176: How 10 Seasons In The NFL Shaped The Meaning Of Manhood | Heath Evans

30:43Because Christ knew he was going to bring him back. That's the story. There are no godly men. There are no great men of God. There's just a great God. And he holds his people fast. And the men of God can't boast. They boast in Jesus. and so we pity other people that are caught in their sin and we love them with the word of the Lord because we know that the word of the Lord is the only thing that sets a man's heart free. I'm curious, you know, growing up

31:13Nick Bare:and you speak to a lot of men now and I know you have a nonprofit for fatherless boys, which I eventually wanna talk about in this conversation. but what was your relationship like with your father growing up what values did he teach you and how did that shape the man you are today i don't even know where to begin my dad's a rock star he's a stud born in a different generation a marine custom home builder tough as nails hardest worker i've ever seen. Did all he could to love me and my sister. Loves my mom well, not perfectly. Your parents still alive? Yeah. Still married 53 years, something like that.

32:07That's incredible. Yeah. And both my parents have these wicked, sinful past and God radically saved both of them and they've been born again. And I grew up in this godly Christian home with all the great, everything a kid could ever need to truly walk with Christ, oh, I had times 10. My father laid his life down to serve his family. And I don't even know where to start, Nick, man. He taught me how to eat. He taught me how to train. He taught me how to take physical pain and put it to the side to do what you know you need to do. I mean, he taught me so much. He taught me to give your life to the word of the Lord because it's the only thing that's gonna satisfy your soul.

32:52He taught me what it's like to get up early in the morning and hey, we're gonna start our day with the word of the Lord. He had this saying that he would tell all the people that he would disciple, no Bible, no breakfast. He's like, how are you gonna be such a fool to feed your physical man if you're not gonna feed your spiritual man? This soul is gonna live forever. This body here is gonna burn up. So don't be a fool and feed your body all this protein and good stuff if you're not gonna feed yourself the word of the Lord first. And it always just stuck with me of like, it's just such a picture of like, man, we need Christ.

33:22And so I'm gonna go to the word of the Lord and I'm gonna have my soul filled every morning. But my dad was, listen, there's no perfect dad, but he was the perfect dad for me. And so from a foundational standpoint, he taught me how to be a man. And by God's grace, he's taken kind of all the lessons that he's taught me. And then as I've matured more in the scripture, and some of the tender natures of Christ that he has instilled in me, that foundation has just flourished. And I expect whatever the Lord uses me and empowers me to accomplish, I expect my sons to take that standard, that foundation and just continue to grow on it.

34:04And that's biblical truth that we see that each generation should pass on the riches of Christ. and then we just keep growing and growing and growing. So from each generation, Lord willing, these Evans men will truly be men of God and not cultural men.

34:23Nick Bare:You're sharing some of these stories last night. I'd love for you to expand on some of them because I found them interesting. But do you think you would have ever made it to the NFL if it wasn't for the way your dad was pushing you when you were younger? Not a chance, not a chance. Can you share the burger story? Yeah. So at like 13, 14, my dad made me kind of sign my life away. He said, hey, are you serious about going to the NFL? And I'm like, yes, sir. And he's like, well, I wouldn't be a good dad if I don't help you reach all your goals. So if you're serious, you need to sign this contract.

34:53I don't know how to necessarily get you faster, but I know how to make you stronger. I know how to make you bigger. We're gonna eat, we're gonna work out. And then you're gonna go to church. You're gonna talk to Ken Stone. Ken Stone played in the NFL for 11 years. He's gonna help you get faster. You're gonna do everything he tells you to do to get faster. And then I'm gonna make you eat. We're going to work out here, old garage, rusty gym, weights, bars, all the stuff, right? And so there was numerous times, numerous nights where my dad would let me get upstairs and get in bed. I'd have my two egg sandwiches.

35:22Mom would pack me five sandwiches. I'd have one after first hour weight training, and then I'd have three at lunch, and then I'd have one sandwich before practice. And then my dad would pick me up and we'd go to Wendy's right after practice. He'd stuff me with a few more burgers and we'd go home and have dinner, have two servings of dinner. And then right before bed, he would make me two Costco burgers and get the frozen patties out. He'd make me two burgers. And then like these sawdust protein shakes that I grew up on. They didn't, but they weren't like BPN shakes back in the day. They didn't taste good.

35:51And every once in a while, I'd just be lazy. I'd be a little punk and I'd go upstairs all quietly and I'd get in bed.

35:56Nick Bare:He'd wait to see the lights are off. And he'd be like, Hey son, I love you, Heath. I'm really proud of you. You worked, you worked really, really hard today. And And there ain't too many kids putting in the work like you're doing. Just go on and go to sleep without eating your burgers. That kid down the street, he'll get your scholarship to Florida State. It's okay. Night-night, buddy. I love you. Mocking me, but lovingly. He would push me in such a way I would hate him in the time, right? I wanted to go to bed. It's 9.30, 10, whatever it is. But I'd get my butt up and go do the right thing because he found a way to kind of lovingly, He mockingly kind of just pushed those buttons to get me to do the things because he knew every day mattered.

36:37He knew every night, every meal, every rest, every bit of hydration, every practice, every weight, every rep. And so he taught me that like, you can't be living in the future, right? You have to live in the now and you have to discipline yourself now. And it's easy to practice the habit of quitting. It's hard to be a winner. It's just really easy to be a loser. It just is. It's hard to be a winner. And so from early on, whether it was an extra rep, and I mean, Nick, he used to leave like 350 pounds on my chest at times because he was telling me I was just being a punk. Like he's like, you did this last week, you did more reps this week.

