Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 You. My name is Michael fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the village church. Most weeks, what we do is we teach through a book of the Bible and then every once in a while, we kind of pause and we do some mini series. It might be on something really practical. It might be on some major ideas in the world. And so we are in a two-week series. This is week number two. And if you've been around village church, you've heard me preach. You know, I have sort of a mini obsession with black holes. Black holes are incredibly mysterious and powerful at a black hole. Very simply. It's a region of space time where gravity is so strong that nothing, no particles, not even light can escape it. Now I taught on black holes a few years back, and one of my daughters, about six months after I preached the sermon, she was looking a little distraught. So I asked her, Hey, what's what's going on. What's wrong? And, and she asks me with all sincerity,
Speaker 2 00:01:07 Hey dad, like,
Speaker 1 00:01:09 What are the chances that I would get sucked into a black hole? Like this is months and months after I gave the sermon. And she was still thinking about it. So in case you're like young or anxious about black holes in this room, I want to give you full confidence. It is impossible that you in this lifetime will be sucked into a black hole. It is not possible. They are so far away. So many, many millions of light years away from us right now you are 100%, okay? But many people have theorized. What would happen if a person fell into a black hole and so far, all theories end up with the same conclusion. It wouldn't go well for that person. So how do you avoid a black hole? I want you to imagine you're in a spaceship and you are, you are traveling very fast and very far away.
Speaker 1 00:01:50 And there is this term that scientists have come up with called the event horizon. And the event horizon is the point where if you pass the event horizon, you pass this line. There is no force in creation that is powerful enough to get you out, that you will officially be sucked in once and for all and forever into that black hole, it's called the event horizon. So in this world, there are ideas. There are worldviews. There are philosophies that are like black holes. And from the outside, they look mysterious. They look interesting. In fact, you may even be curious, how close can I get to it? But what happens is the closer you get to it, it begins to suck the flourishing and the life and the joy out of you. And eventually there gets to be an event horizon where it seeks to take from you, all of your joy and flourishing.
Speaker 1 00:02:53 There are many ideas in our world that are spiritual or ideological black holes. I'll give you one. I think most people in this room would agree with. Most people in America would, and that would be communism on paper. It's adorable in practice it devastates and kills always. And so it's one of those ideas that maybe people dabble with it. They're interested in it. But if you just look throughout history, there's never, ever once been a time where it's been implemented and humanity has flourished and freedom is actually only ever led to oppression and killing. And so these are, this is one of those ideas of an ideological black hole. That looks interesting from a difference, but the closer you get to it, it leaves you with nothing. It leaves you spiritually destitute. And as we talk about theology and the Bible and worldviews, there are ideas that are designed to suck you in and leave you destitute.
Speaker 1 00:03:47 And it is our job as a church to make sure when these ideas get enough cultural momentum, especially that we articulate them. We give you vocabulary for them. We help you see them from a distance. We help you inoculate yourself and your children and your grandchildren from them because they are not designed for human flourishing. They're designed to trick you. And then at the end of the day, leave you spiritually destitute. And so this is week two on a series called progressive Christianity. You may have never heard of this before, but I guarantee you, it has impacted you personally. It is impacting your children, your grandchildren, your friends, and your neighbors. It is a very real black hole. And what we want to be able to do is begin to give you vocabulary for this. Some of you actually might be here and you might actually self identify as a progressive Christian.
Speaker 1 00:04:43 And so I just want to tell you, I'm thrilled. You're here. I love, love having dialogues with progressive Christians who are especially open to just talking the best ideas. And I really hope that you feel well-represented. And also that you know, that we would love to actually have conversations. And I'd love to be challenged by you and vice versa. So progressive Christianity very quickly. Last week, what we did is we answered three big questions, and I want to strongly encourage you. If this is at all, something that you have sensed has impacted your life to go back and listen to her, watch that message. It kind of sets the framework for this. I'll get us up to speed a bit, but we go much deeper into the very nature of it. We answered the questions. What is progressive Christianity? What are the key identifiers of progressive Christianity?
Speaker 1 00:05:30 And why are Christians especially young Christians drawn powerfully to it? So this week we're going to take, uh, just a much more pastoral, practical on the ground. Look at this. We're going to ask the answer. The question are progressive. Christians saved number two. How do I avoid future heresies being basically spiritual, ideological, black holes that contradict the gospel? How do I avoid these cars? Will this be the last one? Definitely not. And then number three, how do I engage my loved ones or the ones I love that would ascribe to progressive Christianity? What advice would you give now first, let's make sure that for all of you who were not here last week, we're going to take a minute or two, and we're going to get on the same page and answer the question. What is progressive Christianity? Progressive Christianity is simply as this. It's a movement that seeks to redefine re-interpret and reassess core doctrines essentially of the Christian faith.
