking of at that moment? You.
But no, I do believe that most script sermons that are written by the pastors who preach them are holy spirit driven for at least one person in the congregation who's going to hear it, whereas all everyone can take something from it.
(19:33):
But I believe most of the time there's someone who needs something special out of it.
And so, like, I can't remember all the what is about how you're not alone in this life and God is always there for you if you're willing to.
And it was like the pastor just kept focusing and like, locking eyes with me.
And I'm like, this is freaking me out.
(19:54):
And so that night, I'm like, all right, God, if you're real, if this is true, you're with me and you want to be with me and I'm not alone, you got to show up right now because I'm drowning.
And that was like after going and having a couple of trips and I was like, I don't know what to do.
I don't know how to leave my sisters and my stepmom.
(20:16):
I don't know how to do that.
I got a brother who's in and out of jail.
He can't do anything.
I don't know what to do.
You got to show up right now.
This isn't like, hey, I'm going to show you a little bit.
It's all or nothing.
And he said, okay, so I quit drinking that night.
I've had a couple sips of alcohol since then, but my desire for it is gone and it all tastes disgusting.
(20:46):
Hey, let me taste it.
That's how God works.
He took the desire away and then in case I ever tried to override the desire, it all tastes nasty to me now.
So if you want to override me taking away your desire, it's just going to taste gross and it's going to be unpleasant for you anyway.
(21:06):
And it was overnight and there's no other way to explain that as someone drank every night and have the desire to drink every night and to have that reason and desire just suddenly taken away.
And it came from the desperation choice of I can't keep doing what I'm doing and not everyone is faced with that.
(21:33):
But I went to church because a cute girl invited me, but I never would have gone had she not invited me.
And I never would have said yes if she wasn't cute.
But I still had that choice not to go.
Like, now, that's not for me.
I'm just going to find my own way and figure it out.
A seed had been planted that's a longer story about on the way to my dad while he's in the hospital.
(21:59):
A pastor in the middle of the Baltimore airport walked up to me after I hadn't slept for 36 hours and said, hey, God really laid on my heart to come over and pray for you.
I'm like what? I don't know who you are.
I never saw him again.
I told him, yeah, my dad is in the hospital.
He's dying.
I haven't slept.
I feel guilty because I don't know why I'm telling him all this either, but I'm like, I'm never going to see him get out there.
(22:25):
He prayed me and left.
That was the seed.
And then as I look back now, I can see the seeds growing that people had planted that came to my choice.
But it's still up to me and it's still up to people.
God gives us that choice.
And as someone who's lived on both sides of it, I can see how fuller and better my life is after saying yes to it.
(22:54):
It's amazing to hear stories like that because a lot of the times it's not an overnight thing.
For some people, it is, and it's amazing to hear their stories.
And for myself, it wasn't an overnight thing.
For myself, it was over a period of time, seeing the outpoured faith and the living out of faith by my mom after the attempted murder from my biological father, and just seeing that over time and then coming into a place of accepting that forgiveness of Christ.
(23:32):
So it's really cool to hear when different things like that God will work.
Miraculously things in life can happen in a miraculous way when set forth by God.
And sometimes he uses those things to affect the choice that we make when it comes to listen.
(23:52):
Are you going to continue in this way of stupidity? Are you going to continue in this way that is less than and not ideal compared to the best that I have planned for you and that I can lead you through and lead you into? Come on.
I'm giving you the choice.
Come on, come on, come on.
(24:14):
That's a beautiful thing.
And I know as you as a dad myself as a dad, that the beauty of choice.
And then when your kid makes that choice of what you desire and stuff, just the yes like the joy and such and the other side, it isn't hate, right? It's like if you choose not to do what I ask, if you choose not to do what I know is best for you and what I want for you, it's not that I hate you and I'm going to make the worst happen to you in life.
(24:42):
It's that I was trying to get you to walk in the best way possible for you.
That may be difficult at times and you might not like it at different times, but part of it is too.
I'm protecting you from.
If you go this other way and you choose to go this other path, then you're going to be in a worse off spot.
(25:03):
You're going to be in dangerous places.
You're going to be in situations that you're taking out the opportunity to grab my hand in the midst of whatever it may be.
Choice, I mean, it rings all the way through everything in life but also this this faith piece, whether it's from miraculous moment and overnight change to multiple years and a walk towards understanding and a walk towards asking questions and facing doubt and facing fears, choice matters so much.
(25:47):
And it affects that.
Choice affects that choice of faith even specifically to that.
That affects then what's to come in the rest of our life.
It affects always be forthright in the reality that our choice of faith, especially faith in Christ, our choice of denial of that puts us in a place of destruction.
(26:09):
It puts us in a place of where things that may seem good or seem right in the moments or seem like pleasant in the moments.
They lead us to places of darkness.
They lead us to places of brokenness like you said about the stepping into a place of drunkenness and a place of constant drinking.
And although it was something that seemed to be a release and relieve you in those moments, it was actually something that took you down a darker and darker road and further and further away from who you could be.
(26:45):
And what life was intended to be for you when it came to even to your family at home, let alone to the life that you had right there in front of you where you were.
And that choice for faith specifically, faith in Christ sets us forward to joy.
It sets us forward to a life of experiencing a supernatural peace.
(27:06):
It sets us forward to a place of strength through different parts of life that we never would have that we would have fell under in the first place.
And all of that is only available, it's only capable because of the presence of Holy Spirit in the life of those who choose to place their faith in what Christ has done.
(27:29):
And if you're somebody listening and you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about with this, here's a simple way to understand what I'm talking about.
There's a word gospel.
It means good news.
And the good news specifically when it comes to faith in Christ, is that or Christianity, you've heard of the Christian faith or Jesus, is that God, our sin, paying everyone life.
(27:52):
God created us to be with Him.
Our sin, our disobedience separates us from God, and that sin cannot be removed by good works or good deeds.
There's nothing that we can do to write ourselves before a perfect God, before a perfect standard.
When we break that standard, when we when we break that and diso and disobey and commit sin, it prevents us from perfection because we're no longer perfect.
(28:18):
It's just a logical thing there, but paying the ultimate price.
Jesus came to us.
He he came down 100% God, 100% man.
He came down.
He lived a perfect life, the only one ever to do it, lived a perfect life and gave himself up as a sacrifice in you and I's place in our place.
(28:39):
He gave himself up and gave up his life as a sacrifice for us, as the penalty that was due before the perfect judge in the courtroom.
He gave up his life in place of us.
He paid the ultimate fine that was due in our place so that we could have a relationship with him.
And he rose three days later, showing his power over death, showing that he was ultimately in control, he had ultimate authority, and that death had no hold on us.
(29:10):
The outcome of our sin and disobedience no longer had a hold of us.
If we would believe, if we would just choose and accept that gift of his death and resurrection, and it's eternal life.