37:12If you did it once, you could do it before. I mean, I literally got a rusty old bar about to roll on my neck. He's like, I don't care, find a way to get it up. And those things created a disposition in me that when I look across the line and see a Ray Lewis, who's far more talented, far more powerful, faster, all the different things, right? We just find a way. Well, yeah, he's better. Who cares? How am I gonna find a way? And that was kind of the story of my career from really high school to college through the SEC and then the NFL is just find a way. And there was never a level, never a place for an excuse.

37:48And if there is a true mentality based on how God's built man, we can accomplish great things, right? Doesn't mean that we're gonna do it for the glory of God, but the way God has built us, we are wonderfully created. Like we are freaks of nature at its fullest extent. That's meant to bring glory to Christ and praise God it does now. But without Brian Evans, man, I wouldn't be half the man that I am. It wouldn't even be close.

38:18Nick Bare:I wanna talk about what it means to be a man.

38:24Nick Bare:But I think before we get into that, I'm curious of the 10 seasons you spent in the NFL, what were some of the key takeaways? What did you learn? And I know now you look back at those years and it was sin, it was prior to being born again, but what were some of the positives that you left the NFL with? Oh, so many, so many. The hardest coaches were the best coaches. the toughest environments were the were the most fun the most enjoyable I'd been in the NFL 40 years and had spent a little bit of time of my fifth year with Nick Saban the first year he took the Miami Dolphins job and when I got to New England with Belichick and Brady and Brewski and Vrabel and all the boys like you know you've been in the league 40 years like you know football I knew nothing of football I knew nothing of of real leadership team leadership right I'd grown around a real awesome dad.

39:24And so I knew things about masculinity and how to lead a home, but in the sense of like building a team and how you create long-term, like just dominance, right? I knew nothing. And I knew nothing about really studying the game. And so what I realized after the Lord saved me, and it's kind of been unique, I've formulated this leadership training that has by God's grace blessed so many, but everything that was a success in the league, everything that worked to build championship mentality, championship culture, championship plays, all those things are biblical truths that Belichick or Saban or Sean Payton, not knowingly, but they've just stolen from the word of the Lord.

40:09Belichick built a 20-year dynasty on selflessness. He built a 20-year dynasty on serving others, on putting the team first, on being attentive. When we would walk in the New England Patriots facility every single day, we had these four kind of marching orders. It was do your job, right? Work hard, be attentive and put the team first. People are like, oh, that's easy. No, no, those are impossible unless you are super intentional and super sacrificial. Work hard. It's easy to work hard for a few minutes. But when you're in December and it's eight degrees outside and you've got a third degree separated AC joint, right?

40:59You're grinding through a season. Then how hard is that, right? The watchfulness of scripture of just kind of even our enemy, right? But even watchfulness over our own souls, 1 Corinthians 16, 13, and 14, shows about just to be watchful, to be alert, to stand firm in the faith, right? Well, this is like a man standing on a tower, kind of guarding all his sides with great intent, being aware because we know that we're potentially under attack at all times, right? This attentiveness to the degree that it was taught in New England cost you everything. Like it cost you every bit of mental stamina.

41:39It cost you every bit of mental discipline, right? And then the last one, to put the team first. Well, I want my touchdowns. And I want my catches. And I want glory. So how do you get 53 alpha dogs, right? How do you get Tom Brady to lay it down for the betterment of the team? How do you get junior Seau's, the late great? How do you get Randy Moss's to lay it down for what's best for the team? Well, you build a culture out of how powerful that truth is. Well, we know that has truth because that truth comes from scripture, that this life isn't about us. It's about Christ. It's about others. And when we, even for the unregenerate man, the unsaved man, even when he lives the life of sacrifice, doing good for others, there's pleasure in that.

42:28And there's reward at a soul level for that, that sustains for a time. And so as I kind of, by God's grace, started to learn the scriptures more. And then I started looking at all these different traits that these great coaches, I mean, like who gets to play for Nick Saban, the greatest college coach ever. And then Bill Belichick, the greatest, you know, it's him or Phil Jackson, right? In the sense of like what you're going to, who are the best coaches that have ever coached any sport, right? Sean Payton now showing how good he is at Denver without Drew Brees and what we did with the saints, like all the things that they taught us that had power, that pushed us to this levels of excellence and greatness, all scriptural, all truths that you can find in the Bible.

43:14And so I've been able to extract that, to teach my boys, to teach the men that God gives me, and to ultimately lead that way so I can practice what I preach and then get to reap the rewards and the benefits of doing things God's way. All truth comes from scripture. Science is always gonna prove the Bible eventually, but science is never gonna catch up with Christ. He's too glorious. He's too powerful. He's too mighty. His riches are unsearchable. And so when we see truth and we see something working, we can always find it in scripture. And then we just need God's help to put the right heartbeat because it's really, I wanna win.

43:56I want my sons to be studs. And a lot of times, Nick, I want them to be studs so that the world will look at me and be like, what a good dad he does. And that's a wicked heart.

44:07Nick Bare:That's a selfish heart. God convicts me of it. Lord, please forgive me. Lord, help me to raise these boys to know your glory, right? Because I know when I get praise, that doesn't satisfy my soul, right? But I do know when the Lord does these awesome things through his truth, he gets the glory and he gives us the rewards. and that rewards is this Jeremiah 29, 11 heart that the soul just flourishes, that he wants to bless us. He wants to prosper us. That's not with money and wealth and cars and big businesses. That's a man that can lay his head on a pillow at night and go to sleep peacefully, not because everything's peaceful around him, but because he knows his God controls everything around him.

44:52And everything that that man faces is for his good and the glory of God. That's the happy man. That's the powerful man. And that's the man that's birthed and sustained out of the truth of scripture. And God showed me all these leadership things. This is God's eternal truth. Of course it works. But is God gonna get the glory for all the Super Bowls and all the rings and all the greatness that comes out of it? For most people, he doesn't get the glory, but he'll get it in the end.