Speaker 1 00:06:38 And so it's not primarily seeking to deal with we'll call it secondary things like what's the style of music or what Bible version do you use? Progressive Christianity at its core is going after the core of historic Christianity and its goal is to redefine reinterpret and reassess all of the core essentials, including, but not limited to the nature of the Bible. And so the nature of the Bible goes from God's inerrant inspired and authoritative word to, for a progressive Christian, a divine book, a collection of ancient writings, revealing snapshots of how God's people interface with the divine at a specific point in history. And for the progressive Christian, they would understand this, that since we are culturally evolving, our understanding of the Bible needs to evolve as well. The Bible was good for then, but we have since evolved. So now we need a new set of rules and standards for now.
Speaker 1 00:07:45 Progressive Christianity is seeking to redefine reinterpret and reassess. Uh, number two, uh, number one, I'm sorry. Number one should have been the gospel, sorry. The gospel from good news that proclaims personal and global salvation to all who would trust in Christ to essentially simply social justice. We want to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth by creating equity and justice for all. And that is seen as one of the highest, most noble pieces of good news. Um, historic doctrines like hell are incompatible by and large because sin does not need to be paid for or punished from a progressive point of view. And so if you talk to a full fledged committed progressive Christian, um, they will be what's called a Universalist, or they will believe that everybody goes to heaven because a God of love would never punish sin, particularly in how, uh, progressive Christians seek to redefine re-interpret and reassess number two, and number three, sexual ethics from seeing sexuality as sacred and intended for marriage, between a man or a woman to seeing sexuality as powerful as a powerful human instinct to be indulged. The Bible sexual ethic was for them. And because we have evolved as a culture, there is now a need for a new sexual ethic. Number four, they seek to redefine re-interpret and reassess identity identity ethics from seeing sexual biology as God-ordained and good to fluid and suggestive. The Bible's gender and identity ethic was good for then. Um, but it is now no longer good for us today because culturally, we have evolved and progressed and now we need a new gender identity, sexual ethic all together.
Speaker 2 00:09:39 Now a
Speaker 1 00:09:40 Progressive is rightly contrasted with the notion of a conservative. I know some of you are thinking politics. I'm going to ask you to suspend that because we're actually not talking about politics. And I'll explain this in a minute. At the end of the day, progressive and conservative are bigger concepts than just politics. They are general lenses through which we see the world and affect and impact our social ideologies, our theology, our politics, our relationships, and more. And so here's, here's the main fundamental difference between an ideological progressive and an ideological conservative. It's very simple.
Speaker 2 00:10:22 It comes down to one word and that word is authority
Speaker 1 00:10:27 Who or what determines ultimate truth. And if you are going to be a Christian, you have only one of two options for your spiritual authority, what defines and determined truth for you and the rest of them? Well, the first option is culture. And if you are a progressive Christian, Christianity is changing and progressing the cores, the essentials and everything, as culture progresses, Christianity is required to follow it. And so if culture is going to be your authority, then your Christianity is going to need to progress and move towards a more enlightened state. On the other hand, if your authority is going to be the Bible, you're going to be much more conservative in your theology as you start to figure out what you believe, because what you're going to believe is that truth is always true. And it doesn't change with culture progresses, have an idea that truth and morality are shifting and evolving.
Speaker 1 00:11:31 Whereas conservatives see truth and morality as something that is bigger than culture and applies to every culture. So you can see that these are pretty different. So the question for every Christian that we are all going to have to answer is what determines my ultimate authority. Now, there is a default in every single person who grows up in the American cultural system, your setting is that culture is going to be your authority. This is how you are wired. We breathe it in. We take it in it's all around us. And so what has to happen is that for every single person who's trusted in Christ, you're going to have to make a decision about what is going to be your ultimate authority. Is it going to be culture or is it going to be the Bible and how you answer that question will determine whether or not you theologically move in a progressive direction or in a more conservative direction.
Speaker 1 00:12:25 Now I want to give you a fair warning before we start answering some of these questions. Um, many of you are assuming that politics and theology go hand in hand that if somebody is a theater, progressive feel theologically, progressive that they are going to be politically or socially progressive, or if they are theologically conservative, they are going to be politically or socially conservative. And all those statistically, most people do line up more and more and more we're meeting people who are theologically conservative, socially progressive and politically, somewhere in the middle, or they are socially progressive, politically conservative and theologically progressive. And you're probably thinking to yourself, how do you even do that? Right? Here's the, here's the reality. We're living in a world where we have never for had as much information and conflicting ideas, and everyone is trying to figure this out. And so it should not surprise us that there is a ton of confusion.