It's something that's available to everyone now, and it's life that begins now.
(29:31):
And we can have a relationship.
We can experience that joy, that peace.
We can live out this everlasting.
What's the word I'm looking for, this undying love and this great relationship with our Creator, with the One who saved us.
Now, it's not something that just happens after we die.
(29:53):
It's something that happens now.
And so I would encourage anybody hearing, if you've never heard that before, to go before the Lord with that, to ponder these things in your heart and do not wait on them.
I'm not somebody who thinks, okay, say this.
(30:15):
Prayer with me and you are saved.
Woohoo.
No, this is all predicated upon your heart with the Lord.
And if you believe in your heart and confess that you have sinned, that God has sent His Son, that Jesus has died for you and rose again, and you believe that.
(30:35):
Live it out.
Live it out.
And man, there's an eternal life that we get to live with the One who created us and loves us so much that he paid the price for us.
And there's also a joy and a newness to life that we get to experience each and every day.
(30:55):
I'd love to hear if anybody listening has any questions about that man, don't be afraid to shoot me an email, cleats off the couch@gmail.com, shoot me a DM on Twitter or whatever.
And I'd love to answer questions.
I'd love to talk more about that.
And we've talked about choice.
Choice of your favorite football team, choice of little things in life, choice of faith.
(31:18):
The choice of faith is the biggest decision you will ever make in your life.
Either way, whether you choose to be a follower of Christ and you choose to accept that gift in which he has given of Himself for you, or you choose not to, it's the biggest decision because everything else comes out of that.
(31:42):
What you believe about God dictates and decides everything else about how you go about life, the other decisions that you make, the other choices that you make.
And so choice matters, we all know this.
But when it comes to our choice specific to what we believe, that's the ultimate.
And you can still choose to choose to be a Panthers fan, and we'll pray for you if that's the case.
(32:11):
But we're a Steelers fan at this point.
We're doing much better.
No, not at all.
The important thing is what you believe happens after you die is worth time and energy to make an educated decision and choice, okay? Because not everyone believes the same thing.
(32:38):
I believe I have a brother that believes that when we die, that's it, there is nothing.
And so we've talked about that.
He spent some time looking at things, and although we disagree, he spent time in making that choice.
A lot of people go about their life making their choice with zero interaction with it.
(33:02):
Yeah, I'm going to heaven, how do you know God and stuff? I'm a good person.
I'm going to get that from or if you guys talk about how God loves me and everything, so obviously I'm going to spend eternity with him.
Or there's many different schools of thought.
(33:23):
And although I would love each and every person to accept what I believe, I know that's not the case.
But the important part is it's worth your eternal destination.
What happens eternally to you is worth time and effort on your part to make an educated choice.
(33:44):
That's a big decision.
And so you need to be able to back it up a little bit.
Oh.
Why do you believe that? I don't know.
That's not helpful to the conversation at all.
I've seen God move in my life.
I've seen what my life was like without Him.
So I can back up and discuss and articulate why I've made the choice for faith, why I have accepted Christ as my Savior, why I believe God exists, why I believe the words of the Bible are true, why I believe prayer works and corporate worship is important.
(34:22):
I've seen all of that.
I can give you instances for all of it, and it's great.
It brings discussion.
If you believe, nothing happens.
There is no eternity.
You die.
You're dead.
Why do you believe that? I don't know.
I've never seen a soul rise up from a funeral up into the heavens.
(34:45):
That's a pretty ridiculous argument.
No matter what you believe, what choice you're going to make, take the time and do the work to make sure it's an educated and thought out decision, not one that's handed down to you like your football.
I'm a Carolina fan because my dad was a Carolina fan, because his dad was a Carolina fan.
(35:09):
So I'm going to heaven because my mom believed, my grandmother believed, so I'm bought into it.
That's not how it works.
Faith is not like an inheritance that you get from your parents.
I'm going to heaven because of this.
It's personal, and you got to make that personal choice.
(35:33):
Yeah.
And others representation of those same choices ultimately should not have an effect on our own.
And what I mean by that is, if I claim that there's no way that I could ever be a follower of Christ, I couldn't be a Christian.
(35:57):
I've seen Christians and I've seen how terrible they are.
Well, when it comes to making a choice of faith to be a follower of Christ, are you following Christianity or are you following Jesus? Are you following those who represent or badly represent Christianity or are you following Jesus? There's a big difference between that's something that I've heard a lot of and our representation of the same choice.
(36:31):
So in this case, the idea of being a follower of Jesus, being a Christian, seeing others and how they represent, that should not dictate.
But the reality is sometimes it does.
That goes to a flip side of the conversation, which is where those who do claim to be something, right? If I claim to be a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, I'm not going to be found cheering for the Cleveland Browns.
(36:59):
It's not going to happen.
But that's the important distinction.
We are followers of Christ.
I am not followers of John, who is a follower of Christ.
That's not what it is.
And yes, there are poor representations of Christianity out there.
Jeff Foxworth and I've been saying this a lot lately, said it best when he talked about Southerners.
(37:23):
Same thing happens for Christianity.
We cannot keep the most ignorant among us off TV because it's always, oh, there's another pastoral scandal, there's another but on the inverse, that's what sells a story about a pastor who was faithful to his ministry and his wife and his family.
(37:44):
That's not going to be a story on the media coming to you at six.
This pastor who has lived 46 years with the same way I got to watch that pastor so and so is caught having an affair with one of the chairs of the Finance Committee, news at six.
Oh, I'm tuned into that.
(38:05):
It's just another hypocrite in the church.
Stop following people and follow Christ.
People are going to let you down all the time.
Yeah, I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I know I let my wife and kids down all the time.
(38:28):
Our goal is Christ.
That's who we are looking to.
And this side of eternity, this side of heaven, I will never achieve that.
But I still keep pressing towards the goal and then humility, when I do fail and I do mess up, it's being transparent, being open and being open to accountability, which is another thing men of the church are good at.
(38:57):
Well, the other side that comes to my mind is just that piece too about is if we are somebody who claims to be something, we do want to, we should desire to represent that well, right.
But our representation can affect people.
And so our effort should be to represent well, as a Steelers fan, as a Carolina fan, as a follower of Jesus, as a dad, as a worker, as whatever it is.
(39:30):
And in the same vein, though, when people badly represent that as any of the things I just said, I think about the dad.
If somebody badly represents what it looks like to be a dad, it shouldn't mean that I don't ever want to be a dad because I'm going to be a bad dad.
(39:54):
Well, that's not necessarily the case.
You have a different choice in the matter.
And so it has two sides to that.
And if we claim to be something we need to fulfill and represent well, right.
We need to fulfill that and what we claim and represent that well, and the fruit of our life proves what choices we make.
(40:14):
That's a big thing.
If I claim to be something, let the fruit of my life, let the way that I live the things that I say, the way that I'm seen and understood, let that prove that.
