Addressing Deconstruction and Cancel Culture | Sean McDowell

[Music] [Music] me well i'm really excited to welcome today's guest speaker sean mcdowell now as you know i've been teaching hunting giants a series that focuses on overcoming giant obstacles like conformity apathy and fear with godly courage sean is about as courageous as they come he has a phd in apologetics and worldview studies and speaks internationally on cultural ethical theological and apologetic topics he authored and co-authored over a dozen books and study guides some with his father josh mcdowell i know you're going to get a courage boost from today's message about something that i think has become a modern day giant and that is cancel culture please join me in welcoming sean mcdowell good morning church i told pastor skip last night i said man you're just the cool pastor aren't you likes to snowboard ride a motorcycle i said man when i get older i want to be just like your son [Laughter] two stories as we start off this morning you might recognize if you've been following along the news the past few years one is a former professor at evergreen university in olympia washington by the name of brett weinstein he was targeted at his university for disagreeing with something a powerful group at the university wanted you see for years at this university they had something they call the day of absence where black faculty and students and other minority groups would not show up on campus a certain day to remind the rest of the community of the role that they play well in 2017 they flipped the script in 2017 white people were told they were not supposed to show up on campus that day now professor weinstein found this appalling now what he said is asking people not to come is very different than voluntarily having people choose not to come so whether you agree with him or not he was motivated by doing what he thought was actually best for minority students so he reached out and sent an email to the administration needless to say all hell broke loose protests continued for about a week until finally at the end of the week 50 students show up outside his classroom and essentially threatening him shouting at him calling him a racist and intimidating him you can see it online well brett weinstein turned and sued the university for not protecting him it was all said and done he and his wife also a professor at evergreen resigned basically canceled another story you might recognize do you recognize the name jack phillips jack phillips is the owner of masterpiece cake shop in colorado you see he started this cake shop this bakery with his family to serve the community and he called it masterpiece because he considers each cake an expression of god who's the masterpiece through him showing his creativity in a cake and also an extension of his ministry well in 2012 before same-sex marriage was even legal he was asked to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding now keep a couple things in mind he had served gay people happily for years and he had also refused to bake other cakes that violated his conscience such as cakes celebrating halloween so he declined to bake a cake for the same-sex wedding and by the way there was another bakery that would do this within walking distance the couple turned around and started a lawsuit against him and the colorado civil rights commission turned around and put a lawsuit against him and interestingly enough compared him to a perpetrator of the holocaust which jack told me in an interview was most painful because he had family members who fought against the nazis in world war ii apparently not baking a cake is akin to being a nazi well it went all the way up to supreme court and jack phillips won at the supreme court when i interviewed him i said what was it like to win a case of the supreme court i'm pretty sure i will not have that experience and he described how amazing it was but shortly thereafter another lawsuit was opened up against him won it now he's embroiled in a third lawsuit what do these two cases have in common and by the way shortly after he declined the cake he even got a call from somebody said i am 10 minutes away i'm coming to kill you threatened attacked his livelihood his reputation because of his position on an issue one of the two of these things have in common quite obviously what we've come to call cancel culture now if somebody says the wrong thing or has the wrong view there will be a personal and a private attack and shaming and an attempt to silence you forever going forward i actually looked up the cambridge dictionary i was like what's the definition of cancel culture because we throw this term around let's get some clarity on it the cambridge dictionary said quote a way of behaving in society or group especially on social media in which it is common to reject and stop supporting someone because they have said something that offends you so in other words if someone holds a position right or wrong true or false and it offends you you stop supporting them passively but then actively start criticizing them in an attempt to cancel them now when it comes to cancer culture this affects you and it affects me see it's not like if you turn in the news or you scroll through a news app and you hear about like a natural disaster in another city or another state and you think oh that's terrible i feel bad for them and maybe you're even motivated to give to help those who are victims but it feels out there doesn't it cancel culture is not out there it affects all of us we live in a canceled culture and i want to know how as christians