Coming to you from the Morning Star Mission sponsored studio. This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
All right, I got to go to Alaska. Come on. I got to get to Alaska.
Me, too.
Got to get some. Got to get some Alaska music here.
Give me two seconds.
Where are we going? Where in Alaska are we going?
Well, we're going to go to. We're going to go to big city. The big city? The biggest city in Alaska. Anchorage, 250,000 people.
The state that stands alone. There's a dog race run from Anchorage in Nome.
It's my favorite one.
And it's a grueling race with a lightning pace with the chilly winds. Do well beneath the northern lights cross snow and the ice. And it's called the Iditarod Trail.
The event was warming up for the Iditarod.
It's warming up.
Two years prepping for it. The story I.
Have.
49.
When I'll get back to my home. Hey, I can tell my tale. I did, I did, I did, I did it right.
Okay? Yeah. Back in 1979, when I was two years old, I ran that race.
Is that actually a song that people in Alaska listen to?
Well, they did really well. I mean, for the Iditarod, let's put it that way. It was played in the bars in Nome, Alaska, let's put it that way. How about the bar in Nome, Alaska?
Yeah, because it's like a town of like, five people.
Well, no, there's more than that. There must be at least 2000. 3000. Oh, okay. Anyhow, so I'm preparing for the Iditarod. I've now got a team of five dogs. The only time to go train these things was nighttime. And sun goes down early in Alaska in the middle of winter. So I went out on a training run, but I didn't have my dad with me. Mom was the one that braved it. We had a a great rig that towed a trailer and that had all my dog kennels on it and dog sled, and so we
went down to a place called Tudor Track. It's really cold out. Not a breath of wind, though. And I hook up. My team told mom I'll be back in about 45 minutes. I said, you hang right here. She's like, okay, well, she's hanging right there. Little did she know, I'm on the back stretch of what's called Campbell Airstrip, going through these moguls. And all of a sudden I lost my balance and the dog team threw me off the sled.
Oh, no.
Kaboom. And I thought, oh, they'll stop. And they didn't stop.
Oh, no.
And the more I yelled, the faster they went. And I'm like, oh no, here I am standing there, I've got a headlamp and I don't know what to do because they're going to get back somehow. Maybe. So. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know that they'd get in a few tangles before they got back, but I thought, I have got to get back quicker than running another five miles in my polar gear, right? Because that's.
Heavy stuff.
Heavy stuff. So I decided to take a shortcut. So I cut through. I'm young guys. I'm thinking back about this going. This is crazy. It's cold out, man. I mean, I got I got no weapons if I run into moose on the trail and it's dicey. So I'm. I'm taking a shortcut back, which makes me walk back, jog back slow, jog on the outbound trail, because that was the shortcut. So take the shortcut, and when I get back, there's my dog team. But my mom is gone, and
I'm like, what is going on? Well, I put two and two together and, uh, well, what happened was the dog team came in and she's cheering for me like crazy. All right, man, this is a good time.
And then you're not.
They're not on the sled.
Oh, boy. Nothing worse for a mom to experience.
Wow. Kidding.
I'm not on the sled. So mom goes out walking out the inbound trail. I'm walking in the outbound trail.
Oh, man.
And so I missed her. And she goes out to Campbell Creek. That's open, and it's running pretty good. And she was absolutely convinced in her mind, the only place I fell off and got lost and couldn't get back up was I fell in the river.
Oh, no.
And she is yelling my name. Karl.
Karl! Karl.
And she's thinking I'm gone, guys. So I'm standing there with the dog team, and now I see my mom walking in the inbound. And she sees me and she starts jogging. And she's got all of her gear on, and she gave me a big old hug, and we talked about what went down. Went home that night, she made me some of her famous four alarm chili, Chile, which that's the that's the spice level. And trust me, it's like you got fire alarms in your belly for a week. It's awesome. And we just had a great
mom son time. It was just beautiful. And mom kept rehearsing the story for me. I thought you were gone. I thought you were in the creek. I thought you were poor.
Mom.
She didn't want to say. I thought you drowned because she couldn't get it out of her mouth. But she said, I thought you were gone. And I'm like, oh, mom, thanks for being so good to me. And she was a good mom. You know what? Moms are something else, aren't they, guys?