But on the other side is I should not only look at other people and if I find failure, therefore I can't trust any part of them and I can't take any example from them.
(40:37):
And anything that they believe or do, that person, they failed financially or something like that, they filed for bankruptcy.
Hey, they always had a budget for their family and this, and therefore I should never have a budget because I'm going to end up in bankruptcy, so I'm going to go without a budget in my life.
(41:00):
Well, no, that's idiocy that's not the way to go about it.
And so definitely two big pieces to this that both coexist at the same time, depending on where you are at or which side you are on, what choices you have made, but they both still exist on either side of what choice you have made.
(41:22):
Me not being perfect is not an excuse, though.
I believe every interaction I have with a pre believer either pushes them towards Christ or pushes them away from Christ.
And so if I'm not representing Christ well, in that moment, I potentially have affected their eternal destination.
(41:45):
And so, yes, I am not Christ, and I will never be perfect, but I still have the responsibility to do my best to represent Him well to others.
And then when I do fail in those interactions, if I am able to go back and reconcile and so if I'm interacting with someone and I fly off the handle in anger and I represent Him poor, it's going back.
(42:11):
Hey, man, listen, I am so sorry.
I should not have done that.
I would appreciate your forgiveness.
This is not who I want to be.
Christ is working in me.
I'm at work.
Please forgive me.
And so saying, hey, I'm not perfect.
I'm not Jesus is not an excuse.
It's acknowledging that and say, okay, so I'm a constant work, but I still have to represent Him well.
(42:38):
Yeah.
Sometimes natural conversation leads to heavier topics because the root of who we are as humans is deep.
There's always deep thought and deep meaning behind the different things that we participate in, the different people that we are.
And I think that's an intentional thing.
(43:00):
We're not meant to be shallow, current, temporary beings in the way of like, okay, I'm only going to care about who's going to make the Super Bowl.
Yeah, you can be passionate about who's going to make the Super Bowl, but how does your passion then relate to your other choices in life? That's where it becomes difficult because there are people out there that claim to be Christ followers, that there is no indication of that in their life.
(43:29):
They're like, I'm at church on Sunday.
Let's say that they're a big top level supervisor in their company that be littles and bullies and manipulate and it just does shady business.
I would then say, no, they're not a Christian, they're not a Christ follower.
(43:52):
And you say, well, how can you judge them? First off, I'm not judging.
I am saying what I see, okay? As a Christ follower, I am called to hold other Christ followers accountable.
And so John and I have a relationship here.
And so if we were still living together and living in the same area and I'm out to dinner with my wife and I look across the restaurant and John's having dinner with someone who is not his wife.
(44:21):
I am called by God to go address that with him.
Hey, if not right there in that moment, calling him later that night, hey, I saw you at dinner with someone who was not your wife.
You need to explain this to me.
And it may be just as simple as, yes, you are correct.
That happens to be her best friend.
We're planning a surprise party for her.
(44:42):
This was a time to her and our son was doing something, so it worked out perfectly.
And I was starving, so we would have to be over dinner.
Okay.
All right, John, I'm going to leave that.
However, I'm going to keep that in my mind.
So his wife's birthday comes up like, hey, how was your party? And she goes, what party? Then that's another follow up conversation.
(45:03):
So dope we have the obligation to hold other oh, you can't judge me.
Judge not let you be judged.
Yes.
I am holding him to a standard that I also want others to hold me, the standard that I want other people to hold me to.
That's okay.
It's okay to hold each other accountable.
(45:24):
Now, am I going to judge a non Christian at the same level? No, but if I have a non Christian friend who's at dinner with it somebody who's not going to say the same thing.
But we get in this thing where we say, oh, I'm a Christ follower, and then we have people that act nothing like him, that aren't even trying, and then that hurts.
(45:48):
Hurts and impacts people.
And then we have on the opposite side, we have nonchristians who act more like Jesus than Christians do, like, well, look at him.
He doesn't do but it goes back to who you're going to be a follower of.
Oh, Jim's just such a nice guy.
He doesn't go to church, but he gives to charity.
(46:09):
He goes and sees his mother, who's in the hospital once a week.
He does all this.
And Fred, he says he's a Christian, but, like, he's been married nine times, and he's constantly dating his secretary.
He caught bezeling from his company.
I don't know.
I'm going to follow Jim over here.
(46:30):
That's not the point.
You're not supposed to be following other people, supposed to be following Christ.
Yeah.
And again, that's the ultimate choice.
The ultimate choice is the decision that we make about something that's greater than the temporary life we live.
(46:51):
And for me and I know for yourself, that's come down to the ultimate choice to be a follower of Jesus, what he's done for us, what he's done for anyone listening.
He's given up, and he's taken the place of your sin.
He's taken your place in the courtroom named guilty of death, guilty of separation, eternally from God.
(47:16):
And he said, no, I'm going to take that for him.
I'm going to take that for him.
And all he says I remember I said this picture before on a stream one time was about like all he does is just reach out his hand and just say, just grab it.
Just grab my hand.
It's that simple.
It's that simple.
And then it's like, you've done this for me, man.
(47:37):
How can I not say thank you through the way that I live? How can I not allow my life then to be one that screams thank you? Thank you.
Thank you, because you've saved me from the worst of things.
You've saved me from where I was heading.
You've saved me from eternity without you, but also even in this life.
(47:58):
And it's not to say that those difficult things obviously we both know those difficult things will still exist, but we go hand in hand then beside the one who will lead us through those things will direct us out of those things.
And so it's not about that.
(48:19):
We'll have perfect money.
We'll have perfect health, anything like that, but we have the one who will carry us perfectly through health situations.
He will carry us perfectly through financial situations.
He would carry us perfectly through life situations in general.
He'll carry us perfectly through a two and six start to a season by the Pittsburgh Steelers okay.
(48:41):
Or by the Carolina Panthers.
He'll carry us through it'll be it'll be okay.
I hope you've enjoyed the first part of this conversation from my interview with Robert, and I look forward to being able to share the rest with you in the next episode as we continue to talk about choices and how they affect life.
(49:06):
And we get to hear a little bit more from Robert about his thoughts with the Panthers moving forward and what he thinks we'll see in the NFC South.
I encourage you to check out the Patreon as a way to be able to support the podcast to see that these conversations continue to happen.
Check out the different tiers available there and the different things that come along with the tiers, different content that is available to you when you sign up.
(49:30):
Check out Patreon.
Thank you for being a part of this, and we'll see you again in part two of the interview with Robert.
See you.
Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of cleats off the couch with your host Del Curry.
Today, another opportunity to be able to have a conversation with another average Joe.
He may not think he's so average, but another man of the couch, a fellow football fan, and this time a Carolina Panthers fan.
Last time, we had the privilege to sit down with Dan, the Colts fan, and talk a little bit about that, continue to pray for him because the Colts are still looking abysmal.