are we going to respond because there's two temptations one is to live in fear of being cancelled in fear for my relationships in fear for my reputation in fear for my job option a live in fear option b rather than being afraid of being cancelled join the club of cancelers jump on the bandwagon to become that person that when someone says something that offends you you cancel them last i checked both of those living in fear of being canceled and bullying others and canceling them is not an option for a follower of jesus how should we respond allow me to suggest a way through a recent experience that i had one of my favorite things to do at a church's school universities is what i call my atheist encounter i bring my atheist glasses put them on with a primarily christian audience and i roll play an atheist i'll give a presentation why i don't believe in god and then i'll take questions from the audience who are christians and i'll respond as an atheist might typically after about 30 minutes the audience gets upset they get defensive and they get angry because i'm pushing back giving better answers than they may be expected well about six months ago i was invited to do my atheist encounter at a christian school in florida and when i showed up is the christian high school the bible teacher said hey i actually role play with my students all the time i think it'd be most interesting if i introduce you as an actual atheist not a christian role-playing atheist i thought about a little bit i was like you know what this would make it a spicier more interesting conversation let's do it so he introduces me to this christian school i don't know maybe three four hundred students if i remember as his friend from ucla a philosophy professor in town for a convention who just swung by to talk about why he's an atheist we do it we're done and i move on with my life but then over the next few weeks and couple months i start getting a ton of emails almost entirely positive of people saying i saw your atheist role play and i loved it thank you so i'm wondering wait a minute why are so many people contacting me i've gone to the website recently at the small christian school and that youtube video got over two and a half million views blew me away but then all sudden one day everything changed again all of a sudden i started getting dozens and i mean dozens of emails of some of the most vicious ungracious personal attacks i've ever received before you're a lousy atheist you're a liar you're this and i'm thinking why did this just start well it turns out that two atheist youtubers one who i knew one who i didn't and one who has a huge channel did a review of my atheist role play and they felt like i misrepresented atheists when i was role playing an atheist so now i'm getting piled on by everybody well at the same time a bunch of my christian friends started texting me and they said hey come on my youtube channel let's do a response and i thought about it for a while and i thought okay they criticized me and i actually thought they tried to do it in the right spirit even though they thought that what i should do they gave me suggestion don't role play an atheist bring in a real atheist i thought so am i supposed to go on a channel do a response and tell them why they're wrong they criticize christians christians criticize back i thought about for why i said you know what someone needs to choose to communicate differently so i reached out to one of the atheists and i said hey i actually think you and i have more common ground than you might realize would you be willing to just have a conversation with me off the record he goes sure so we zoomed on a friday i had already created a response video i was going to post the following monday but a very gracious one inviting him to do something with me we zoomed for an hour friends this young man is 27 years old and all i did was listen and it broke my heart he grew up in a conservative christian home and felt like when he started to question his faith and leave his faith was cancelled by christians he said i had a pastor tell me you're going to die alone and burn in hell for eternity he said when i was growing up i had to i actually had to learn karate because i was being bullied so much i need to learn to defend myself it was the pain of being bullied growing up paled in comparison to the pain of how many christians treated me when i started questioning my faith i said if any other apologist or evangelist reached out to you he goes one who said yeah let's have a conversation because i'm going to bury you i said you know monday i'm releasing a video at the end i have an invitation to you since you said i should bring in atheists i've got a suggestion for you i said here's my cell number if you accept my suggestion call me video post on monday and i walked through and i said look they think i misrepresented atheists and i should bring in an atheist here's the deal i've actually been bringing an atheist to my students for over 15 years when i role play it's the arguments i've heard atheists make so i've been doing this they gave me a suggestion i have a suggestion for you why don't you come on my youtube channel let's not have a debate let's have a conversation i just want my audience to hear what you think we as christians could do better to love our atheist neighbors and he came on my show for an hour and all i did is listen to him it was a powerful conversation why am i starting with this story because there is the temptation as christians as conservative christians to other certain groups this other religion this other race this other