45:20Nick Bare:What were these coaches doing? These winning coaches. that facilitated this culture that you speak about? Because I can only imagine how hard it is to lead a team of type A, alpha, high-performing, just warrior dogs. What are these coaches that are so good at what they do, tactically doing to facilitate this culture that wins? many things but transparency and accountability first transparency

46:03dysfunctional doesn't look dysfunctional to the dysfunctional let me explain that but i want to say it one more time dysfunctional doesn't look dysfunctional to the dysfunctional nick heath bill belichick saban sean payton we all have areas of dysfunction that we can't see we have chinks in our armor that need to be replaced or re-engineered something but we can't see them we're blind to them so if we're not transparent men if we're not humble men that have other men that have full right at any time to speak into our lives at any time about our dysfunction our sin our shortcomings our weaknesses we're far weaker than we think we know right is Is that ignorance out of pride?

46:53It's always pride that won't be transparent. The greatest thing that God's done for me was allowed me to see the cross rightly so that I didn't feel guilty or condemned over my sin. I would mourn it, but I don't feel shame over my sin anymore. I don't feel condemned. Christ died for me. God eternally loves me and nothing and no one can change that. And so I'm just the happiest dude ever. I hate that I've grieved God. I hate that I fall short of his glory now. But like the fact that the Lord exposed my heart to who I am and that's why I need Christ and Christ loves me anyway, that makes me not wanna be that man.

47:36The prideful man isn't gonna admit his fears. He's not gonna admit his shortcomings. He's not gonna ask for help. He's not gonna have like King David had Jonathan that had the ability to kind of speak into his life this friendship. You and I were talking last night about wounds from a friend can be trusted. My best friend is also one of my pastors. He has come to me. I can't tell you how many times, something about parenting, something I said to Chrissy, I'm just joking, whatever it may be, that's like, hey, Heath, this isn't the attitudes. This isn't the heartbeat of a godly man. Hey, don't say that to your kids that way.

48:09It could really, right? But Barak knows that I want to be a godly man. And I'm blind often to the realities of my sin. And so I've opened the doors to many godly men that know at any point in time, at any time of the day, whether on social media or whatever, they can call me and be like, hey, this is not representing Christ well. This is not the marks of a godly husband, whatever it may be. But I've had to open that door with transparency. Belichick had a guy. He could stop practice. He could go in his office, whatever he wanted. And he basically had full authority to point things out that Bill would miss.

48:51Now, not everyone could do that, but Brady could go in his office too. Willie McGinnis, Mike Vrabel, Teddy Bruschi, guys that would earn his respect based on A, their ability, their performance, and their own leadership attributes over time. It took me probably two years to earn Bill's respect and trust that he would then trust me in any environment or situation that he would put me in in a game. But Bill would listen. I remember when Randy Moss first came to New England to watch the education that Randy brought Bill and Tom based on what Randy knew defenses had to do because he was Randy Moss and to sit Bill Belichick at the time, three Super Bowl ring.

49:38one is a defensive coordinator with Giants, three is a head coach, just sit back, like with real awe and respect and listen to Randy and then learn and glean and then move on and become even a better coach because he knew he didn't know it all and that he had opened the door to further his wisdom. So that transparency is huge. Transparency is the key to transformation. If a man wants to grow in Christ, he better be transparent with his sin, with his fear, with his shortcomings, with all his weaknesses. We've got to learn to kind of open up this onion more and more with the good, godly, right people so that we can get more wise counsel to grow and flourish the way that God's word equips us to.

50:21God's gonna use people. He doesn't need people, but he uses people to accomplish his goals. And so those are the things, but that does not happen without transparency. All those coaches had humility enough to open the door to right leadership, to right input, to right instruction, to right you're wrong and you need to change that allowed them to be what they need to be. The second one's accountability. In New England, no one was held more accountable than Tom Brady. If Tom Brady threw an interception, no matter the scenario, he was ripped to shreds and it went downhill. But it's the opposite of every other team I was ever on.

51:01The superstars in Seattle my first four years, Mike Holmgren wouldn't touch. They never got coached. They were never called to the carpet. They were never held to accountability. And so this level of like, kind of pick your poison from the head coach, you can't respect a man that way. So you can't ever possibly serve a man the way that we're kind of meant to in a team environment if you don't respect him. Now, sure, you can still keep doing the right things, but it's not from a heart level. and you're not going to meet one guy who spent more than two years with Belichick that didn't absolutely love that man and it was the most relentless hard place to play I often say it was the hardest place to play in the world and it wasn't anywhere close but it was the most peaceful place to play what made it so hard bro the demands the level of excellence the mental knowledge that you had to know about your team.

51:59Bro, we scouted the referees. What do the referees like to call? Do they call more holding? Do they call more pass interference? Will they let your hands be on the outside or do you have to hold from the inside? Bill made us know everything. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday was a nightmare at times. Just the burden of information that his scouting staff and all the coaches would bury us with. but we knew the expectation and we were given the information to know. So then it just came back to the fact of, hey, are you gonna put in the work? Are you gonna do the work to know everything that you're demanded, commanded to know?

52:37Well, guess what? Saturdays was like a par, excuse me, Sunday was like a party. They were the best days of the week. No one out prepared us. No one was more studied. No one was more prepared physically, mentally, emotionally. Man, Sundays were like, game day was the best day of the week and then you get up and do it all over again. Well, most people chill all week, study a little bit, whatever, and then they're all anxious and nervous come Sunday. Not our teams. Sundays were a party and it was awesome. And you've experienced some of that stuff where you have paid the freaking price. And then you go into performance time, whatever that thing is with your team and y 'all know you're freaking ready.