And they aren't.
They? None of them are perfect. And some of you have gone through some hard stuff with your mom. Hard stuff. But we got an opportunity for you to cheer for and honor your mom and maybe win her something. And what's great about this? See, we're getting you way ahead of the curve here on something. That's what's.
Awesome. This is our Mother's Day giveaway and we're really excited to share this with you. You have an opportunity to win something for a mom in your life, maybe a mom figure who stepped in, or if you're a mom, hey, you can enter to win this for yourself. $550 worth of prizes. This is going to be a spa gift certificate or restaurant gift certificate that we will customize for wherever you are located. We know we have listeners across the country. We will customize this for you or for
your mom. Text the word mom. We'll get you signed up. Text mom to 800 555 7898. Got an entry form that also gives you an opportunity to cheer for your mom a little bit. Tell us the story of what makes her unique, special, one of a kind text mom to 800 555 7898.
You can take him out of Alaska, but you can't take Alaska out of him. Carl is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
So, Ali is doing some planning for a message. Uh, recently, in fact, we covered this a little bit on air, a little bit of the difference between didactic learning and Socratic learning. Remember when we were having that discussion?
I do, I do.
And it was fun because we're talking about the early church was very Socratic in the way that they learned. They get around and huddle up. And then a few hundred years into this new incredible movement of the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, things change. And we got a guy up front. Now it's becoming didactic. Everybody's talking at you rather than you processing together. Well,
what came out of this was something really interesting. I started doing a deep dive on Socrates, and I'm like, he's a foregone conclusion in this world today. Like, everybody believes in Socrates. Here's the stunning thing. The guy keeled over dead for 99 BC and he never wrote anything that lasted. The only evidence we have of Socrates is that Plato repeated over and over again what he taught. Being one of his proteges, J. Warner Wallace, I was
blown away. There are more people on Socratic bandwagon than there are of Jesus, and there's no evidence that he even existed. J Warner, do you feel what I'm feeling, my man?
Yeah, I think what it is is, let's face it, there's no supernatural claims related to Socrates. None. I mean, it's not as though that anyone ever said he did miracles. I think if somebody claimed that he rose from the grave, well, now you would see the kind of skepticism you see in a culture that rejects anything supernatural to begin with. And we are so committed to our philosophical naturalism that we refuse to even entertain the possibility that somebody could
do something outside of space, time, matter, physics and chemistry. Right. This is what we believe governs the universe. And Socrates fits within that worldview. Just another guy who came and lived and died and maybe had some special insight into the way the reality really functions. But he never claimed to do anything supernatural.
Supernatural. The thing that stunned me is we take Socratic learning as a method. Just we just take it. And yet there's more evidence of the teachings of Christ. Forget the miracle of his resurrection than there is of of Socrates. And yet Socrates gets a pass and Christ goes through this grid. Why does Christ go through such a heavy grid? Is it because of strictly the claims of the supernatural, or do they need to chip away at his existence in total?
Yeah, I do think it is the claims. Here's why I say that. So if you take the most aggressive skeptic of Jesus and you were to just kind of give them a thought experiment. If the gospels, if the ancient texts described a simple preaching rabbi in the first century, just a guy who came and lived and preached, kind of like Socrates had some things to say about loving people born of a virgin. Didn't rise from the dead, never worked a miracle, never walked on water. All the
the miraculous stuff was removed. There wouldn't be a single skeptic on planet earth who would doubt the historicity of Jesus, given the man believed that evidence? Absolutely. There's no better attested ancient in the history of ancients than Jesus of Nazareth. But you insert one miracle and suddenly everyone's like, no, this has all got to be garbage. Well, what is
that about? It's not about the manuscript evidence or how we're even evaluating the manuscript evidence, or how much we have, or how much impact this person has had on history. It's all about the insertion of supernatural elements. Now, suddenly, skepticism is a high peak. This shows you that the issue is not about the evidence. The issue is about a presuppositional bias, a presuppositional bias against the supernatural. Now,
there's one more thing here. Socrates never called you to live a certain way to bend your knee, and Jesus clearly does so. So that's another huge issue. It really is about kind of our foundational worldview in the 21st century, plus our foundational desire to be our own God in the 21st century.