(00:36):
But today we'll have a little bit more conversation with somebody looking at the NFC and aside that we haven't had much privilege to talk about.
Robert, welcome in today.
Welcome in.
Yes, I definitely do not consider myself an average Joe, so I like to consider myself one of God's favorites.
Robert and I have had the great privilege of knowing each other for a few, many years now.
(00:59):
Well, privilege or not so much of a privilege that's for each of us to decide.
Football has been a thing for us that has always come up in conversation, always been a place for us to be able to sit, to watch, to enjoy, and to hang out.
First of all, Robert, why don't you introduce yourself a little? My name is Robert.
Yes, John and I have had the privilege of knowing each other for a few years.
We did ministry together several years ago.
(01:24):
I'm married, been married 16 years, got three kids, carolina Panthers fans since 95, 96, trying to remember when they came into existence, I'm told.
I can't remember.
You've been in ministry for, I think you said almost 20 years now, right.
And you're in full time ministry where you are.
That's awesome.
But also a full time football.
Well, no, you're more of a casual football fan.
(01:45):
Yeah, I'm a casual fan at best right now.
I'm in a busy season of life, and so I have NFL Sunday tickets so I can watch the Carolina games, because we would never get them on any channel up here.
Being in full time ministry, sundays are busy days.
I have three kids, two of them under ten, and my wife all vying for attention, and so I have to pick and choose how much I want to invest into things.
(02:15):
I may not know the roster.
Like, I was just looking this morning at some of the players.
I'm like, wow, this dude I don't even know did three carries for 40 yards or something like, wow.
And it wasn't Foreman or Hubbard, but he's injured.
Casual fan at best right now.
(02:36):
I still enjoy it.
I still I'm able to sit down on Sunday and catch a game.
It will except, like, yesterday, I turned it off.
So what you're saying, though, about choosing a team is actually right on par with a question and some of the conversation we wanted to have today, which was about this picture of what led you to choose being a football fan.
(02:59):
I know we started conversation and I know for anybody who heard the last episode talking with Dan, we had some conversation about how it was something that was handed down in some way, whether it was from a dad or from a family member or from those kind of interactions.
And it seemed to be a general conversation that I had with a bunch of different people when I would talk about how they were drawn into football.
(03:21):
And we started to have that conversation and you're just sitting there shaking your head no.
And so that bring okay, well, what brought you into football and what led you to choose being a football fan? I'm from South Carolina originally, and so when the expansion team started, I was a Carolina Panthers fan.
I was like home team, but I didn't really follow football up until that point.
(03:45):
I was a bought and paid for San Francisco 49 ers fan.
And that I had an aunt that lived in San Francisco, so when she came to visit, hey, here's all this 49 er merchandise.
I guess I'm a 49 year span, and I knew a little bit John Montana, Jerry Rice, and that awesome combination, but it wasn't really a thing in our house.
(04:07):
We didn't sit down on Sunday, watch football, we didn't do it on Thanksgiving.
I think we kind of watched the Super Bowl.
And so it wasn't really until I was in the military station in Iceland that a lot of people watched football because that was our connection to America.
And so everyone's like, hey, what team are you? And so I was like, well, I'm from South Carolina, so I'm a Carolina fan.
(04:29):
I decided that when Carolina came out, came into existence, that if I was going to be a fan, I'd be a Carolina fan.
And so we started watching football together.
And so it's how we connected and kind of maintained the connection of the United States while being abroad that just continued.
And further on, when I went from Iceland to Germany and more so there was more people, and we got just what we did.
(04:53):
We'd get together on Sunday and watch football together.
We'd talk about the stats and fantasy.
We had fantasy football leagues and such.
And it was nice because I was like the only Carolina fan, and so I didn't have to work.
You didn't care whether or not there was another one to band together with.
In fact, it gave you kind of that lone wolf of off suite.
I don't have to worry about anybody trying to talk to me too much about because we were from all over the US.
(05:18):
And stationed together.
We had fans from all the teams.
And so it wasn't uncommon to be the lone wolf for your team, and sometimes it wasn't even uncommon to be the lone wolf for your division.
So I may have been the only NFC South fan in our group at that time.
(05:39):
So we didn't really focus on that.
We poked fun if we had games against each other, but we just stayed unified in that.
Let's just get together and watch football.
I think I shared with you a little bit.
Like for me in the past, obviously, there were pieces about where it was hand, like being drawn into football.
And and choosing choosing to be a football fan really came because of the interactions I had with family and the the enjoyment of the game.
(06:05):
It just it was that that became a part of me.
And my family actually was a Miami Dolphins fan.
And so you were bought and paid for.
49 Ers Fan and for me, it was a Miami fan because my mom and dad and Dan Marino, that was a big piece that drew me into that.
But then it came to a place where I had the opportunity to begin to make a decision for myself.
(06:29):
And we were in Pennsylvania.
Podunk, Pennsylvania.
Why in the world is my family cheering for the Miami Dolphins? And so I really, when I was younger, got the opportunity to look at other teams similar to you.
You became a Carolina Panther fan because that's your state team.
Like, that's where you were from in Pennsylvania.
(06:51):
I'm looking at Philly and Pittsburgh.
Without upsetting too many Philadelphia fans, there were a lot of things that actually pushed me away from the idea of being a Philadelphia fans fan.
But there were a lot of things that actually drew me into the idea of Pittsburgh.
And this was before Ben.
It was before a lot of the success we've seen over the past 20 years.
(07:13):
It was during, like, Tommy Maddox and some of the Cordell Stewart years, stuff like that.
I just love some of the story behind the franchise.
Even even some things as such as like those little details about the team with the logo on the one side because you couldn't afford to both sides and stuff like that.
It just drew me into them.
And so then I made that decision that, you know what? I'm going to cheer for the Steelers.
(07:35):
It's kind of been a mix within my family, but none of my family stayed Miami Dolphins fan.
It's been a while since there's been a reason too.
We see that up here.
There is no main team.
So it's the New England Patriots.
And so that's the team for up here.
But when he left, we saw quite a few Tampa Bay fans show up.
(07:59):
And I'm like, hey, you can be a fan of a person.
That's totally fine.
We're just going to give you a hard time about it.
I have favorite players in the league right, that I want to see do well.
I love watching I mean, a lot of people love watching a certain quarterback in the league that isn't on their team.
You know what I mean? Like a Patrick Mahomes or a Josh Allen.
(08:21):
A lot of people like they're fun to watch, and sometimes you have the ones that you want to cheer for because you enjoy that player.
But it doesn't mean that you have to completely flip flop to a new team.
Well, it's expensive.
Oh, I got to get a new jersey.
I haven't bought a jersey.
What's the jersey cost nowadays? That's a good question because they're definitely not cheap.
(08:44):
Unless you go to those websites that offer authentic jerseys at discount prices.