53:14And then you get to perform at a level of excellence because the excellence started a year ago, six months ago. For us, it was, every week was cyclical. You're going to pay the price. And boy, the price was heavy. The price was worth it. Because when you put in the work, and I have a saying, hard work works. Everyone has different talents, but hard work is never going to let a man down. If you're truly working hard, it's going to work to some level. I tell a story of me and Randy Moss. Randy's a freak of nature, right? He's like a unicorn with cleats, right? I'm like, short stubby legs. I'm a quick burst and I'm going to block and do these other things.

53:55We both worked tenaciously hard. His hard work got him a first ballot gold jacket. My hard work got me 10 years in the NFL. Some people are like, oh, they look at other men like, oh, this, this got this. Screw that. Hard work works and it works for every man if we're willing to pay the price. And in New England, that bar was set so high, right? The intensity, right? But the intensity made the games fun. And then winning with a team that everyone was suffering well together, it was just awesome. In a worldly sense, there's just nothing like it. Getting to the mountaintop with a group of men that have all sacrificed for the betterment of the team is freaking beautiful.

54:44Who is responsible for maintaining that transparency and accountability?

54:49Nick Bare:Was it the coach or was it the quarterback? Well, ultimately Bill is responsible for Bill, right? So he had to make sure his own kind of check boxes were in place, right? No one's making Bill do anything. what made new england such a sweet place was for a long time mr craft all business it's mr craft all football all football from every penny spent to every player signed to every punishment you name it that was bill and it created this hierarchy that could work because craft is the businessman but businessmen don't need to be mixing into football we see this every year of the dallas Cowboys, right?

55:29Like Jerry Jones needs to step aside. He's not the smartest football guy in the room and neither is his son. So they shouldn't be managing all football operational decisions for the Dallas Cowboys. You would have given Bill Belichick that roster two years ago when he got fired from the Patriots before he took the Carolina job. Barring injuries, Belichick would win multiple Super Bowls with that current Dallas Cowboys roster, but they've got the wrong people in place. So Bill's ultimately responsible for his own transparency, his own humility, his own leadership, and the accountability of his team.

56:03But when you bring in the right people, the Bradys, the Breeze, Teddy Brewskis, the Mike Vrabels, all the different things, the locker room kind of self-pleases itself because the standard has been set. When you live in a selfless environment and you're a cancer, you're going to stick out like a sore thumb. We walk around this office today here at headquarters, right? Everyone's nice. Someone that's not nice, you know, take about a week for them, someone to be like, what's wrong with him? Because everyone else here is so just gracious and kind. Well, in New England, if you were selfish and you weren't about the team's business, you were going to stick out like a sore thumb.

56:45And then we were going to get you up out of there. But Bill would get you up out of there before the players ever had to. But your life in New England would be miserable if you weren't selfless, if you weren't team first, if you weren't attentive. Bro, those older guys, they'd run you ragged. You'd be asking to be fired. The culture places itself. Yeah, it's got to. The same thing happens here. It happens everywhere. Most cultures are just bad.

57:10Nick Bare:Yeah, high-functioning teams, I found, they function in the way they do because of the way they please the culture. Yeah, what's acceptable. Exactly. What are people willing to accept and walk by and tolerate? So this is an area where I really want to focus. And this is something that I'm still learning. And it's how we read scripture, how we interpret scripture and how we apply it to our lives. Yeah. And I briefly shared this with you while we were training and working on this morning. I didn't want to dive into it too much because I want to hear your authentic response the first time during this conversation.

58:00Nick Bare:An example of that, you see all the time online in the social space, it's a picture of a bunch of guys and then they quote Proverbs 27, 17. as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Hey, me and my buddies, like we're hanging out together. Iron sharpens iron. And I want to focus on this verse here, but I think we can apply it to a lot of scriptures. We read the Bible, we read scripture, and then we apply it to our lives. We don't interpret it in the way that it's meant to be read and interpreted based on the context of where it's placed. When you hear iron sharpens iron, how do you interpret that based off of your understanding of the Bible?

58:52Nick Bare:And how do we apply it to our lives? Great question. You and I did it this morning in the gym. And I was jacking with you in the camera. I'm like, I'm helping you guys get a couple of extra reps. You ain't helping the old man get some extra reps, right? So there is truth to this. If you and I train together every single day, there's going to be areas where I'm going to make you better. And then there's going to be areas where you make me better. And we're going to talk trash and we're going to push each other. You're going to find my weaknesses. I'm going to find yours. I'm going to find your strengths.

59:22You're going to find my strengths. And we, because of just the way God has built us, we will make each other better. And that's good and right. And men should do that. But that's not the full depth of that verse. When iron is sharpened, it's hot. And it's being beaten to death, basically. And it's being scourged in a way that makes it usable. And that's through pain. The kind of the literary work of Proverbs at times, right? A lot of times it's hyperbole, but hyperbole can never get to the extreme of really what Christ is communicating, right? It's just to give us a picture of like, oh, this is what it's like.

1:00:05So Christ doesn't really want us to cut off our hand to get into heaven. But if our eyes are constantly leading us into lust, then we need to find a way to cut off every provision for the flesh so that our eye doesn't cast us into hell. Ultimately, our heart is a reflection of our eye. Our heart is a reflection of our hand. But that methodology is to get us to see how important sin is and that we need to distance ourself from it. So back to you and I sharpening each other. If you and I were doing life together, and we're doing life together well based on the full counsel of God's word, right? I'm commanded to constantly be taking the sin out of my own eye, the log, right?

1:00:48So I should see my sin like it's a freaking tree. And I should see your sin like it's a speck. So me before God, God, I'm constantly being impatient with my kids. Please forgive me. Please help me to just walk in tenderness with my children so that I can reflect fatherly affection like you love me. And then that gives me a posture to come to you later that day. Hey, when you hung up the phone with Steph and I could hear y 'all getting into it, your last response to her, like, does Christ respond to you that way? Now, a prideful man is gonna be like, screw you, Heath, get out of my office. I don't want this noise.