Speaker 1 00:13:28 How does the Bible inform my politics? How does it inform my ideas of social order and structures? How does it, how does it develop and inform my understanding of theology? At what point do just culture have a right voice. Now these are hard questions. I'm not going to answer all of those now, but the reason I say this is because you may be tempted. If you meet a political progressive to assert soon that they are socially progressive and socially conservative theologically conservative. My point is this, listen, before you put people into small little boxes and assume that because they have one descriptor that they fit an entire stereotype, they don't, and more and more younger, people are all over the board just trying to figure it out. But our focus is going to be on simply theological progressivism or progressive Christianity. All right. So here's the first question are progressive. Christians saved
Speaker 2 00:14:25 Now, before
Speaker 1 00:14:26 I even like dabble in this, can we just give fair warning, be really careful before you condemn somebody verbally to hell who might just be struggling and wrestling. And so we need to have a very clear category before we use our words to condemn, which means there has to be quite a bit of listening. I want to invite you to open up your Bibles with me to the book of Galatians chapter one. And we're gonna look at verses six, seven, and eight. I'll have it on the screen as well. But if you have your Bibles open up, the apostle, Paul is writing to a group of churches in a region called Glacia and something really striking is happening. These Christians are walking freely away, say from a pure, simple gospel message. They are abandoning. The truth of Christianity is delivered to the apostle Paul. And they are actually beginning to believe a different gospel, which has actually no gospel at all.
Speaker 1 00:15:28 So Paul is shocked and you're going to see that he actually is not taming his words when he talks to them. And here's what happens in Galatians chapter one, verse six, Paul says, I am astonished that you are so quickly dessert in I'm listening to the words. These are strong, deserted him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. I love that. He says not that there is another one, because really only, only has one. But then he says, there are some there's some who trouble you, and they want to distort the gospel of Christ. And here he gets really serious. He says this, but even if we, if Paul, if I show up or if an angel from heaven should preach to you, a gospel, a message, a good news, contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be a cursed.
Speaker 1 00:16:29 Is this a big deal to the possible? A pure, simple gospel is essential, and we must know it, articulate it and be able to give it away. I will help you get there in a moment. I want to make two observations. Number one, from this text, every generation has struggled with people being drawn to a false gospel. This is nothing new. What the church experiences now has been happening to every single generation of believers for 2000 years, there are those who grow up in the faith and inevitably they are drawn away to a different religion, faith, good news gospel, which is really no gospel at all. So this isn't surprising, but number two, I want you to see this, that these folk gospels, they play on the cultural moment. Like what drew away, the Christians in glacier wouldn't draw any of you away in this room, but there's something about this cultural moment where progressive Christianity is tapping into a value and pain point of this current generation.
Speaker 1 00:17:33 And it is really, really attractive to them when compared with how they perceive the historic Christian faith. So this brings us to a larger just discussion. What doctrines are gospel essentials. So one of the helpful ways to think about this is we call them tiers. There's tier one doctrines, tier two doctrines and tier three doctrines. Tier one doctrines are what we would call essential for salvation. These would be called gospel essentials. These are things that if you are going to be a real true historic Christian, you have to affirm these doctrines. Now it does not mean you cannot doubt or wrestle through these. But what it means is that of all of the doctrines of all of the ideas of all of the truths from Christianity, these are hands down the weightiest. They have the largest implications. These are the most important. And what we would encourage people to do is to make sure as you wrestle through faith and you answer some really big questions that you're able to make sure that these essential doctrines are in order.
Speaker 1 00:18:45 And I want to share these with you. The question is, are my progressive Christian friends saved change it are you saved to be saved to be forgiven? You must believe in a simple, pure gospel. I want to share with you simple truths of this number one. Do you affirm that you are sinner separated from God? I know that sounds so simple, but you must believe that you are a sinner and that your sin has separated you from God. That is a gospel essential. There's no good news without the bad news. And this is the bad news. Do you affirm that Jesus is fully God fully, man, and that he is your personal savior. The nature of Jesus is essential. He's not just another dude. He wasn't an apparition. He was God in the flesh. Do you believe this? This is a gospel essential. Do you affirm and believe in a historic resurrection?
Speaker 1 00:19:47 Jesus literally died and was literally raised again from the dead by God. The father, the Bible teaches over and over again, that this is an essential Christian gospel doctrine. Do you believe that salvation is by faith in Jesus and not by good works. That is a gospel essential. You believe that you're a sinner and that your sin has separated you from God. Do you believe that Jesus is fully God and fully man? And that he is your personal savior to believe in historic resurrection of Jesus Christ. Do you believe that salvation is not for good people, but for those who have believed in Jesus Christ by faith and not by works, I'm telling you there are so many things that we want to make requirements for salvation, but to keep this as simple and pure as possible, do you affirm those things? Those are tier one doctrines.
Speaker 1 00:20:50 And we have this line between tier one and tier two, because we want you to understand that once you begin denying tier one doctrines, everything starts to get a lot harder. We call this an event horizon, and we say, you know what? We want to encourage you. We want you to challenge and question anything you need to challenge and question to make your faith around. We invite these. We are not afraid of these discussions, but we do. We need to understand that issues sin the cross salvation, the nature of Jesus. These have an unbelievably much heavier weight to them than any of the other theological ideological questions. So you can be wrestling with a million other issues, and that does not negate you from being a Christian, but to be a Christian historically means to affirm those things. Now, there's a bigger question. When we're talking about tier one doctrines behind every one of these doctrines is a bigger question that if you're struggling with whether or not you're a sinner or the nature of the cross or the nature of Jesus or the resurrection or salvation by grace through faith, typically the question that you need to answer is this, can I trust the Bible?