Right now from the fanatic store NFL shop, we're talking $100.
Yeah, it's been traded three times.
I got all three of his jersey.
$300.
(09:05):
That's like groceries for a week.
I want to buy three jersey.
I mean, food only lasts a week, but the jersey one of the things that came up in our conversation planning for this episode was about choice is an all life thing.
(09:25):
Choice is something that affects all parts of life.
It's not just obviously people listening and the the premise of different conversations out of cleats off the couch come around.
The idea of football, who we've chosen to be a fan of, who we choose to cheer for, all those kind of things.
But if we're honest with ourselves, obviously choices affect all of our life.
(09:46):
As we've made a choice to cheer for a certain team in football, how can that relate to our other choices in life? We make choices every day that are similar to the choices we make as fan as football teams.
In 1995, I had to choose whether remain a 49 Ers fan or move to be a Carolina fan.
(10:10):
I think at some point, fans, as long as they're with their team long enough, they're not playing very well.
They're making poor coaching decisions, understanding no one has ever paid me for my sports or athletic advice.
Maybe there's on the team that have made some questionable moral choices and the team doesn't seem to be doing anything about it or things like that, we have to choose.
(10:35):
All right, we're going to stick with it.
We're going to move on.
And after yesterday's game, maybe that question might have popped in my head and we do it across the board.
Hey, am I going to watch another episode on Netflix? Am I going to try to get, oh, 8 hours of sleep tonight? Am I going to hit this news button for the fourth time and skip breakfast? Be on time, man.
(11:01):
Sunday is supposed to be really nice and you've had really bad weather.
I really want to get outside and do some stuff.
Or am I going to choose, keep my commitment and go to church? This morning, man, I've been having a string of bad things happening.
God, what are you doing? Are you going to choose to forsake your faith? Because in the moment, it seems like God just not on my side.
(11:26):
You're going to forget all the things he's been there for and done for you in the past, are you going to choose to remain faithful? We do it all the time.
And I was just trying to look at the statistics a little bit ago for our youth ministry.
I couldn't find it.
But the amount of choices and decisions we make daily is huge.
(11:49):
From simple things like what shoe you're going to put on first to what you're going to make for dinner, whether you're going to start your day with coffee or not.
Yeah.
Whether you're going to lean on that crunch or not.
Or are you going to engage with your teenage daughter about an awkward situation that's going to be awkward to talk about, but you need to or you're going to discipline your son because he did something, or you're going to let it go.
(12:15):
We do this all the time for men in particular.
We can get hyper focused on sports, and so we focus in on those choices, and we don't see how they affect everything else.
I've been friends with football fans who will yell and scream at their TV and like, man, this dude is angry.
(12:40):
But they are the gentlest person when it comes to being a father and husband.
You're like, really? But he's made that choice, like, hey, in my house, my home, I'm going to lead like Christ, and I'm just going to yell at the TV because I disagree with him.
And it doesn't really affect much.
I think we downplay the effect of our choices and our decisions.
(13:03):
We were just talking last night at youth group.
A lot of us, we are eternal beings.
We do have eternity, but we focus on that little bit while we're here on Earth, and so we make decisions based on that little bit instead of the eternal, and we focus on that so much.
(13:25):
Yes.
It's because my team might win the Super Bowl.
What are you talking about? Okay, what changes in life? If your team wins the Super Bowl, you buy a new shirt.
If Caroline wins, that's about the effect it has on me.
(13:46):
It actually costs me money if they win the Super Bowl because I'm going to buy a shirt and wear it for the next 20 years because that's going to be the next time they might win.
Yeah.
It's so true that sometimes we deal with I mean, there's a big word within the Christian faith tradition, idolatry.
(14:09):
A lot of people might not know that word outside of the faith, but the idea where we take something, that we take anything, and we make that the focal point of who we are and what we do right.
And people do that with sports all the time.
People do that with gaming, people do that with work, people do that with family.
Even things that are seemingly good.
(14:31):
When we choose to make that literally the focus, complete focus of our life, we idolize that thing we make that the god of our life.
And idolatry becomes a thing that we all interact with, we all face.
We have those choices that are available to us every day, whether it's about those little everyday things, little things that affect, like you said about putting on what shoe you put on.
(14:57):
Or you could be the crazy person who puts on one socket, one sock and then one shoe and then the other sock and the other shoe.
Or you got to be the guy who puts on both socks first and then both shoes.
I don't know.
You got to make that choice every day.
And you have those little choices and then you have bigger choices and then you have what I think are the most mattering.
(15:19):
Choice.
The most mattering.
Is that even a way to say something? The choice that matters honestly the most to us, which is a choice of faith, a choice of belief.
And there's many reasons to that.
And I want to hear from you, maybe, what you have to say a little bit on why does our choice matter so much? Choice matters, obviously, because it affects the outcome of everything, of what's next.
(15:47):
It affects the outcome of things.
But when it comes to why would someone in my shoes, why would as a dad, as a husband, as a football fan, as anything, why would I ever say that the thing that matters the most, the choice that matters the most is that of faith.
Well, yesterday we had a huge blow up.
(16:09):
We lost 21 42.
I could have chosen to let that affect me the rest of the day.
Yes.
Do I like it when Carolina wins and I'm able to watch that game? Yes.
But I'm a youth pastor.
My youth group, I'm at church at 430 every Sunday, and I have a three hour program that we run.
(16:35):
And if I chose to let that dictate my mood the rest of the night, we had a fantastic night last night.
It was one of our messiest nights, which I'm not super wasn't super excited about, but we had a great discussion and everything.
I didn't choose to focus on, man, we just got creamed because that's not where my hope lies.
(16:58):
I didn't grow up in a christian household.
I'm the only one of faith in my family.
19 years ago actually got the memory on facebook Saturday.
That had been 19 years since my dad had died.
I choose not to focus on that.
(17:19):
I wouldn't have even known if it wasn't a facebook memory that I was tagged in from my siblings from a long time ago because I choose to focus on what has happened in those 19 years since my dad has died.
When my dad died, I have five stepsisters and two brothers.
The second oldest, when my dad married my stepmom, we got the five steps.
(17:44):
My brother was on his way out in high school.
He's like the last few months of high school, so he didn't really connect with the family.
I was a freshman, and so when my dad died, I became the head of household for our family.
And that they're looking me be that father figure at 21 years old.
And I didn't know what to do.
(18:04):
And so, like, I'm in Iceland calling back nightly, checking on the family, having my friends go by because my sisters are doing things or my mom's out of town and we need to check to make sure that my sisters aren't doing things.
And it got heavy, and so I just started drinking every night to ease it because I just can't handle the worldly pressure they were putting on me.
(18:28):
And then a friend invited me to church and I'm like and I've told my wife this, that the only reason I even went is because she was cute.
I'm 100% transparent with her.
If some dude had asked me, I probably wouldn't have said yes.