J Warner Wallace, our guest right now, he's a Dateline featured cold case homicide detective. If you were thinking, he kind of sounds like a detective. You're absolutely right. National speaker, podcast host. Author. Now, you. Your passion is helping people become Christian case makers. Give us in. Just just in a nutshell, how you got to this. You were 35 years old. You'd been an atheist. No background in church.
You went to church because your wife thought it would be nice to raise the kids with some form of religion. And as a detective, you took on this challenge. I've started the story for you. You take it from there.
Well, yeah, I just I just didn't have anybody in my family who was a believer that could, you know, it wasn't part of my upbringing. I wasn't around anyone who told me they were a believer growing up or ever invited us to church. And my dad is still a very committed atheist. He's 85. I keep on praying that at some point he's going to have an epiphany moment, but I can tell you it's not happened yet, and I don't think he's that close. That's just who I was.
That's how I was raised. You know, I became a detective the same way he became a detective. I actually closed one of his old unsolved murders. You know, I kind of followed in his footsteps, and my atheism also followed in his footsteps. But when I examined the Gospels, using the same skills we use to examine any set of eyewitnesses, that's the only way I knew to do it. You know, what is the criteria for reliable eyewitness in the state of California? I'm in Los Angeles County. Okay, well,
there's a certain criteria in the jury instructions. If I apply that criteria to the gospel authors, would they pass? Well, aside from the fact that they make a claim of supernatural activity, everything else about them will pass. Now, you go to the question, what do you do with that? Then? You know, to be honest, I knew there was something
outside of space, time and matter. But that means there's something outside of space time and matter that is the cause of space time and matter according to the science. So you already know there's something out there. The only question is, is it personal? Because if it's personal, you know, the biggest miracle in the scriptures is not in the New Testament. It's in Genesis one, everything from nothing. If you can do that, you can certainly walk on water. So I think you just have to have an open
hand at least about the issue of supernaturalism. And then you will start reading the scriptures differently. And that's what helped me to kind of overcome my own biases. You know, you said something interesting a minute ago when you're talking about the ways that we teach. You know, I was talking to my son, who's now 36, and he was
an avid comic book reader growing up. And it's interesting, if you asked him today, he would probably tell you that his moral formation was grounded as much in those old superheroes as it was in the teaching of Scripture, because I became a Christian when he was about eight. So he kind of came along with me, but he would tell you that it was storytelling. Yeah. Because you you find yourself not just learning about an issue. You find yourself living in the story and wanting to be
part of this story. And I'll bet you that's happening for a lot of young people, which means that we have to not just tell them what's true, but we have to start creating stories that embody what is true.
Perfect setup. Coming up, we're going to tell you about one of those stories that J. Warner Wallace, our guest, paired up with his son to create a graphic novel. This is something that's one of the first of its kind. We're going to tell you all about it coming up.
He's a sports fanatic with a stat for anything you can think of. Young Thunder is in the crew. It's Karl and crew on Moody Radio.
Well, if you are a graphic novel fan, this is for you. You're going to love this full color graphic novel for adults. Highly engaging. It's called Case Files Murder and meaning J. Warner Wallace, the author with us right now. Tell us about this. For those of us who have no familiarity with graphic novels, what is this?
Well, basically a large comic book. So it's more like 5 or 6 comic books bound together as one overarching story. I always knew that, you know, I've written a lot about nine books that are nonfiction, but I knew eventually we would move toward fiction. But my son being a fan of comic books. And so when we saw that our publisher for several of our early books was purchasing a comic book, well, we knew this was something that
we could reach people with. We wrote a book that I think will be a really fast reading comic book. And it's probably something you'll read halfway through and not even realize it's a Christian comic book. But in the end, we want to examine at least one apologetics issue. And in this first book, it's about the value of human life. Like what determines human value? Most of us will put our value in our achievements and our financial status in
our family structure where we live. These are things that we typically say, this is who I am. But it turns out that those things usually are exposed when you think deeply about your life, especially as you get older. And they are certainly exposed in murder investigations. Because I'll tell you what, there's a bunch of murders are happening right now as we speak. And no one's even going to cover them in the news media unless the right person gets killed. And then it'll be a national headline.