political group and they're trying to steal our freedom and we respond in fear there's a temptation to say cancel culture let's criticize all those people out there who are canceling people rather than first saying have we done the same thing how do we better love our neighbor isn't that a christian response when jesus said in matthew 7 judge not lest you be judged his point was not to judge his point was not to not judge his point was take the plank out of your own eye then you can see the speck and a brother in other words judge yourself first and then like jesus says in john 7 then you can make a righteous judgment what do you think jesus cares about principally living rightly those in a wider culture who don't call themselves his followers or those who whom scripture calls the bride of christ which is you and me friends before we blame somebody else in cancer culture let us look within and humble ourselves and say how do we better love our neighbors have we bought into this council culture lie and how do we get our house in order first so we can better love our neighbors can i get an amen all right good i knew there were at least a few bats this year [Applause] right with that said one question i have when i hear this talk about cancel culture is why now what is it that we find ourselves in this moment where cancer culture is all the rage and it's captured our society and i think of the movie in 2000 the perfect storm it was based upon a 1991 storm off the coast of massachusetts it's called the perfect storm because at least two fronts that were themselves massive moved in the same place and the same time and created a huge storm in fact in the movie it's about a boat that has this catch and if they wait through the storm they won't make it home so they rush through thinking they can make it but the storm is just too big and too powerful so perfect storm is this idea of certain things coalesce in the same place at the same time and create a certain phenomena well i think we have cancer culture because certain things have been moving into the same place at the same time and in fact when i think about our culture it makes perfect sense that we have cancer culture i'd be surprised if we didn't so what are those factors moving together that create cancer culture i think there's three of them and i think the first one is we have a mental health epidemic in america and by that i mean we have a lot of hurting people in the church and outside of the church and covet has only exacerbated what was already moving and becoming a hockey stick exponential growth loneliness depression anxiety stress suicidality anger fatherlessness friends i heard one teenager named faith anne say she said my whole generation is like a bunch of little volcanoes you know what that means that means right below the surface there's hurt and there's stress and anxiety and they're about to explode pastor rick warren said something i think of almost daily he said hurt people hurt people why do we have cancer culture taking place because we have a culture of people who have been canceled and who have been hurt and barring forgiveness and the power of the holy spirit human nature is when we've been hurt to turn around and hurt other people cancel culture tells me we've got a generation of people who are lonely and who are depressed and who are stressed and are hurting and don't know healthy ways to deal with this so they turn and they cancel other people because they've been canceled in their relationships and canceled in their lives i was doing a live live stream on youtube if i remember maybe eight or ten months ago at some time during covid time just stopped during cove but didn't it and i was having a discussion and i noticed the comments on the side of what was taking place now normally i will have somebody monitor the comments because trolls will come in christians and non-christians and just start creating unhealthy bad dialogue so i usually have somebody monitor it but of course this time i forgot now you're probably thinking why didn't you just monitor it because i'm that guy like a lot of you i can only do one thing at a time i cannot multitask if i'm actually on the phone i cannot talk on the phone and cut onions at the same time my wife thinks it's funny she'll literally take my hands like i'm five put a knife in my hand give me the onions and look at me like you can do it i'm like i can't i'm talking so the thought actually hit me recently when i was driving through mcdonald's this person is taking an order and delivering order i was like i couldn't do that job so i'm doing this live stream you know to the world and these comments are starting and it's starting to heat up and get spicy and i see this person who i assume was not a christian criticizing christians and instead of the christians being gracious being understanding trying to be positive they just go right back at this guy and i'm seeing insult after insult and it's building it's building and building and finally one of the christians says well why are you here even speaking what gives you the right to be so critical and i'll never forget how this guy responded he said i served our country i can't remember i said iraq or afghanistan i served our country overseas and i was injured and lost my sight don't tell me where and when i can speak given how much i sacrificed for this country and i saw that and thought oh my goodness this guy has been hurt physically and he's angry at god understandably and so he's turning around and he's lashing out at others the moment i saw that as best i remember i just simply stopped i was like i