And so I went and it was a sermon where I don't know if any of you have ever had this, where it felt like I was the only one in the room because Pastor kept looking at me and I've spoken sermons for, and I try not to look at one person because I don't want them to feel like I wrote the sermon for them.
(19:04):
Hey, we're talking about not gossiping today.
And I keep looking, but it was somebody is the point of who you're thinking of at that moment? You.
But no, I do believe that most script sermons that are written by the pastors who preach them are holy spirit driven for at least one person in the congregation who's going to hear it, whereas all everyone can take something from it.
(19:33):
But I believe most of the time there's someone who needs something special out of it.
And so, like, I can't remember all the what is about how you're not alone in this life and God is always there for you if you're willing to.
And it was like the pastor just kept focusing and like, locking eyes with me.
And I'm like, this is freaking me out.
(19:54):
And so that night, I'm like, all right, God, if you're real, if this is true, you're with me and you want to be with me and I'm not alone, you got to show up right now because I'm drowning.
And that was like after going and having a couple of trips and I was like, I don't know what to do.
I don't know how to leave my sisters and my stepmom.
(20:16):
I don't know how to do that.
I got a brother who's in and out of jail.
He can't do anything.
I don't know what to do.
You got to show up right now.
This isn't like, hey, I'm going to show you a little bit.
It's all or nothing.
And he said, okay, so I quit drinking that night.
I've had a couple sips of alcohol since then, but my desire for it is gone and it all tastes disgusting.
(20:46):
Hey, let me taste it.
That's how God works.
He took the desire away and then in case I ever tried to override the desire, it all tastes nasty to me now.
So if you want to override me taking away your desire, it's just going to taste gross and it's going to be unpleasant for you anyway.
(21:06):
And it was overnight and there's no other way to explain that as someone drank every night and have the desire to drink every night and to have that reason and desire just suddenly taken away.
And it came from the desperation choice of I can't keep doing what I'm doing and not everyone is faced with that.
(21:33):
But I went to church because a cute girl invited me, but I never would have gone had she not invited me.
And I never would have said yes if she wasn't cute.
But I still had that choice not to go.
Like, now, that's not for me.
I'm just going to find my own way and figure it out.
A seed had been planted that's a longer story about on the way to my dad while he's in the hospital.
(21:59):
A pastor in the middle of the Baltimore airport walked up to me after I hadn't slept for 36 hours and said, hey, God really laid on my heart to come over and pray for you.
I'm like what? I don't know who you are.
I never saw him again.
I told him, yeah, my dad is in the hospital.
He's dying.
I haven't slept.
I feel guilty because I don't know why I'm telling him all this either, but I'm like, I'm never going to see him get out there.
(22:25):
He prayed me and left.
That was the seed.
And then as I look back now, I can see the seeds growing that people had planted that came to my choice.
But it's still up to me and it's still up to people.
God gives us that choice.
And as someone who's lived on both sides of it, I can see how fuller and better my life is after saying yes to it.
(22:54):
It's amazing to hear stories like that because a lot of the times it's not an overnight thing.
For some people, it is, and it's amazing to hear their stories.
And for myself, it wasn't an overnight thing.
For myself, it was over a period of time, seeing the outpoured faith and the living out of faith by my mom after the attempted murder from my biological father, and just seeing that over time and then coming into a place of accepting that forgiveness of Christ.
(23:32):
So it's really cool to hear when different things like that God will work.
Miraculously things in life can happen in a miraculous way when set forth by God.
And sometimes he uses those things to affect the choice that we make when it comes to listen.
(23:52):
Are you going to continue in this way of stupidity? Are you going to continue in this way that is less than and not ideal compared to the best that I have planned for you and that I can lead you through and lead you into? Come on.
I'm giving you the choice.
Come on, come on, come on.
(24:14):
That's a beautiful thing.
And I know as you as a dad myself as a dad, that the beauty of choice.
And then when your kid makes that choice of what you desire and stuff, just the yes like the joy and such and the other side, it isn't hate, right? It's like if you choose not to do what I ask, if you choose not to do what I know is best for you and what I want for you, it's not that I hate you and I'm going to make the worst happen to you in life.
(24:42):
It's that I was trying to get you to walk in the best way possible for you.
That may be difficult at times and you might not like it at different times, but part of it is too.
I'm protecting you from.
If you go this other way and you choose to go this other path, then you're going to be in a worse off spot.
(25:03):
You're going to be in dangerous places.
You're going to be in situations that you're taking out the opportunity to grab my hand in the midst of whatever it may be.
Choice, I mean, it rings all the way through everything in life but also this this faith piece, whether it's from miraculous moment and overnight change to multiple years and a walk towards understanding and a walk towards asking questions and facing doubt and facing fears, choice matters so much.
(25:47):
And it affects that.
Choice affects that choice of faith even specifically to that.
That affects then what's to come in the rest of our life.
It affects always be forthright in the reality that our choice of faith, especially faith in Christ, our choice of denial of that puts us in a place of destruction.
(26:09):
It puts us in a place of where things that may seem good or seem right in the moments or seem like pleasant in the moments.
They lead us to places of darkness.
They lead us to places of brokenness like you said about the stepping into a place of drunkenness and a place of constant drinking.
And although it was something that seemed to be a release and relieve you in those moments, it was actually something that took you down a darker and darker road and further and further away from who you could be.
(26:45):
And what life was intended to be for you when it came to even to your family at home, let alone to the life that you had right there in front of you where you were.
And that choice for faith specifically, faith in Christ sets us forward to joy.
It sets us forward to a life of experiencing a supernatural peace.
(27:06):
It sets us forward to a place of strength through different parts of life that we never would have that we would have fell under in the first place.
And all of that is only available, it's only capable because of the presence of Holy Spirit in the life of those who choose to place their faith in what Christ has done.
(27:29):
And if you're somebody listening and you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about with this, here's a simple way to understand what I'm talking about.
There's a word gospel.
It means good news.
And the good news specifically when it comes to faith in Christ, is that or Christianity, you've heard of the Christian faith or Jesus, is that God, our sin, paying everyone life.
(27:52):
God created us to be with Him.
Our sin, our disobedience separates us from God, and that sin cannot be removed by good works or good deeds.
There's nothing that we can do to write ourselves before a perfect God, before a perfect standard.
When we break that standard, when we when we break that and diso and disobey and commit sin, it prevents us from perfection because we're no longer perfect.
(28:18):
It's just a logical thing there, but paying the ultimate price.
Jesus came to us.
He he came down 100% God, 100% man.
He came down.
He lived a perfect life, the only one ever to do it, lived a perfect life and gave himself up as a sacrifice in you and I's place in our place.
(28:39):
He gave himself up and gave up his life as a sacrifice for us, as the penalty that was due before the perfect judge in the courtroom.
He gave up his life in place of us.