Why do we think that that person is worthy of our attention, but the others aren't. What gives one person value when you think others don't have it? We actually think that's a false notion as Christians. But how do we communicate that? Well, we've got a story about a serial killer who is targeting people of increasing cultural value just to bring the issue to light. And we've got a bunch of detectives who are trying to understand their own value as they chase this killer.
This is a fascinating project to me because you take you and your son, your background as a cold case homicide detective. You take the genre of graphic novel. You kind of have this murder meaning mystery going on and somehow apologetics, the gospel is woven in. How in the world does this all come together?
Well, that's the trick, right? So I think that there's a fair criticism that often we are a little bit too aggressive and ambitious with every Christian project. Right? Like at the end of this thing, at the end of this movie, everything's got to end well and everyone's going to get saved and it's going to be pollyannaish. And that's just not the way that life is. So we
wanted to write a story that was real. And people most of the early reviews will say, yeah, this is a very realistic book because the conversations between cops at death scenes are conversations we've had. So we know what those conversations sound like. And we all know people in the industry because we work with them. We could talk about Jesus with them till we're blue in the face, and it's going to sometimes feel like a conversation that's just going into the ether, and we want to portray
it this way. Our main characters are not Christians. There's just one character, a minor character that even holds a Christian worldview, and his voice is not going to be respected by the others. Because to be honest, if you're in a law enforcement agency, that's probably you. If you're the Christian in your organization, it's just not a dominantly Christian industry. It's a dominantly pessimistic industry where people get
jaded and that jaded nature helps us solve crimes. So it turns out you're a glass half empty view actually serves you well in this industry. And that's what we wanted to capture in this book. Not every plane is going to land safely. Not everyone's going to end up saved. It's a very realistic view of what the industry looks
like and what human nature looks like, right? So I just wanted something that you would read at the end and you would say that was satisfying on a couple of levels, and was not this pollyannaish kind of Christian story that you might expect.
But definitely raises some good questions for further investigation. J Warner Wallace with us right now. This is something I think you're going to want to check out. Maybe this isn't for everyone. Maybe you don't like graphic novels, but there's probably someone in your life who does. So I want you to check this out. Text case to 800 555 7898. You can also explore a host of other books and great resources on the website. Text case to 800 555 7898.
A basketball mom who's mastered the dad joke. Ali is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Guess what we didn't forget. No, we're right on time. Right on time.
Yeah, we're right on time. That's that from that album Black Box Hits. That thing is so good.
From 1990.
That was so good though.
Every tune on that album, but I digress. It is the bottom of the hour on this Wednesday morning. Take it away, young thunder.
Making herself laugh no matter who joins her. It's time for Ali thinks it's funny.
Anyone in here? Play a little tennis?
Uh, I've tried and failed.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a that's a that's a tough sport.
It's a tough sport.
You gotta you got to get in a lot of reps, I feel. But yeah, I've tried.
You're good at it or you're.
No no.
No I mean I.
Got.
One summer. I got pretty good at it. But good is relative, Ali.
Anyway. Go ahead. Okay.
Okay. So there's no professionals. That's okay. You still might know the answer to this question. Uh, what do you call a girl standing in the middle of a tennis court? The middle of the tennis court. There's tennis courts by my house. There's a girl who just hangs out there. She's just standing in the middle. I found out her name.
What?
Her name is Annette.
So bad. That was bad. That was bad.
Low down. So bad. It was almost.
Good. Thank you, thank you, I appreciate that. Next up for you.
Because I always do two and hope at least one of them lands. Little bit of an awkward situation. Scientists. I have a scientist friend, but he has bad breath.
Oh, no.
What do you give a scientist with bad breath?
Oh, this would be fun to guess at an experiment.
She's laughing.
So.
Hard, it's like.
Here's a little.
Experiment for you.
Use it liberally. Text jokes to 800 555 78. 98. Jokes to 800 555 7898. I like to keep preparing. Prepared for all situations.
Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Okay.
By the way, talk about awkward moments when somebody offers you a breath mint. Would you like one of these?
You have to assess. Are they being kind?
Are they.
Being gracious? They're really insisting. No, really.
Would you like a breath mint?
Awkward when they foisted on you. And then, you know, there's a bigger issue going on? No, really, I think this would be good.
For you to take. They're so good. Please try one.
Experiment.
It's real life stuff, right?
Oh, boy. You want those jokes, don't you?
Text jokes to 800 555, 78. 78.98.
Oh! Goodness sakes. Well, today, one of the topics that we want to tackle with you is the beauty of living from your identity with Christ, and not for the approval of others. It's a big deal, isn't it, guys?
It is because.
Living for the approval of others. Well, man, you don't need to fill in too many blanks to know how that goes.
Well, what what what does it do in you? It's exhausting.
Yes. What else does it do? You never stop running, so it's absolutely exhausting.
You never hit the mark. No, you never hit the mark.
It's stressful because you're afraid. You're. You're thinking, what are these people thinking about me? It's fickle because it changes all the time. Yeah.
It's not good, Matthew. Truth be told, we're going to break it down for you to give you a resource coming up.
She's a choreographer extraordinaire, and everything is Greek to her. Super dei is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
You know, we want to help you take your next step with Jesus. But it is really difficult to navigate this world to understand how secure you are in Christ, that you've got a genuine purpose and that you aren't living for the approval of others unless you are living from your identity in Christ. And that identity, I think, is best illustrated, and this is what I love about Jesus's teaching. He gives stories from everyday life to illustrate
hard to understand spiritual truths. He does it all the time. And so let me give you a story. I've got a couple of them. I'm going to go back to Moon Barrett though. He's so good. Moon Barrett was my manager at Carrs grocery store. In fact, I think he was the GM. He had a lot of hats that he wore, but he oversaw all 32 box boys. Now,
this was intense. This was back in the day. I don't know if y'all are old enough to remember this, but when we hauled out groceries, we'd take them out in these big carts that they were kind of vertical carts. You'd stack all these bags in them, not these little handy dandy jobbies that you walk through the store in. And then we had different carts for carrying out groceries. Okay. And so you could stack like maybe 12, 15 bags in these things. They were huge. You'd tip them back
so they they looked like a hand truck. Only it had it looked like a hand truck with shelves. That's what it looked like.
Okay.
So big shelves. And I loved working with this team. Man. I'm 14 years old, got the job at cars and loved it. Poor dad and mom because nobody's driving. Guess who? Guess who shuttled you down to Carrs grocery store and picked you up every day?
Yep.
I never did pay gas money to them for that. By the way. It just dawned on me that was a gracious thing they did.
I think they were okay with that.
Yeah, yeah. So we were busting it. I think I was making $3.25 an hour, and we were I was in.
Woo.
Man hog Evan. I was making jingle. So I started busting my tail because dad taught me how to bust my tail. And I mean, I'm busting it. First few months of working, I'm starting to get promoted. And then I got to the point where I was team lead. So I'd have this whole team underneath me, and I was supposed to make sure that guys were scattered throughout
the registers properly, and we everybody's groceries were bagged. But immediately I could see I had a problem here, and I had some guys on the team that had been around a while. I've been around a while. They were old men to me. A couple of them were 16 and I'm.
14 men.
And no. But when you're 14, a.
16 year old.
You're like, that's a grown man.