can't let this go i said i gotta pause the conversation for a minute i just saw a comment for a man who lost his sight serving our country i said sir i don't know you but i want to first tell you thank you for your service i can't imagine what it's like to lose your sight i am so sorry that this happened to you i understand that you'd be angry at god and angry at christians please know that god loves you and i love you too and there was silence why when somebody's critical what's human nature get critical back the bible says a gentle word turns away wrath in romans 2 paul says it's your kindness that leads to repentance proverbs 25 15 says a soft word breaks a bone cancel culture says ramp it up be critical what does the scripture say be kind be loving be gracious i think we have cancer culture one big reason is we have hurting people broken relationships broken lives people who've been canceled so human nature is to cancel others that's the first piece of the storm there's a second piece of the storm and it's that we now live in a culture in which there are deeply clashing world views there's always been difference of beliefs but now these beliefs are apparent and we're told that all of us have to have an opinion on these and we have to state these opinions so let me give you an example around the year 2015 was the year of the supreme court ruling of burger fell versus hodges which is when same-sex marriage became legal in all 50 states at biola university where i teach i helped host a conversation with a local pastor with a radio show host and with a an influential gay affirming christian in other words someone who says i'm a follower of jesus and i think the bible is fine with certain same-sex relationships now we're having this conversation about how the church is going to navigate this ruling that was coming and i'll never forget what i asked this christian who is quote gay affirming i said i need to have some clarity from you are you saying i can hold on to my theology in other words that god designed marriage one man one woman one flesh one lifetime but need to be more kind and gracious in my interaction with a gay community or are you saying to be loving i actually have to change my theology you know what the answer was if you don't change your theology you cannot be loving and you realize that i'm not saying every single gay affirmative person says that but the narrative we hear in our culture is why do lgbtq kids suffer because christians and others don't accept them for who they are that's why they suffer in other words from this perspective your theology kills that's a pretty serious claim now where i sit the bible is very clear about god's design for marriage and paul in first first corinthians 6 says those who practice homosexuality will not inherit the kingdom of god so somebody's soul is at stake with how they believe and how they act when it comes to nature of marriage and by the way in case you're sitting here going yes preach it if you read first corinthians 6 paul also mentions certain immoral behavior that would condemn all of us but you see the point one side says your conservative theology kills the other side says actually you're misleading people about sin and you're misleading them about salvation can we see the clash of world views if you're on the other side and you believe that you would look at us probably with disdain and probably want to cancel us at what as well but it's not just with the larger christian community in the culture we now have clashing world views and issues dividing the church like never before so i was talking with my wife before i left i said i got to mention an issue in which we divide as christians and i started thinking but should i mention this because i might get canceled i'm not kidding the thought went through my mind i'm like this is one of my all-time favorite churches to speak at if i say certain things or the pastors get enough complaints they're going to probably naturally not want to have me back and then my next thought was why would i not speak something that's true and biblical in a talk on cancel culture because the thought goes through my mind i might get cancelled [Applause] so let me frame it this way i remember a conversation with my grandpa who was passed away years ago and i don't remember the details of the conversation but i'll never forget the point that he made and my mom was a part of it the idea was is it okay to burn the american flag when i was a high school kid i was like yeah it's free speech it's just cloth you stop allowing people to burn the flag it's going to lead to totalitarianism that was my view and my grandpa's pushback was son or grandson i served in world war ii i was willing to give my life and saw many of my fellow americans do so that's not just a piece of cloth that represents your freedom and even people who burn that flag can only do it freely because of the freedom given from those who sacrifice their life look that's my grandpa so recently on my youtube channel i had a pastor friend of mine from the south he's african-american and we were talking about race relations and i said let's talk about the issues that are dividing the church how do you have a church in which issues like kneeling at the flag so divide people how do you keep unity amid such charged issues so i shared that story with him and he goes let me say a couple things first off i thank god for your grandparents service he goes sean it makes sense by the way this guy played in the nfl as well he goes it makes sense you would see the world that way given your experience he goes but can i tell you