1:01:31A godly man that's walking with Christ is immediately. If the Holy Spirit hadn't already burned him, the Holy Spirit's gonna immediately burden that man like King David.

1:01:46Nathan comes to him, tells a story of this man. David's like, kill that man. And Nathan's like, that man is you, David. And immediately that boy's heart breaks with all his murder, all his adultery, all his sin. He is crushed into repentance. He pens Psalm 51, before you, Lord, have I sinned and only you, right? He is mourning and loathing this sin, but he knows who his Christ is. that's iron sharpening iron. It's prayer. It's honor. Honor is never flattery. Most leaders flatter and they don't even know they're doing it. Flattery is a lie. I have intentionally tried to encourage you in the last 24 hours.

1:02:34I have no idea about all the ins and outs of your life, but I've seen God's great work in you. and I have seen you be very intentional and very sacrificial in ways that I think only God's men do. But if I was gonna come in here and just try to blow smoke up your rear end and just even flatter you with true things, right? That takes no time on my part. It takes no prayer on my part. It takes no, hey Lord, will you help me just to, Lord, where Nick's hurting, will you help me just to be able to pray for that or just speak to that? Or Lord, would you send someone else just to meet him at the point of his need today.

1:03:14Honoring is something that costs me something before then I can encourage you with that honor. And sometimes honoring you would be calling you to the carpet on areas that you're falling short, right? But in godly relationship and ironing sharpened iron, it's this constant give and take. You know, Barak and I, my boy, I'm a pastor, we're in constant relational suggestions. patients, even just last week, young, pregnant wife of his. Hey, you need to shut the work down for her. I know you're on a pastor salary and all that. Screw that. God's going to provide. Get your wife out of work a few weeks earlier so she can enjoy these last few weeks of your first baby.

1:03:56Oh, yeah. Okay. Boom. That's ironing sharpened iron. I'm an older, more experienced man in ways, had kids, et cetera. So I was able to speak something to him that he was willing humbly to take. That wasn't sin in his life, but this give and take of knowing brothers and doing life together that starts with transparency. Where am I weak? Where do I need Nick to call me to the carpet? Where do I need Nick to call me on a weekly basis? Hey, have you done this well this week, right? That is true iron sharpening iron. It's costly. It's intentional. It demands transparency. It demands accountability.

1:04:37It demands two men giving their lives to the word of the Lord so that they can rightly know how to honor and wound with humility and tenderness when Nick needs to be wounded by a check from his brother Heath or vice versa.

1:04:54Nick Bare:I mean, it's similar to the characteristics of a high functioning team. Yeah. Transparency, accountability. Yep. You had a post about this that I have the copy here. I think you described it very well because when I think of iron sharpens iron, I think of brotherhood and the necessity of brotherhood. We were having this conversation at dinner last night, but it's a really dangerous place to be when you have a lot of yes men in your life. they're telling you what you want to hear, what they think you want to hear, not what you need to hear to check you. But I'll read your post because I think this summarizes it really well.

1:05:39Nick Bare:Iron sharpens iron. It doesn't mean to find a group of men who comfort you in sin. That's not brotherhood. Real brothers love you enough to tell you the truth. They confront the compromise. They expose the excuse. They press you back to Christ. They do not leave you dull, soft, passive, or useless. They sharpen you for the fight. And yes, it will sting. Correction usually does. But wounds from a faithful friend are better than kisses from a flattering fool. Amen. Men, stop surrounding yourself with people who make rebellion feel safe. Find brothers who love Christ, love his word, and love you enough to say, that is sin, repent, get back up, follow Christ.

1:06:27Nick Bare:i love that and i i was once someone who would use me and my brothers hanging out and iron sharpens iron just because we're in a group of friends together yeah probably having conversations we shouldn't have joking about things that uh aren't actually sharpening each other yeah you You know, but I was on your website for Built Ready and you have these five pillars. And those five pillars are discipline, truth, stewardship, belonging, leadership. And I look at belonging, the brother, no man finishes the race alone. I used to be someone who prided himself in being a lone wolf. I don't need anyone else in my life.

1:07:18Nick Bare:if I'm gonna do this on my own. I'm faster on my own. And then I started finally realizing I can't do all of this on my own. And I once said, you can go fast alone, but you can go so much further together. And there's been evolutions to it. Sure. And then I realized, well, you can go further together if you're the right people. Yeah. And for a while, I didn't know what the right people looked or felt like. but they have to be rooted in the same values and beliefs and foundation in order to sharpen you yeah because if not you're just getting softer duller weaker more passive yeah and we know like i seek wise counsel from men that aren't christian but in god's kindness i have enough understanding of kind of what we call the full council.

1:08:17So from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, that I can take the truths of these very highly successful men, right? And then often it's the same blueprint. It's just for me, Lord, now help me accomplish this for your glory. Grow your kingdom, grow these businesses so we can reach more men. Do things for your glory, not Heath's. this truth, right? It can be applied. It's just the heart behind the application. If we're with the wrong group of men, we're just gonna go faster towards destruction. And that destruction might come alongside a booming business. The wise counsel part, and Chrissy and I don't do anything unless we are in agreement together.

1:09:02But in God's kindness to us, we have many successful worldly people to ask. And then we have a full council of friends and pastors that are some just faithful pastors, so they're nowhere near wealthy, but they have given their lives to studying God's word. And then we do have two men in our lives that are very financially wealthy, but they give their life away and they are great business minds, saturated in the truth of God's word. And so we are constantly, hey, Lord, who are you placing in our lives? What purpose are they there for? What season are we in? We just want to be intentional and sacrificial with all things.