Speaker 1 00:22:02 Because there is no way to answer whether or not you believe in those essentials, unless you believe you can trust the Bible, because everything we know about the tier one doctrines comes from the Bible. And so if you're struggling with those and one of the biggest questions, one of the foundational questions that you can ask and answers, do I have confidence? And do I trust in the Bible is my authority in source for truth. If so, open up the scriptures and wrestle through those essential doctrines, sin, the nature of Jesus, the nature of the cross and the resurrection and salvation, not by works, but by faith to two doctrines are very important, but not essential. Now I'm going to share with you, but I think are a couple of tier two and tier three doctrines. Tier three is less important, but not essential. And you may disagree with me.
Speaker 1 00:22:52 I might put something in tier three that you want to put in tier two, great duke it out, your community groups, fight it out. Um, I'll tell you what I think our tier twos and tier three is, but here's the most important thing are we unified in the tier ones? And if we're unified in the tier ones, doggone it, we can debate about these tier twos and tier threes. But I want you to understand something about tier twos. Tier twos are really important. Tier two doctrines have massive implications for the way you live your life and you see reality. So we understand that there is a difference when I'm, when I'm negotiating and dabbling in tier two doctrines and struggling through those and tier ones. But tier twos, don't get me wrong. These are very important. And if you're going to live a mature Christian life, we need to answer all of our tier two questions and submit them under the authority of God's word.
Speaker 1 00:23:36 Here are a couple examples of tier two doctrines, the roles of men and women in the church, in the home, the doctrine of hell, sexuality in general, what God approves of and when those would be tier two doctrines that you need to wrestle through. They're very, very important. Here's some tier three doctrines. These are less important and not essential. End times position. How's the world gonna end? There's like 80 different views in this room alone right now. Some of you are like, no tier 1.5. Now guys we'll be okay. The best Bible translation. Some of you were like, KJV only ever. And some of you are like, I can't read the words. It's not even in a language. I understand here's one that some of you want to put to tier two. I think it's tier three, but infant baptism or believers, baptism a gracile.
Speaker 1 00:24:24 And I have strong opinions on that, but I mean, people are all over the board. Believers I love and admire and look up to. And, and again, should we wrestle through tier three doctrines? Yes. Should we wrestle through tier two, tier two, tier two doctrines? I can't even say the words. Yes. And they're really important. And we understand that once we start dabbling and wrestling with tier one, these are just different categories. They have a different weight and that's okay, but just recognize the weight of tier one doctrines. I want to introduce you to a term that's very popular in the progressive Christian movement. It's not necessarily a bad term. I actually sort of appreciate the concept and what they're going after. And the term is called D construction and deconstruction. When we're talking about theology as this, it's the act of taking your theology apart, examining each piece, and then putting it back together.
Speaker 1 00:25:21 The reason I bring this up is because I think it's really important for you to know that most people who are flirting with and dabbling with progressive Christianity probably wouldn't even call themselves progressive Christians. But what they are in the process of doing is deconstructing the faith that they grew up with, and they're trying to make it their own. And this is a really good, healthy process. But if you're a mom or a dad and you're watching your child or your grandchild or somebody you love deconstruct their faith, it is absolutely emotionally exhausting to watch that process happen. So I want to take these one concept at a time and just talk about the art of taking apart your faith. This is a healthy practice. And what it allows you to do is to figure out what are my tier one struggles. And for most people, their real struggles are actually tier two and tier three.
Speaker 1 00:26:19 For example, many people grew up in a world where really tier three issues were treated like tier one issues. And to be able to look, get somebody and say, this your view on what Bible translation you use on dancing, right? Has no bearing on your salvation. That for some people is mindblowing because the world they grew up in, if dance and you read out of the English standard version, I don't know if you're saved. So they rightly have to go back and deconstruct the faith that they inherited and put it back together. And what it allows you to do as you take it apart is it allows you to put things in the right categories. Now, this is tier one, my salvation isn't in jeopardy because I'm wrestling through the following issues. These are normal, and these are good at deconstructing. This can be a great healthy process. And then what you do is you examine each of the pieces. Now, as you examine them, every Christian has to answer a question. When I examine all the pieces of my faith, what is the authority through which I'm examining them? And you have two options, as I've said, it will either be culture
Speaker 2 00:27:32 Or the Bible.
Speaker 1 00:27:34 And if you're going to, re-examine all of the things you believed in grew up with, through the lens of culture, you will end up being a progressive Christian. And if you re-examine and look through all of the tier one, tier two tier three issues that you grew up with through the lens of scripture, you will lean towards a conservative Christian. And one of our core convictions is that the Bible should be our authority by which we process tier one, tier two and tier three doctrines in the process
Speaker 2 00:28:08 Of deconstruction.