He paid the ultimate fine that was due in our place so that we could have a relationship with him.
And he rose three days later, showing his power over death, showing that he was ultimately in control, he had ultimate authority, and that death had no hold on us.
(29:10):
The outcome of our sin and disobedience no longer had a hold of us.
If we would believe, if we would just choose and accept that gift of his death and resurrection, and it's eternal life.
It's something that's available to everyone now, and it's life that begins now.
(29:31):
And we can have a relationship.
We can experience that joy, that peace.
We can live out this everlasting.
What's the word I'm looking for, this undying love and this great relationship with our Creator, with the One who saved us.
Now, it's not something that just happens after we die.
(29:53):
It's something that happens now.
And so I would encourage anybody hearing, if you've never heard that before, to go before the Lord with that, to ponder these things in your heart and do not wait on them.
I'm not somebody who thinks, okay, say this.
(30:15):
Prayer with me and you are saved.
Woohoo.
No, this is all predicated upon your heart with the Lord.
And if you believe in your heart and confess that you have sinned, that God has sent His Son, that Jesus has died for you and rose again, and you believe that.
(30:35):
Live it out.
Live it out.
And man, there's an eternal life that we get to live with the One who created us and loves us so much that he paid the price for us.
And there's also a joy and a newness to life that we get to experience each and every day.
(30:55):
I'd love to hear if anybody listening has any questions about that man, don't be afraid to shoot me an email, cleats off the couch@gmail.com, shoot me a DM on Twitter or whatever.
And I'd love to answer questions.
I'd love to talk more about that.
And we've talked about choice.
Choice of your favorite football team, choice of little things in life, choice of faith.
(31:18):
The choice of faith is the biggest decision you will ever make in your life.
Either way, whether you choose to be a follower of Christ and you choose to accept that gift in which he has given of Himself for you, or you choose not to, it's the biggest decision because everything else comes out of that.
(31:42):
What you believe about God dictates and decides everything else about how you go about life, the other decisions that you make, the other choices that you make.
And so choice matters, we all know this.
But when it comes to our choice specific to what we believe, that's the ultimate.
And you can still choose to choose to be a Panthers fan, and we'll pray for you if that's the case.
(32:11):
But we're a Steelers fan at this point.
We're doing much better.
No, not at all.
The important thing is what you believe happens after you die is worth time and energy to make an educated decision and choice, okay? Because not everyone believes the same thing.
(32:38):
I believe I have a brother that believes that when we die, that's it, there is nothing.
And so we've talked about that.
He spent some time looking at things, and although we disagree, he spent time in making that choice.
A lot of people go about their life making their choice with zero interaction with it.
(33:02):
Yeah, I'm going to heaven, how do you know God and stuff? I'm a good person.
I'm going to get that from or if you guys talk about how God loves me and everything, so obviously I'm going to spend eternity with him.
Or there's many different schools of thought.
(33:23):
And although I would love each and every person to accept what I believe, I know that's not the case.
But the important part is it's worth your eternal destination.
What happens eternally to you is worth time and effort on your part to make an educated choice.
(33:44):
That's a big decision.
And so you need to be able to back it up a little bit.
Oh.
Why do you believe that? I don't know.
That's not helpful to the conversation at all.
I've seen God move in my life.
I've seen what my life was like without Him.
So I can back up and discuss and articulate why I've made the choice for faith, why I have accepted Christ as my Savior, why I believe God exists, why I believe the words of the Bible are true, why I believe prayer works and corporate worship is important.
(34:22):
I've seen all of that.
I can give you instances for all of it, and it's great.
It brings discussion.
If you believe, nothing happens.
There is no eternity.
You die.
You're dead.
Why do you believe that? I don't know.
I've never seen a soul rise up from a funeral up into the heavens.
(34:45):
That's a pretty ridiculous argument.
No matter what you believe, what choice you're going to make, take the time and do the work to make sure it's an educated and thought out decision, not one that's handed down to you like your football.
I'm a Carolina fan because my dad was a Carolina fan, because his dad was a Carolina fan.
(35:09):
So I'm going to heaven because my mom believed, my grandmother believed, so I'm bought into it.
That's not how it works.
Faith is not like an inheritance that you get from your parents.
I'm going to heaven because of this.
It's personal, and you got to make that personal choice.
(35:33):
Yeah.
And others representation of those same choices ultimately should not have an effect on our own.
And what I mean by that is, if I claim that there's no way that I could ever be a follower of Christ, I couldn't be a Christian.
(35:57):
I've seen Christians and I've seen how terrible they are.
Well, when it comes to making a choice of faith to be a follower of Christ, are you following Christianity or are you following Jesus? Are you following those who represent or badly represent Christianity or are you following Jesus? There's a big difference between that's something that I've heard a lot of and our representation of the same choice.
(36:31):
So in this case, the idea of being a follower of Jesus, being a Christian, seeing others and how they represent, that should not dictate.
But the reality is sometimes it does.
That goes to a flip side of the conversation, which is where those who do claim to be something, right? If I claim to be a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, I'm not going to be found cheering for the Cleveland Browns.
(36:59):
It's not going to happen.
But that's the important distinction.
We are followers of Christ.
I am not followers of John, who is a follower of Christ.
That's not what it is.
And yes, there are poor representations of Christianity out there.
Jeff Foxworth and I've been saying this a lot lately, said it best when he talked about Southerners.
(37:23):
Same thing happens for Christianity.
We cannot keep the most ignorant among us off TV because it's always, oh, there's another pastoral scandal, there's another but on the inverse, that's what sells a story about a pastor who was faithful to his ministry and his wife and his family.
(37:44):
That's not going to be a story on the media coming to you at six.
This pastor who has lived 46 years with the same way I got to watch that pastor so and so is caught having an affair with one of the chairs of the Finance Committee, news at six.
Oh, I'm tuned into that.
(38:05):
It's just another hypocrite in the church.
Stop following people and follow Christ.
People are going to let you down all the time.
Yeah, I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I know I let my wife and kids down all the time.
(38:28):
Our goal is Christ.
That's who we are looking to.
And this side of eternity, this side of heaven, I will never achieve that.
But I still keep pressing towards the goal and then humility, when I do fail and I do mess up, it's being transparent, being open and being open to accountability, which is another thing men of the church are good at.
(38:57):
Well, the other side that comes to my mind is just that piece too about is if we are somebody who claims to be something, we do want to, we should desire to represent that well, right.
But our representation can affect people.
And so our effort should be to represent well, as a Steelers fan, as a Carolina fan, as a follower of Jesus, as a dad, as a worker, as whatever it is.
(39:30):
And in the same vein, though, when people badly represent that as any of the things I just said, I think about the dad.
If somebody badly represents what it looks like to be a dad, it shouldn't mean that I don't ever want to be a dad because I'm going to be a bad dad.
(39:54):
Well, that's not necessarily the case.