some of the experience in my family they went and served in world war ii and then came home and experienced entrenched racism in the country they were willing to die for can you at least see why some people see the flag differently now friends whether you side with a or b can we at least approach conversations like this rather than taking the easy route which is i'm going to get my camp and those not in my camp are wrong and divide and demean can we humble ourselves and listen and at least try to find common ground friends whether you whichever side you take on that what struck me is here's two evangelical bible-believing christians with very different experiences that shape the way they think about this issue and this is within the church no wonder we have a cancer culture we have hurting people mental health epidemic and we are more divided on issues in fact i was talking with pastor nate backstage and the irony hit me that a generation before we're told good people don't talk about politics religion and sex now we're told you're not a good person if you don't talk about politics religion and sex isn't that ironic the third reason i think we have cancelled culture is because of smartphones look i love technology i'm on instagram and youtube and twitter and even tick tock believe it or not because that's where this generation is that's where this generation is but if you step back and think about it we have a hurting generation more division than ever we're all supposed to have an opinion on something and now we all have a channel to the world of course we're going to find ourselves in a canceled culture so what do we christians do about it if i may humbly suggest three things that i think we need to do and number one is be obedient come what may friends i did my dissertation my doctoral research on the fate of the apostles was peter really crucified upside down did thomas actually make it to india so i probed into the book of acts and beyond when you read the beginning of acts you have jesus ascending you have the holy spirit come down in acts 2 and the apostles are doing miracles and they're preaching jesus but the religious leaders of the day want to cancel the apostles they threaten them and they beat them and they throw them in prison and say just stop preaching jesus one of my favorite verses in the bible in acts chapter 5 what does peter say he says no we must obey god rather than men in other words what peter says he says i take my cues from god not from you see this whole cancel culture thing it comes down to a question who do we fear most do we fear human beings and what they can do to us or do we fear god that's the heart of the question do we fear the mob and people canceling us or do we fear god and the times i've had people try to cancel me one of the only things that brings consolation is can i truly say in my heart god did i do this with a clear conscience and i do it out of faith in you if so i can deal with the criticism and the attacks who do we fear jesus said don't fear those who can kill the body but those who can kill the body and the soul and send you to hell fear god not man if some of your u.s women's soccer fans you might recognize the name jaylene hinkle a few years ago she was the best left back at her position in u.s women's soccer in 2015 around the same sex marriage supreme court ruling listen carefully to what she posted on social media she said quote i believe with every fiber in my body that what was written 2 000 years ago in the bible is undoubtedly true this world may change but christ and his word never will now that's bold now notice she didn't say i'm against same-sex marriage she didn't say i hate a certain segment of people she didn't even mention the case all she said is culture changes god doesn't i'm falling after god and she became a marked woman booze and jeers when she played because of this an attempt to cancel her on social media when 2017 she was on the u.s women's national soccer team now just think about this if you're a soccer player think of the blood sweat and tears that went into making the u.s women's national team she was asked to do something that called her convictions into question now think about this if you're asked to do something you don't think is right you're on the un's u.s women's national team couldn't you think of a million ways to justify this well if i leave there's no christians left i've worked so hard god will forgive me anyways i mean we're really good at justifying things aren't we and i put myself in that category it's human nature in 2017 they were required to wear jerseys that had the numbers in rainbow flags to celebrate gay pride month jaleen said i felt so convicted my spirit that it wasn't my job to wear this jersey i gave myself three days which is smart when you get upset don't just tweet back take a deep breath and give it time every time i tweet back i gotta go back and delete it gosh operating the flesh rather than the spirit she said i gave myself three days to just seek and pray and determine what god was asking me to do in this situation if i never get another team call up again that's okay maybe that's a part of his plan and that's okay and listen to what she said maybe this is why i was meant to play soccer to show other believers to be obedient friend she gets it i'm not playing soccer when it's all said done for the money for the fame even for the pleasure i get out of it i play soccer because i have a larger call of building god's kingdom and being an example to others step number one friends when it's all said and done in our canceled culture you and i have to