That's like grandpa right there. This guy probably has four kids. I mean, it's just it felt so and the power differential was so strong that I started I moved my whole mindset moved from, I'm here working for moon. Now I'm here working for these guys, and I was trying to work to get their approval, and I couldn't get it. Guys, it was painful. I thought if I work hard, harder than all of them. No, that didn't work. So I thought if I work at their pace and that didn't work,
go back to the break room. If I joke around with them, that didn't work. So I'm like, odd man out. And now I'm miserable hating this new position that I've been given. Moon saw this one day. Moon was quite a guy, man. Big old boy. And he stood in the in the tower. The tower is where the manager stood. You know, it wasn't a big step up, but it was a foot. And so they're looking down at everyone. And he shut down the whole line. He said, boys shut her down. Told all the mainly women at the
cash registers. A couple other guys were in there. But I mean, these were lined up. These were there was no self checkout. I mean, it was just lined up. He said, you guys got to bag your stuff, took all of us back to the break room. He said. In about two minutes, he said, let me be clear. Carl is a team lead. Start treating him like it. Carl, don't let these guys. And I mean, he's back in the day. Even managers got colorful in language when 14 year olds were around. It's just the way it rolled
back in the day. And he was colorful. And I walked out of there feeling so authorized. And what happened was it changed everything because he he took the time to identify for these guys in a few seconds. I chose Carl for this position. He's got my stamp of authority on him, and he does not need to prove to you that he's okay. That's basically what he said. Now, how this relates spiritually is when we've been born again by the Holy Spirit into a relationship with Jesus. We're
new creations. The old is gone. The new has come. We're fully forgiven. We're adopted as God's children. He's put the big hat on us. He says, you're my kids. Not for braggadocio, but for authority. We've got new authority. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to you. Go, he says with even with the Great Commission. So he's authorized us. We're his workmanship, made with a purpose. And
here's the problem. If you do not get that vision of what Scripture is replete with, that we can live from our identity in Christ, not for the approval of others. We're going to be on what I just said here a few minutes ago, this hamster wheel of exhaustion, not knowing which way to turn, how to dress, what to say. It's exhausting. It's defeating. And you know what? You never get on about living the joy filled life that Christ expects And enabled us to have. So the question is
how do we do it? Well, we got a resource for you coming up in just a moment. And I'm telling you, some of you have received this before. Do not be ashamed that you need it again because I need it once a month myself. Hang on.
Your shot of hope to help you through the day. This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
You know that walking closer to Jesus every day. What does that mean? At the end of the day, it can be very fanciful, almost hallmark card ish. Or it can get down to the point where you're hearing his voice. He's speaking to you from the pages of Scripture. He starts rerouting, kind of retraining your mind re wallpapering your mind to understand who you are in Jesus. Because when God, through His Son Jesus, puts the big hat on us, not big braggadocious hat, but that identity of new creation
old is gone. Fully forgiven. Adopted as God's child, no longer a slave to sin. God's workmanship made with the purpose indwelt by the Holy Spirit. More than a conqueror through him who loves us. Those are just a few that begins to change everything about how we relate to people. We're no longer living for approval. We're living from our identity. And it's a game changer.
And it gives us so much freedom, freedom to to really be focused on other people.
Yes.
And one thing that I've noticed about some of the women that I most look up to, women of faith who are a little bit more seasoned than I am, they've reached a place, they've lived enough life. They don't care what people think anymore. It's like, it's so sweet to me and all. There's like at least 3 or 4 women that I can think of in particular. They're all in their late 50s, early 60s, and they are
so intentional about ministering to other people. And one of the things that I've noticed that's consistent is that they are they're not self-focused anymore. They walk into a room not worried about who's there, what they're wearing, what people are thinking. They walk into their room looking to see how other people are doing. Who needs a word of encouragement? Who's a little down today? And so when your focus is not on you, what am I doing? Okay. Are
people okay with me? You're more effective in your ministry.
Yeah. This is.
Huge. Understanding your identity when you come from your identity and don't live for the approval of others, everything changes. Do not kick yourself for where you're at today. Some of you can look back at Sunday. You can look back at work yesterday. You can look at family. No no no no no no. Get this. We're all learning and growing, and some of you know what it is to be so secure in Christ that it's like all those perceptions of people, it doesn't matter. But you can
get back there again. We've got this tool I'm encouraging 21 days morning and evening. Take it away, Alex.
This is a great resource. It's our truth blog, one of our most popular. It's just powerful truth from the Word of God about who you are. Text truth will send it to you. T.r.u.t.h. Truth to 800 555 7898. Text. Truth to 800 555 7898.
When our vision of who God says we are and how secure we are in Christ aligns with the truth of God, the pressure to live for the approval of others will evaporate. Get it? Text truth to 805 55, 7898. Man, what a freedom.