1:09:55The iron sharpens iron is often Philippians 4.13. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I have a sweatshirt that says, I can do all things through a verse taken out of context. If there's two verses that have probably been most butchered for what they truly mean in scripture, it's probably your Proverbs 27 and then Philippians 4.13. Philippians 4.13 about doing all things through Christ who strengthens me is not about winning football games. It is about loving our wives. right um it can be about being faithful here for you every day to serve and love your team at bpn right but it's not building to a billion dollar exit right it's no i can do nothing i tell my men all the time christ only gives impossible commands like if you have a heart that loves sin right bible talks can a leopard change his spots, right?

1:11:06Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Can a dead man raise himself to life? Can a man be born again? Can a blind man make himself see? Can a deaf man make himself hear, right? Even 1 Peter 3, 7 that commands you and I to live with Stephanie and Chrissy in an understanding way. Well, you and I don't understand our wives. We understand some things, but that command of scripture is to get you and I to hit our knees, like, Lord, I just don't understand this season we're in. And would you just give me the patience and the tenderness and the care for my wife to understand her in a way that I can serve her and love her and lead her well, right?

1:11:52Because all these things that I'm commanded to do for Chrissy, I can't do. And half the time, I don't even wanna do them because I'm still selfish. And so when it comes to seeing scripture rightly, Philippians 4.13 was written in prison. Paul's not a thriving businessman. He's not building a supplement company. He's not raising kids. He's not self-promoting himself. He's like, no, I can suffer well in this prison cell and I can write this adoring letter with great affection and great truth about Christ and Christ crucified to the Philippians so that through the power of God's word, they can read this letter that has been written by the power of the Holy Spirit and they can understand it and their souls can thrive.

1:12:44This man's in prison, preaching the glories of Christ. And this is the picture that that verse needs to be taken in. It should give us great comfort that whatever season we're in, the Lord has placed us there and I can do all things that the Lord has commanded me to do today through his strength, because I have none. It's a humbling verse. It's not a raise me up, look at me verse. And that's how it's twisted.

1:13:12Nick Bare:It's very refreshing to hear. I want to pivot the conversation a little bit to talk about the nonprofit you guys run. for fatherless boys. And first off, I want to know what it is, but why the need to serve fatherless boys? What is the consequence of those boys not getting the attention and love and support they need of where it's going to lead them? And Psalm 68, five says that God is a father to the fatherless and a defender of the widows. This is who God is in his holy habitation. At the core of creator, holy, holy, holy God. He is a defender of those who have no voice and have no protection and have no provision.

1:14:14The widow has no one. Biblically, the widow, there's no kids. There's no husband. She has no rights to land. She has no rights to food. She has nothing. And the word of the Lord says that he is a protector of that powerless woman. The fatherless is this picture, no protection, no provision, no one to do all the things that you and I do for our children. The doctrine of adoption throughout scripture is simply this. We were slaves to sin. We were sons of unrighteousness. We were, 1 John says that we were sons of Satan and we loved our sin and we practiced our sin. The doctrine of adoption is that Christ died for us and that Christ adopts us as sons and daughters.

1:15:11We were his enemies. We were living against him. and he comes and he takes us out of our sin of slavery and makes us sons and daughters of righteousness, heirs with Christ. Everything that Christ has with the father, perfect union. We get covered in. We get protection. We get the Prince of Peace as our elder brother that promises us he'll never leave us nor forsake us. He has, if he has taken care of our sin, what won't he take care of? He will provide for our clothing. He will provide for our food. He is going to provide because he cannot not provide because he is found faithful from eternity past.

1:15:56And so this heart of the father all throughout scripture that rescues these people that hate God. And that's the story. When we look at Genesis 6, 5, it talks about the heart of man being set on evil continually, continually that their heart can't even think pure good. And that's what the story of scripture is about us outside of Christ. We love self. Romans 3 tells us that no man seeks for God, that we've been found unworthy from the tip of our tongue to the tips of our toes that we're just sin. And it's this clear picture, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love in which he loved us, even when we were dead in our sins and trespasses against him, made us alive together in Christ.

1:16:46This fatherly affection adopts. You ever met an adoptive kid that got to choose his parents? No. Me neither. This story of scripture, this fatherly affection for people that don't deserve it, they weren't better, they weren't worthy. The scripture says in our sin, we were unworthy. but God being rich in mercy. Nick, this mercy that God showed me, I want to show to the faultless. God has overwhelmed my heart with how could you love me? I had it all. I had all the teaching, all the knowledge, all the parents, I had all the stuff, but I was so sinful and so selfish and so blasphemous towards this Christ that I knew in my head, but I did not love in my heart.

1:17:39and as he made me new, I have been overwhelmed with this doctrine that I am a son of God. He will always protect me. He will never leave me. He will never abandon me, even in my sin. He will discipline me because he loves me, but he will never condemn me in my sin because Christ died for me. I want that love to be shown to these fatherless. You ask what happens to these kids if we don't? The statistics are awful for boys. If they graduate through the CPS system, meaning they age out at 18, by the time they're 20, they will be dead, they will be in a gang, or they will be in prison, period, the end.

1:18:23Those are the facts. The state will try to cover it in a lot of different ways because they have screwed everything up for a long, long time. The lawsuits that are going on behind closed doors here in Texas because of the malfunctioning, dysfunctional CPS is heartbreaking. You and I would be in tears in a matter of moments if we just saw these cases for girls. Do you know how many kids are in the system? Somewhere between 45 and 55 ,000 at all times. In the US? No, no, no. In the state of Texas. Oh, wow. Just in the state of Texas. Chrissy and I, obviously we've adopted our four. This is such a loaded conversation and I've already rambled so much about Christ, but I just want to be clear for the girls, if they age out through the system at 18, by the time they're 20, they're dead.