ask ourselves am i being obedient to god am i living in fear of god in a healthy way or fear of man and peter said we must obey god step number one is obedience step number two the very thing cancel culture lacks is the heart of the christian faith what council culture lacks is grace and forgiveness and that's the heart of what makes christianity unique that god has grace for you you see one of the temptations of cancer culture is to live in fear of being canceled it's human nature none of us want to get piled on on twitter nobody wants to get personally attacked on facebook nobody wants to lose their job or lose a relationship it's human nature to live in fear so what happens is when we live in fear we start saying well it's this political party it's this religious group it's this minority group and we target them and live in fear what is the christian response to fear first john 4 18 says perfect love casts out fear we are not called to live in fear of our culture we're called to live in love of our culture you know what the number one fear for americans was at least before covid maybe it's changed it's actually public speaking more than heights more than death more than enclosed spaces more than sharks which i can't imagine is a big fear around here although it is where i live why because when you speak there's the fear you're gonna say or do something that embarrasses your self before others you see fear is selfish love is selfless the solution to fear is to stop thinking about ourselves and a turn and ask how do we love other people around us friends when it's all said and done we have to be obedient but second we are called to live in grace called to live in love in a culture that doesn't have space for love and grace because we love first john says because christ first loved us i was speaking to my home church on the topic of abortion and given a pro-life talk and what was interesting is when it was done we had baby bottles that were around the exits as people left and we asked people to take a baby bottle put it at their desk at home and throw loose change in it our local prankster resource center made over thirty thousand dollars in one year from people just taking bottles throwing their loose change in it that's incredible so i encourage people on the way out it's like grab a bottle just fill it up when you're done bring it to the church and we can support the prankster resource center on the way out my kids were passing them out and my son came to me afterwards he goes dad you won't believe what happened i said what happened he said i try to give this lady a bottle she says i'm not taking that i'm not supporting this pregnancy resource center if these women have sex outside of marriage i'm not stepping in now they get what they deserve heard that i thought what is happening she walks out of church and wants to cancel somebody who's at their moment of greatest need look you're not gonna find somebody more pro-life than i am in my writings in my talks on my youtube channel in my classes but i also know that many if not most women who have an abortion do reluctantly and they're hurting and they're not proud of it and in that moment if the church comes across judgmental rather than grace number one we're failing the gospel and we're failing those women who are hurting friends it's grace it's grace that sets us apart there's a story in luke chapter seven of a woman who the culture was trying to cancel and listen to how jesus responded luke chapter 7 36-50 it says one of the pharisees asked him jesus to eat with him so jesus goes into the pharisees home and it turns out it says and behold a woman of the city who is a sinner now many scholars think that she was probably a prostitute but the bottom line is she's described as a sinner so sometimes in the bible it describes people like goliath by his height people from where they're from their profession this woman's identity is that she's a sinner that's who she is when she learned that he she he was reclining at table the pharisees helped brought an alabaster flask of appointment standing behind him at his feet weeping not crying weeping she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with a hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment now in the pharisees who invited him i mean can you can you see the scene in one sense it's beautiful and the other sense is probably dirty because they didn't have clean feet and her hair it's almost it oh it might feel like a pathetic scene although there's a beauty to it the pharisee sees this how does he respond he said if this man were a prophet he would have known what sort of woman this was who's touching him for she is a she is a sinner that's her identity you see if jesus had known she's a sinner he would have canceled her not loved her jesus tells the story in verse 41 it says a certain moneylander had two debtors one owed him 500 dinar and the other 50 when they could not pay he canceled the debt of both which of them will love him more simon answered the one i suppose for whom he canceled the larger debt and jesus said you have judged rightly then turning toward the woman he said to simon you see this woman i entered your house you gave me no water for my feet but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair you gave me no kiss but from the time i came she is not kissing my stop kissing my feet you did not anoint my head with oil but she has anointed my feet with ointment therefore i tell you her sins which are many third time we're told she's a big sinner are forgiven for she loved much but he was forgiven little loves little