Speaker 1 00:28:10 And then what happens is we finally put it all back together, and this is where each person makes their faith their own. You remember, when you like, would like disagree with your mom and dad on something they believed and you had to really figure out what you believe. This is a normal, good and healthy process to go through. Now, one of the main differences when people's faith is being put back together between the progressive Christian and the conservative Christian, is this a progressive Christian will filter everything about God through the following lens. I need you to hear this. Their fundamental value is that God is only
Speaker 2 00:28:49 Ever loving
Speaker 1 00:28:52 And love makes me feel good. Love is at its core affirming, which is why doctrines, like how or restrictions on any sexual behavior are not necessarily affirming. And they don't feel loving. So as a progressive Christian rebuilds their faith, they set aside doctrines that don't feel loving and they keep the ones that feel loving and affirming. And that becomes how so much of a person's unique progressive Christianity is put back together. And you can see why that view that progressive Christian. They're going to have an ever evolving belief system as culture progresses, because culture is typically the one that is defining what is good and what is affirming. I think there's a better way to do this. As we put our faith back together, we put it back together under the authority, not of the whims of culture, but of God's word. And when you have a person, a young person, a child, a student of somebody that just came to Christ and you're working with them. If they can put back their faith together under the authority of God's word, you can relax. Even if they don't agree with you on tier two and tier three issues, because the tier one issues are so unbelievably clear, it's ridiculous. If the Bible is their authority, you need not have any worries. And if they disagree with you on a handful of tier two, tier three issues, praise God, they are reconstructing their faith under the authority of God's word. Now, question number two.
Speaker 1 00:30:37 How do I avoid future heresies or theological black holes? Matthew chapter 10, verse 16. I want you to turn with me in your Bibles again, to put this on the screen, Jesus is preparing his disciples to go into Israel and to proclaim the gospel to people. Now here's one of the things Jesus knew. Many people would not receive the gospel and they would actually seek to do these disciples harm. So he says in Matthew chapter 10, verse 16, behold, I am sending you out as sheep. By the way, sheep are not predators, but they are prey. He says, I'm sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. So be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, you were prey. There is a predator devouring line, and he would love to destroy you. He is not on your team. Be smart, open your eyes, pay attention to the trends around you.
Speaker 1 00:31:41 See what is happening. All future heresies are going to have one of four things in common, probably even some combination. Number one, watch this. Any idea, any ideology, worldview theology that is not in line with the gospel is number one, going to change the nature of God from being glorious and beautiful and majestic and holy, usually to something smaller, made more and more in the image of us. God often agrees with us more than he disagrees when he, his nature has changed. Number two, they're going to change the nature of sin. Sin will move from separating you from God needing to be paid for by Jesus blood. Typically to be something that is just not that big of a deal or something to be indulged in all future heresies will seek to possibly redefine miraculous from believing the supernatural, because we, we, we worship and serve a God who has over nature and the laws of the university can do whatever he wants to largely in this next generation. I believe it's going to be largely skepticism. And the number four, I'll tell you almost every heretical, bad theological black hole has added good works to salvation throughout the last 2000 years. It's amazing. Anytime there's like a bad idea like this one always just gets tapped onto it in one way
Speaker 2 00:33:07 Or another. And one
Speaker 1 00:33:10 Of the things I want to help you do is to think truthfully in an age of lies, and I think this is really hard. And so if you are mature believer, if you have maybe a child or grandchild or somebody that you're spiritually raising a really want to give you just some pastoral advice, I think this next, this next section of this sermon could be very helpful for you to think truthfully and an angel wise, you need number one, the right information. Have you ever felt like it has never been more difficult to get the right information, but you'll, you'll listen to one source. And then all of a sudden, the next week they're like, oh yeah, what we told you was actually false because we got better information and then you'll listen to another source. And they're like, they'll, they'll tell you what's true.
Speaker 1 00:33:48 And then it'll be proven false, but they'll never say, they're sorry for it. Like what is even true anymore. And so somehow, if we are going to be able to discern lies, we need to be able to get access to the right information, which brings us to number two, which is critical thinking skills so that we can weed out false information. I think one of my biggest concern is pop culture has created the inability for political conservatives and political liberals and progressives to have any kind of sane dialogue. And this just plays itself out now in every portion of our life. So that two people cannot put out and put together the best ideas on the table so that the best idea might win. That we're so committed to our political or ideological labels. That even when we're wrong, even when we're wrong, we can't admit it.
Speaker 1 00:34:39 But Christians were not like this. We love truth. We love the best ideas. We are not afraid of dialogue. We are not afraid of engaging. I'm not afraid of being wrong. If you know me, I've been wrong. Many times it is, it is normal. I'm not afraid of hearing, uh, the best idea. And I'm not afraid of looking at my kids and saying, this is what I thought was right. I was wrong. The word of God, I've seen it clear. And now I'm seeing that this is actually a better idea. We are not opposed to political dialogue. We're not opposed to social dialogue. It's okay. I don't need you to agree with me. This is like one of the hallmarks of being a Christ follower is we're not threatened personally by ideas. In fact we can do is we can engage them. We can engage them freely because my identity is not bound up in whether or not you like me or not.