1:19:09They're being sex trafficked or they're in some type of abusive relationship and addicted to either drugs or alcohol or drugs and alcohol. We have talked to judges. We have known, I don't know how many CPS agents, our own experience with two older kids that were fosters momentarily that they just didn't want to live under our rules. And so they can kind of leave anytime they want. Call her my daughter, Not going to mention her name, but she is 19. She is pregnant right now with her second child out of wedlock. First baby daddy is serving 25 years in the federal pen for child sex trafficking. Baby daddy number two is in the penitentiary for what we haven't found out yet.

1:19:53We had one young boy that came into our home. He's now in a gang. our own story of our four adopted kids, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, you name it, and the system failed them. Bethesda Ranch is to bring hope to the hopeless, to be a father to the fatherless. Our vision here in Texas is to take back the CPS system. 52 years ago, the church did this and it did it well. The church got lazy. the church started building businesses and business empires instead of building the bride. And we've abandoned these fatherless kids. Now the state has it. The state has no truth to build a system off of.

1:20:39And so these kids are being ravaged in every way possible. What Chrissy and I are building now by the grace of God is called the Legacy Club at Bethesda Ranch. I have raised millions of dollars in the past for child victims of sexual abuse that we would get them biblical private counseling. There was great success. We have kind of re-focused our attention around the fatherless to achieve a few things. I wish Chrissy was here because she's much better about being brief and concise and precise with this. The Legacy Club at Bethesda Ranch is this. On the Bethesda Ranch side, fatherless boys, ages 11 to 14.

1:21:21They won't be kicked out at 14, but they have to do our programs. They have to continue to graduate through, and then we will see them through college, and we will see them through early adulthood. We will mentor and be fathers to these fatherless kids. We're using sports as the mechanism to grab them. So football, basketball, and track. We are offering free education. These kids will be on our campus for every day from seven to about six. We will educate them. We will mentor them. We will disciple them. We will feed them, and we will give them sports-specific elite training. I'm talking about the training you and I do, of the training that you get in the NFL and the SEC, all free of charge.

1:21:56Nick Bare:Is this happening right now or is this what you're planning for? We are in the process of buying land. I think even in the last 48 hours, God has, that owns all that land, has moved heaven and earth. Hopefully here in the next couple of weeks, we will have our hands on close to a hundred acres in Aledo that God has just miraculously provided. So in November, the Lord kind of gave me what I believe to be these next steps. When we moved to Texas four and a half years ago, we had a big vision for the fatherless. We didn't know what quite it was. We were praying and fasting. And we got busy going through the adoption process so that we could be registered.

1:22:36We were going after the kids that nobody wanted, the kids who might burn down your house or stab you in the middle of the night or kill your dog. We tried to get many of those kids. The state just kept telling us, no, no, no, no, no. We were given a call for our current four kids that are now Evans. and the Lord miraculously kind of walked us through that system. We were able to adopt them in about six and a half months and after we kind of got them settled and have more time and attention to kind of further this mission, we had just been praying and fasting and early November, I went downstairs after a long quiet time and I gave Chrissy a big vision and I expected her to be like, no, go back to your study and keep reading God's word.

1:23:12It's nuts. She's like, let's roll. And so this Bethesda Ranch part, The thing about nonprofits are during times of economic crisis and for different reasons, they're very hard to fundraise for. This is a very expensive thing to feed and to educate and to mentor. These boys will go through biblical discipleship every single year, how to think about God, how to think about themselves, how to think about work, how to think about women and how to think about life from a biblical worldview. And they will just continue to graduate through how to rightly think about these five things that will matter of fact, they dominate their life.

1:23:50If they think well on these five things, they will have a successful life. If they think poorly about these five things, they will have a horrible life. Statistics prove it out. What's the engine that funds that? We live in this longevity space where we have modern medicine and modern abilities to really help sustain life, strengthen life, to give quality of life to people that most people don't know about. This wellness space is gonna be an$8 trillion space by 2030. We are bringing a wellness longevity club that's kind of like a golf club to Fort Worth. My architect designer, who is a godly faithful brother, Jeffrey Dungan, has built resorts and hotels in 46 different countries.

1:24:31You can walk from the East Coast to the West Coast all across the country. You can't step on a state that he hasn't built a beautiful property on. Think St. Regis Resort meets Fort Worth Ranch right in the heart of Fort Worth in Aledo. this is a golf club with no golf course. It is a high-end buy-in for invitation-only members. That is a tax-deductible gift to Bethesda Ranch to build what we want to build for these fatherless boys. But inside this club, we'll be building a legacy of health that gets passed down, not only to the children of these club members, but it's also looking across the field and the legacy of their financial wellbeing.

1:25:10They're getting the best gym, the best doctors, the best nutrition, and the best everything inside this club type atmosphere. They'll have their monthly dues, but their main focus is building the legacy in these boys that would never have protection, provision, nothing. They're fatherless, they have nothing. And so if we step up or don't step up, these boys don't get provided for. And so we have kind of created an engine financially that will drive the ministry. And we wanna duplicate these all over the state of Texas. and I wanna get about 1500 of the most powerful men in the state under one roof.

1:25:45And I wanna indoctrinate them with God's doctrine of adoption. And I wanna teach them what's going on in this state for these children. And then we will prove with the toughest demographic, these boys that everyone says are foregone conclusions, we will prove what the word of the Lord will do. If people see our children, they've been in our home about two and a half years and God has done miraculous work in their hearts, mind, bodies, and soul. And we have no doubt if we get these kids on our campus for this many hours, every single week, God will do the transformation work that he does when they hear the truth and they're living the truth with men like you and I in front of them, caring for their souls and disciplining them well.

1:26:21God will do the miraculous work that he does. And we look back 10 years from now, 15 years from now, then we'll have six, 8 ,000 boys that have defied the odds, that are fathers, that love their kids, that are functional adults, that are active participants in society that are the gym men. They're the standard men. They're not in jail at 18 or in a gang and reproducing and leaving more fatherless kids. It just leaves a further wreckage in society. So we're putting kind of our stake in the ground. We're saying, Lord, we know what your word can do. If men will be faithful, if men will step up, if they will lead, children are built to follow.