and then imagine these words and then he said to her so he turns to this woman who's covered in just tears and who her identity is a sinner and the fairest in the culture want a counselor and what is he saying he says your sins are forgiven friends do we identify people by their sins and their shortcomings which is what our cancel culture wants to do or do we identify people as beloved children of god made in his image whom god forgives are we a people of grace and forgiveness the very thing cancel culture lacks is the very thing that jesus preached and lived and modeled for us we must be obedient friends but we must extend grace and forgiveness obedience grace and number three wisdom we find ourselves in some of the most thorny situations should i attend a gay wedding should i use a preferred pronoun these sticky thorny difficult issues i always go back to daniel in babylon being raised up by the king to be one of the servants of the king's house and all he had to do was eat the food but the food was not kosher so what did daniel do he found a creative way to honor the king for the king to get what he wanted ultimately it was not just him eating the food but it was servants who could serve in his court without violating his conscience which was the creative solution with vegetables that's wisdom the bible says more valuable than gold and more value and silver is wisdom solomon could have anything and he asked for wisdom friends we need more wisdom now as a church than we've ever had before and part of that wisdom is learning what are essential issues we divide over and what are non-essential issues in which we show charity and we are not acting a lot of wisdom that way in the church are we years ago i wrote a book on same-sex marriage with a friend of mine john stonestreet we're trying to help people navigate whether you go to a same-sex wedding or not or whether a baker should make bake a cake for same-sex wedding or a photographer should film or photograph a same-sex wedding the businessman gave us an idea he said why don't businesses like this put a sign on the wall that says we will we will serve a same-sex wedding all proceeds from same-sex weddings go to focus on the family i was like that's really creative and wise now there's not always a way out of sticky situations but we need more wisdom how to navigate thorny situations we're in than ever friends obedience grace and wisdom i happen to think that when i see something like cancel culture it's an opportunity for the church to shine it is when things get dark but thanks gets rough we stop living in our own strength and have to rely upon the body of christ and the holy spirit in a culture of people afraid of being being canceled if we're the ones who show real love and grace and lead with kindness we have an opportunity for the gospel to shine in the sadly increasingly divided in dark times amen friends if it's helpful there's two books back there pastor skip asked me to bring and here's one thing i found you know one reason we christians get defensive in conversation it's because we don't know what we believe and why we don't have a good answer so we get defensive you want to love your neighbor you got to know what you believe in why you believe it so we're not threatened by challenges to our faith wrote one book called chasing love for students how to think about sex love and relationships i talk about sex abuse pornography cohabitation divorce and how to love our lgbtq neighbors friends jesus is the one who gives us the model how to do this so it's a tool for you to talk with your kids and your grandkids and help equip and train them how to think like jesus did so they can love like jesus loved another one is for parents teachers influencers it's just called so the next generation will know and it's simply a guide as we hear about all these stories of people deconstructing their faith let's take a step back and say what does scripture teach us about positively how we pass on the faith to the next generation so if you have kids or grandkids or young people in this church it's a practical guy that says here are some things you can do to love this generation friends it's such an honor to come here and speak in our cancer culture may this be our finest hour may we live in love may we be obedient may we have wisdom and show grace to a generation that is hurting and broken and needs the love of jesus amen father thank you for this church thank you for their willingness to stand in the gap and stay faithful to scripture yet with a desire to love their neighbor i just pray if there's people here that are in one of these thorny situations right now god give them grace give them humility and just give them a heart to reach out and love towards people who are broken and see healing rather than more division we are grateful in so many ways and praise your name amen god bless you guys we hope you enjoyed this special service from calvary church we'd love to know how this message impacted you email us at my story at calvarynm.church and just a reminder you can support this ministry with a financial gift at calvarynm.church give thank you for joining us for this teaching from calvary church

Channel: Skip Heitzig

Views: 268

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Bible Study, Calvary, Albuquerque, Skip, Heitzig, Sermons, Calvary Church, How to Study the Bible, Gospel, cancel culture, conscience, fear, forgiveness, gentleness, grace, judgment, love, obedience, pain, social media, wisdom, worldview

Id: gFOL0dR4LW0

Length: 49min 14sec (2954 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 20 2021