Speaker 1 00:35:27 I love truth as a follower of Jesus. And so training our children to think critically to challenge ideas, it is one of the best gifts you can give children when they say, yeah, dad. Yeah, mom, but what about this? Or what about that? Or why that those are incredible skills that we need to teach our children think critically about everything. Number three, to think truthfully and an angel lies. We need the inner strength to resist cultural momentum. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the vast majority of people are not thinking about their worldview, their ideology, and their theology.
Speaker 2 00:36:02 It turned on the TV.
Speaker 1 00:36:04 They get inundated and they go, yes, master Christians are not this way. We think critically about everything. You are thinking critically about the words coming out of my mouth, that there are things that need to be challenged. We freely and willingly challenge them because we want truth. We want truth and culture is moving the masses move. And this has happened in every generation for all of humanity. They move in one direction. And just because the masses move does not mean that it is good, true, or right, or for human flourishing. And so we are seeking truth, despite the cultural momentum, number four, a passion for actual truth. It's one thing to have inner strength to resist cultural momentum. But we want to know the truth. Truth sets people free wherever there is truth. God is behind it. The Lord loves truth.
Speaker 2 00:36:57 We are people of truth. Number five, the
Speaker 1 00:37:01 Ability to articulate a simple and pure gospel to keep the right things in the tier one category, to be able to not mess this up and mix it up with all the tier two issues and tier two tier three issues. If you're going to think rightly in an age of lies and the age of misinformation, we need to be able to articulate a simple and pure gospel. And finally, number six, you need the spirit of God who comes only through trusting in Christ. The spirit of God is your helper, your teacher, your guide, your tutor loves you. And he wants to form Christ in you. Jesus promised to finish what he started in us. And he does that by the holy spirit who has given to any person who trusts in Jesus. Third question, how do I engage a progressive Christian that I, that I love cautious. Chapter four, if you'd open up your Bibles, they're cautious. Chapter four, verse
Speaker 2 00:38:00 Two. Paul
Speaker 1 00:38:02 Has straightforward advice for navigating, not just non-Christians, but anti Christians and spiritual discussions, caution chapter four, verse two. Here's what he said. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it in prayer
Speaker 2 00:38:24 With Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 00:38:26 Remember that when you engage any kind of discussions around theological progressivism or conservatism, this not simply the domain of the mind, you are now entering a spiritual domain, the domain of the heart, and you now need spiritual weapons. And so Paul's fundamental assumption is pray like crazy, because that is the domain of
Speaker 2 00:38:51 The holy spirit.
Speaker 1 00:38:53 You may be able to change someone's mind and win an argument, but that will not transform a heart. And so Pasa Paul starts off just as you need to pray. And he says in verse three, at the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ and account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. And so here's what he does. He prays. And he tells them to pray, pray for an open door. Have you ever had a conversation prematurely that somebody wasn't ready to have particularly about spiritual things, it can have a disastrous impact. And so even Paul acknowledges, there are good times and there are bad times to have spiritual conversations. Some people's hearts are ready for it and some are not. And he says, pray for me because I need the door to be open. But I also need to be given clear words. Paul needs to be able to know exactly what tier one doctrines are in tier two and three. It needs clarity, verse five. It says this walk in wisdom toward outsiders, be smart, making the best use of the time. Sometimes the best use is not an ideological mental argument.
Speaker 2 00:40:00 Let your speech
Speaker 1 00:40:01 Always be gracious, always seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer
Speaker 2 00:40:09 Each person. Let me
Speaker 1 00:40:11 Ask you just a question. I'm going to think pack over
Speaker 2 00:40:14 Some of the hard, um,
Speaker 1 00:40:15 Theological personal questions, faith questions you've had with people, dialogues arguments.
Speaker 2 00:40:22 Did you want to win or did you want to win them over? Because there's a difference. If you want to win, you'll just have the best argument.
Speaker 1 00:40:35 If you want to win someone over, it takes a very different tact. So for those of you who are again, navigating, uh, people in your life or are dealing with spiritual questions, I want to just give you a few pastoral things to help you win them over. Number one,
Speaker 2 00:40:49 No. Your role. Yeah. You
Speaker 1 00:40:53 Do not have the ability to give someone faith, to change their heart and to make them believe
Speaker 2 00:41:04 You are capable with
Speaker 1 00:41:06 Great power. When you pray, when the door is opened and you are able to articulate tier one gospel truths and you trust in God, because God is the one who saves and transforms
Speaker 2 00:41:20 Hearts, moms and dads, grandmas, and grandpas.
Speaker 1 00:41:23 Have you ever tried to change your kid's heart?
Speaker 2 00:41:25 How did it go? It probably did not work out. Number two, chill out.