You have a different choice in the matter.
And so it has two sides to that.
And if we claim to be something we need to fulfill and represent well, right.
We need to fulfill that and what we claim and represent that well, and the fruit of our life proves what choices we make.
(40:14):
That's a big thing.
If I claim to be something, let the fruit of my life, let the way that I live the things that I say, the way that I'm seen and understood, let that prove that.
But on the other side is I should not only look at other people and if I find failure, therefore I can't trust any part of them and I can't take any example from them.
(40:37):
And anything that they believe or do, that person, they failed financially or something like that, they filed for bankruptcy.
Hey, they always had a budget for their family and this, and therefore I should never have a budget because I'm going to end up in bankruptcy, so I'm going to go without a budget in my life.
(41:00):
Well, no, that's idiocy that's not the way to go about it.
And so definitely two big pieces to this that both coexist at the same time, depending on where you are at or which side you are on, what choices you have made, but they both still exist on either side of what choice you have made.
(41:22):
Me not being perfect is not an excuse, though.
I believe every interaction I have with a pre believer either pushes them towards Christ or pushes them away from Christ.
And so if I'm not representing Christ well, in that moment, I potentially have affected their eternal destination.
(41:45):
And so, yes, I am not Christ, and I will never be perfect, but I still have the responsibility to do my best to represent Him well to others.
And then when I do fail in those interactions, if I am able to go back and reconcile and so if I'm interacting with someone and I fly off the handle in anger and I represent Him poor, it's going back.
(42:11):
Hey, man, listen, I am so sorry.
I should not have done that.
I would appreciate your forgiveness.
This is not who I want to be.
Christ is working in me.
I'm at work.
Please forgive me.
And so saying, hey, I'm not perfect.
I'm not Jesus is not an excuse.
It's acknowledging that and say, okay, so I'm a constant work, but I still have to represent Him well.
(42:38):
Yeah.
Sometimes natural conversation leads to heavier topics because the root of who we are as humans is deep.
There's always deep thought and deep meaning behind the different things that we participate in, the different people that we are.
And I think that's an intentional thing.
(43:00):
We're not meant to be shallow, current, temporary beings in the way of like, okay, I'm only going to care about who's going to make the Super Bowl.
Yeah, you can be passionate about who's going to make the Super Bowl, but how does your passion then relate to your other choices in life? That's where it becomes difficult because there are people out there that claim to be Christ followers, that there is no indication of that in their life.
(43:29):
They're like, I'm at church on Sunday.
Let's say that they're a big top level supervisor in their company that be littles and bullies and manipulate and it just does shady business.
I would then say, no, they're not a Christian, they're not a Christ follower.
(43:52):
And you say, well, how can you judge them? First off, I'm not judging.
I am saying what I see, okay? As a Christ follower, I am called to hold other Christ followers accountable.
And so John and I have a relationship here.
And so if we were still living together and living in the same area and I'm out to dinner with my wife and I look across the restaurant and John's having dinner with someone who is not his wife.
(44:21):
I am called by God to go address that with him.
Hey, if not right there in that moment, calling him later that night, hey, I saw you at dinner with someone who was not your wife.
You need to explain this to me.
And it may be just as simple as, yes, you are correct.
That happens to be her best friend.
We're planning a surprise party for her.
(44:42):
This was a time to her and our son was doing something, so it worked out perfectly.
And I was starving, so we would have to be over dinner.
Okay.
All right, John, I'm going to leave that.
However, I'm going to keep that in my mind.
So his wife's birthday comes up like, hey, how was your party? And she goes, what party? Then that's another follow up conversation.
(45:03):
So dope we have the obligation to hold other oh, you can't judge me.
Judge not let you be judged.
Yes.
I am holding him to a standard that I also want others to hold me, the standard that I want other people to hold me to.
That's okay.
It's okay to hold each other accountable.
(45:24):
Now, am I going to judge a non Christian at the same level? No, but if I have a non Christian friend who's at dinner with it somebody who's not going to say the same thing.
But we get in this thing where we say, oh, I'm a Christ follower, and then we have people that act nothing like him, that aren't even trying, and then that hurts.
(45:48):
Hurts and impacts people.
And then we have on the opposite side, we have nonchristians who act more like Jesus than Christians do, like, well, look at him.
He doesn't do but it goes back to who you're going to be a follower of.
Oh, Jim's just such a nice guy.
He doesn't go to church, but he gives to charity.
(46:09):
He goes and sees his mother, who's in the hospital once a week.
He does all this.
And Fred, he says he's a Christian, but, like, he's been married nine times, and he's constantly dating his secretary.
He caught bezeling from his company.
I don't know.
I'm going to follow Jim over here.
(46:30):
That's not the point.
You're not supposed to be following other people, supposed to be following Christ.
Yeah.
And again, that's the ultimate choice.
The ultimate choice is the decision that we make about something that's greater than the temporary life we live.
(46:51):
And for me and I know for yourself, that's come down to the ultimate choice to be a follower of Jesus, what he's done for us, what he's done for anyone listening.
He's given up, and he's taken the place of your sin.
He's taken your place in the courtroom named guilty of death, guilty of separation, eternally from God.
(47:16):
And he said, no, I'm going to take that for him.
I'm going to take that for him.
And all he says I remember I said this picture before on a stream one time was about like all he does is just reach out his hand and just say, just grab it.
Just grab my hand.
It's that simple.
It's that simple.
And then it's like, you've done this for me, man.
(47:37):
How can I not say thank you through the way that I live? How can I not allow my life then to be one that screams thank you? Thank you.
Thank you, because you've saved me from the worst of things.
You've saved me from where I was heading.
You've saved me from eternity without you, but also even in this life.
(47:58):
And it's not to say that those difficult things obviously we both know those difficult things will still exist, but we go hand in hand then beside the one who will lead us through those things will direct us out of those things.
And so it's not about that.
(48:19):
We'll have perfect money.
We'll have perfect health, anything like that, but we have the one who will carry us perfectly through health situations.
He will carry us perfectly through financial situations.
He would carry us perfectly through life situations in general.
He'll carry us perfectly through a two and six start to a season by the Pittsburgh Steelers okay.
(48:41):
Or by the Carolina Panthers.
He'll carry us through it'll be it'll be okay.
I hope you've enjoyed the first part of this conversation from my interview with Robert, and I look forward to being able to share the rest with you in the next episode as we continue to talk about choices and how they affect life.
(49:06):
And we get to hear a little bit more from Robert about his thoughts with the Panthers moving forward and what he thinks we'll see in the NFC South.
I encourage you to check out the Patreon as a way to be able to support the podcast to see that these conversations continue to happen.
Check out the different tiers available there and the different things that come along with the tiers, different content that is available to you when you sign up.
(49:30):
Check out Patreon.
Thank you for being a part of this, and we'll see you again in part two of the interview with Robert.
See you.
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