1:27:03It's how God created them. They just need the right people to follow. and we've seen it in our own home and I know the power of God's word. And so we're gonna take the toughest demographic and we're gonna watch God do miracle after miracle after miracle. And we're gonna send these boys out as functional adults that love God and that love their wives and that love their kids. And we're gonna put it into this nonsense noise here because in CPS, we were talking last night, you can't discipline these kids, you can't do anything. And you're defying the word of God. And when you defy the word of God, nothing but chaos and dysfunction happens.

1:27:34and that's what's happening in the CPS system now. And so at Bethesda Ranch, Bethesda just means house of love and kindness. By God's grace, we're gonna show God's love and kindness starting with the boys. Eventually the goal is to have all these kids and we will house them. We will care for them. We will nurture their souls as only God can.

1:27:55Nick Bare:So these kids will be moving from the CPS system to the ranch. These will be kids. once CPS gets their hands on a kid's, CPS can just create nothing but nightmares. These will be grandma that's got two boys that she can't handle anymore, that she's running to school every day and running to the ballpark and everything else, single moms, that maybe CPS is about to intervene, but the system hasn't gotten them in the system yet. These are the kids that we're going to be after. The CPS system is broken, wicked, it's dysfunctional. When you have children in your home, if you have an expired can of jelly in your fridge, they can take your kids from you.

1:28:38If you have a cleaning solution left out on a counter and they do a surprise visit, they can take your kids. The rules and stuff that they do, along with the fact that you can't discipline these kids, you can't train these kids, you can't, to be a foster parent in the state of Texas and to do it biblically well means you have to disobey the state and kind of have your wellbeing at stake every single day. You're either gonna obey the state and disobey the Lord and raise these kids in a wicked, ungodly way, or you're gonna defy the state and hope they never find out. It is dysfunctional mess. We have to put a stake in the ground now and keep these kids from getting into the system.

1:29:23So our goal, if you could just kind of imagine putting up a wall of fatherless boys is kind of starting in Aledo and this Southwest corridor of Fort Worth that, hey, come here. You don't have to be a great athlete, right? But if you're interested in sports, we're going to train you in football, basketball, or track. You train all those athletes the same at that age, right? We have to start somewhere. So this is the demographic that we're after. And then as we kind of prove proof of concept, which I know we will, then we'll invite more and more boys, probably expand it to different sports. And then who knows what the Lord has.

1:29:55Nick Bare:That's amazing. But I know this, Nick, if we can get our hands on kids, God's word always works. We need God to save. We need God to change hearts. But we have watched our boys, especially, when they are under the instruction by God's grace of a godly man. That's no nonsense. And they are forced to work and forced to do chores and forced to submit to good, healthy authority. Their lives change. Men are attracted to healthy authority. Men want to be led. There's just very few leaders. And so if we can get these boys at a young age, get rid of all their stinking thinking, really put them in the paths of truths, watch what God does and he'll do it.

1:30:40Nick Bare:When CPS gets involved in a family and they take a kid out of the home, where are they housing that child?

1:30:49There's a group of children that can range anywhere from call maybe 400 to 600 in Fort Worth. It's called CWOP, children without placement. If you're 15 and you're kind of maybe somewhat violent or a bad attitude and they can't place you in a home, which is most likely what happens because most foster parents have other responsibilities of their own children, right? So a good kid or a baby or a three-year-old most of the time can be somewhat simplistic to place. but the older a kid gets, there's just no place. And so they live in hotels down in downtown Fort Worth and their doors are open in their hotel rooms and you have one armed police officer kind of patrolling each floor.

1:31:33You've got a couple hundred kids on each floor and their doors are open. They're there 24 seven. They can't force them to go to school. They can't force them to do anything. They're feeding them hot pockets and other crap food that's killing these kids. And that's where their life is. And they're just waiting to age out of the system at 18. What 15-year-old that gets removed by CPS that hasn't had a good mom or dad, removed for good reasons, right? But he's grown up in a dysfunctional environment is gonna choose to go to school. Very few. So they sit there and rot, watching TV, playing their Xboxes, all the other noise and nonsense.

1:32:07No instruction, no discipline, no love, no touch, no healthy affection, no care, no nothing. What does that do to a human soul? Well, we see it. They look for attention and affection and discipline in all the wrong areas. The girls run to these sexual abuse pimps, right? Boys run to gangs. They end up dead, prison, and this is the stories. And no one freaking cares because no one knows. And so we're gonna run our big mouths, but we're gonna put a plan in place where I know how to train in sports. I know how to discipline young men. I know how to raise young boys. and so we can take these truths of the bible give people an extremely wealthy community something to um aspire to in the sense of a legacy of health for their family all the while providing health for these boys that have never had anything um they're just gonna ask god to do the miraculous because that's what he does that's amazing man i love it well for anyone who isn't following you online uh they should for your proverb or day keeps the stupid away i'm always preaching to

1:33:18Nick Bare:me first i'll tell you man like you you are such a strong communicator and your words are so well articulated and i mean i i constantly finding myself um like re-watching your your posts to transcribe them myself. And I reference them in podcasts and I share with the team here. So I love what you're doing. I love what you're sharing and it's powerful. And I appreciate your brother. And I appreciate you, bro. It's been sweet getting to know you. Yeah. Thank you for coming on. The dinner last night was beautiful. The workout. I'm glad I could smoke you in the sauna for a little bit today. I'm not burned my face off.

1:34:02Nick Bare:Yeah. But that was a great night. Good morning. and it's been an amazing conversation. Yeah, man. Love you, brother. Grateful for you. Thank you.