Speaker 1 00:41:34 Now, let me talk about, I don't mean by this. I don't mean shell out on the inside. I would never look at a mom or dad or grandma or grandpa or a best friend and say, don't, don't have any emotions about somebody that you love, who is walking away from Jesus. What I'm saying is chill out on the outside because emotions are good for manipulation. James says this, the anger of man does not accomplish the righteousness that God desires it'll it'll it'll accomplish behavior modification, but it doesn't transform the heart. So all of the emotions, all of the manipulation is useless because it doesn't transform the
Speaker 2 00:42:17 Heart. Number three, give them time.
Speaker 1 00:42:22 Insidious ideas are never undone quickly,
Speaker 2 00:42:27 But slowly
Speaker 1 00:42:28 And on purpose. And a long season of questioning is irritating. If you love the person, but it might be exactly what God has in store for that person. And you can't short circuit that
Speaker 2 00:42:40 For some people it's quick. And for some people it takes years.
Speaker 1 00:42:48 And many of you, you have tried to short circuit someone's process and it just doesn't work them and Jesus, they have to figure this thing out. And when you are invited in, it's a beautiful thing, but man, does it take a long time? Which brings me to number four,
Speaker 2 00:43:04 Don't fix their pain. Yes. Ideas are broken down slowly on purpose. And as a result of pain,
Speaker 1 00:43:20 When you watch somebody rebel against God, give themselves over to ideological black holes and that black hole leaves them destitute. And they are living relationally, socially, sexually, spiritually, emotionally in the aftermath of that, everything in a mom or a dad or a grandma and a grandpa wants to come in and save the day and make it better. And yet, if I were to sit down with most of you, you would tell me that your moments of greatest connection to God have been in pain where somebody just didn't exit, but you were forced to run back to Jesus. The story of the prodigal son pain is the mechanism that God often uses to bring people home. And it's excruciating to watch number five, refer
Speaker 2 00:44:11 Know your limits. If a
Speaker 1 00:44:14 Discussion is beyond your ability as Christians, we are okay saying, I don't know. I don't have a good answer to that. I actually would love to get a better answer to that. Could we bring in somebody else to process this together
Speaker 2 00:44:29 Who might understand better
Speaker 1 00:44:32 Knowing your own limits? Like we feel like we need to be everything to everybody and have an answer for everything. And we just don't
Speaker 2 00:44:39 Number six is study. Start looking at the most popular
Speaker 1 00:44:44 Questions that are drawing people away from the faith of the hardest questions and begin a personal study. Especially if your kids are younger or if you've got grandkids, get yourself in front of the questions now, and look to God's word, to give the best answers so that you can be prepared to have healthy, helpful dialogues with young people as they question. And finally, number seven, go deeper. When, when people walk away from their faith, there is almost always underlying issues of
Speaker 2 00:45:17 Pain. Very few people walk away from Jesus because their life is good. They
Speaker 1 00:45:23 Begin to walk away because of unmet expectations,
Speaker 2 00:45:28 Betrayal, broken relationships,
Speaker 1 00:45:32 Sometimes sexual or spiritual abuse. Doubting is almost always a symptom of pain. And if you come in, when somebody has legitimate, good doubts and questions, and there is deep unresolved pain for many people that they've been stuffing for years and years and years, and you try to make it better with a theological argument, you're missing the entire point,
Speaker 2 00:46:02 Seasoned Christian. Here's what you have. Yeah. You went through the hell of life
Speaker 1 00:46:11 And you came through it as you brought your pain to Jesus. And he showed himself to be faithful. Most young people have never had to go through it, bring it to Jesus. And they have never seen him prove himself faithful to them in their pain. This is their moment when somebody gets to the point of courage and they're like, I think I'm struggling with a tier one or a major tier two doctrine. I think I'm struggling with the Christian faith in general.
Speaker 2 00:46:40 Typically
Speaker 1 00:46:42 They have yet to have a time in their life where they brought their pain to Jesus and he loved them well through it. And they've seen him faithful. Usually they've never had something go wrong that big, that, uh, sent them into a crisis of faith. And I, and I say that to help you have empathy, to understand that typically whenever there is doubt, there's a whole bunch happening, deeper and deeper and deeper
Speaker 2 00:47:06 Listen, pay attention. Make sure you're actually
Speaker 1 00:47:10 Dealing with the main thing, because doubt is most often a symptom of someone who has never experienced the faithfulness of Jesus in their life to walk through pain with them and to be their comforter.
Speaker 2 00:47:23 You know what it's like?
Speaker 1 00:47:26 You've been there. And the older you are has life gotten easier? No. As he proved himself to you, when you were young in the faith, you now have confidence that the next pain point you go through, he's going to be faithful. Some people are learning that for the very first time. And they're trying to figure out whether or not they can really trust
Speaker 2 00:47:43 God. I'm going to share with you three. So what's number one, faith
Speaker 1 00:47:49 Cannot be inherited. I don't know who said this. It was not too long ago. I heard somebody say this and I thought, man, I'm going to bring that into a sermon one day because I just loved it. And they said in God's family, there are no spiritual
Speaker 2 00:48:01 Grandchildren.
Speaker 1 00:48:03 You do not inherit inherit your mother's faith, your father's faith, your grandparents' faith, every single person, every person has to personally trust in Christ.
Speaker 2 00:48:15 Everyone just
Speaker 1 00:48:16 Because your grandma prayed for you does not mean that you are a Christian who has been forgiven of your sins redeemed. And given the holy spirit, this happens for only those who personally placed their faith in Christ. You are never God's grandchild. You were always a son or daughter when you place your faith in Jesus. Here's a question for you. What next step do I need to take in order for my faith to be my own? I don't know what that next step is for you, but you need to make your faith your own. It is not good enough that you go to this church every week. Have you personally trusted in Christ? And if there is a roadblock between you and making that decision, let's give words to that. And let's walk that path because this is important and we can handle it with you.
Speaker 1 00:49:01 We're not afraid whether it is a tier one doubt or a tier three doubt that you've mistaken for a tier. One doubt. We can walk through this together, no matter what the outcome. So what number two, this is a funny word for progressive Christians, but I want to give you an encouragement. Now I want it to be very bold with you. Get off the train progressivism. When it pertains to theology is going to break it's imploding on itself. It's unsustainable and it's unrealistic. There's a pastor theologian, his name's John mark Homer. And he had some incredible things to say on this. I want to summarize for you his thoughts. He said, the train is running off the cliff, and it's now time to get off the train. He was asked the question why. And he said, because progressivism particularly in theology has no place for children because children are the greatest obstacle between you and your best life now. And he said this, but here's what happens when people have kids. Progressivism becomes unrealistic because you realize if even physically physiologically, you would never pump your child for full of hormone blockers to stop their gender from developing. You would also never give them spiritual black hole ideologies
Speaker 2 00:50:12 As well. This
Speaker 1 00:50:14 Is something happens when people become parents, they begin to see the world differently. And his whole thing is this is once people have children of their own, they are responsible for the black holes, ideologically, theologically, practically and physically they're sucking children in people see that this is not a sustainable worldview. And so theologically as a mom or dad, what happens is when you be, when you have children, it's, you are never more clear as to the danger that is standing against your children. Not just physically, not just in terms of the worldview, but theologically and his whole thing was Tonya. The more that people have kids theological, progressivism, it doesn't sustain itself. And you see it for what it is. When you see it destroy your image,
Speaker 2 00:50:56 Your children. Number three, this is for
Speaker 1 00:51:00 Everyone who is a Christian in this room.
Speaker 2 00:51:03 It is okay. If people believe that your ideas are outdated, it's
Speaker 1 00:51:10 Okay. If people say your ideas are unjust, it's okay. If they say that they are antiquated it's okay. And that is expected because the world has always looked at Christians views in one way or another and seen them as outdated. I just have a really good news for you because right now, culture, by and large, particularly progressive theological culture is going to look at how you view a lot of the Bible. And they're going to say, you're irrelevant. Well guess over the last 2000 years, who still ends up standing the people of God in every single culture, in every single place and cultures come and they go and they rise and they fall, but Jesus is still the king of Kings. And there's a remnant of people all throughout the worlds, in the hundreds of millions or billions who are still faithful to him and to his word.
Speaker 1 00:51:59 And sometimes it feels like you're, you're not, you're not at all it. And there are well arm in arm with you all over the world who love Jesus, who live under the authority of his word. We are bound by the spirit of God. And I'm telling you, this culture comes, culture goes, it changes. It goes up, it goes down, it goes left. It goes right. It is all over the place. You get Republicans and you get Democrats and you get this and you get that. Jesus is the same forever. And always, and I want to encourage you if you are here and you're tempted to like lose heart over any kind of new black hole, ideology or theology that makes its way into the church or even into the next generation, do not lose heart. The Lord is up to something. And I don't know what's happening with the people in your life and your kids and grandkids and friends and loved ones.
Speaker 1 00:52:40 I'm telling you this. Jesus loves them more than you do. Do not lose heart. Get on your knees and pray. Pray for open doors. You spiritual weapons, because the gospel is the power of God for salvation, to anybody who would believe. So those church be of good courage. Take heart, pick up your head. You're on the right team and Jesus is your king. I want to take a moment. I want to pray for you. And again, I want to encourage you two weeks in a row. You have sat through 53 minute lectures on progressive Christianity. And I can't see anyone asleep right now. So let's pray together. Father love you. I'm thankful for Jesus. I'm thankful for what you've given us. I'm thankful for your patience. I'm a doubter. I'm a skeptic. I struggle. I rustle. I fight, but God, you have proven yourself faithful to me, but I, there are a lot of people watching or listening or in this room who you have not yet had the opportunity to see you comfort them and walk through pain and doubt. Would you just, would you show them your goodness and your faithfulness? You are righteous and you are good. And you're a loving, you're a patient. And you're kind. So we just love you and God, I pray that you would continue to draw people to yourself. And would you root us in Jesus and therefore in the gospel and the word, would you help us? Would you encourage us? We pray all of this in Jesus name.
