An Honest and Raw Conversation with Francis Chan

hello friends welcome back to another episode of theology in the raw if you would like to support the show you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the ross report supports show for as little as five bucks a month to get access to premium content that is behind a support wall i do a lot of q a podcasts and blogging and discussion uh with my patreon community so if that interests you if you want to be part of the theologian raw community then go to patreon.com raw all of the info is in the show notes my guest today is uh francis chan um do i need to i probably don't even need to say anything else francis chan is frances chan so uh yeah in this conversation i'll i'll be honest man we um we get pretty raw and honest um and i that's what i love about francis is he is who he is uh i don't know if i've ever ever actually told him this i know i've said this publicly in a few different places but you know how you know big name famous christians like people who are on a stage like there's usually a gap between who they are in real life and who they are on the stage that's true of almost everybody i've met when it comes to francis in my experience and friendship with him i don't see a gap that radical passionate jesus loving preacher that many of us um kind of grew up following and and learning from that really is who he is behind closed doors he just he is when he wakes up every day he is truly excited to be in the presence of jesus and that's not it's not a show it's not a thing he puts on it's just who he is and a lot of that comes out in this podcast we also talk about some um pretty i guess vulnerable and raw stuff in both of our backgrounds with our theological environment that we grew up with so anyway hope you enjoyed the conversation without further ado please welcome back to the show for the second time for the second time the one and only francis chan all right hey friends i am here with uh a old friend of mine uh up and coming speaker uh one of these days he might actually make a name for himself um we'll see uh he just released his first book a few weeks ago francis thanks for coming back on the show appreciate it it's good to see you and good to be back so what what's the title full title of your book that you just released it's called until unity and it's based on uh ephesians 4 about how the leaders of the church are supposed to equip the saints until we attain to the unity of the faith okay so so what what what what uh what are you going to stir up with this book like i'm sure tell me let's just dive in like what's the most like what's the thing in the book that's going to like really make people either upset or challenged or stir some feathers well i think any time you pursue unity anytime you get out of your little circle people are going to get angry so even have discussion i'm sure you run into it with some of the people you have discussions with like a lot of people from our old crowd yeah must really hate you um yeah i mean as much as they hate me but they hated me first so they're gonna hate you also but hey because they first hated you how's that yeah exactly so i you know it's gonna stir up some of that because man i have this belief from the scriptures that if the spirit of god dwells in a person because he or she has absolutely trust in the blood of christ without their salvation i can see that fruit in their lives man then i need to honor that person i need to love deeply deeply deeply that person rather than hold them at at arm's length and pretend i don't know them to appease my circle um you know it's it's the that level of love he calls us to and so i know there's going to be common minds like oh he wants unity uh at the expense of truth yeah um and he wants unity at the expense of holiness but it's exact opposite like i am more passionate about the bride being holy than ever and i am very passionate about truth and false teaching um but you know i think it's just i've been a little humbled over the years of things i was so sure of that i study further i pray about it more and i'm going gosh yeah know if i'm so sure about that anymore yeah so i mean this book captures kind of a journey you've been on really and i don't know if yeah i don't know how many people listening know that you've really kind of you're always learning you're always learning rethinking and you're willing to change your views on stuff with regard to unity and especially the the thing you're talking about like really being having more of expansive view of what unity looks like what are some things in your journey maybe the last few years that have kind of caused you to go back and rethink this topic yeah you know i was always told by my circle what other groups were like um so i just kind of stay away from those groups because i've been told about you you know whether they're individuals or whatever but then throughout my travels over the years i meet some of those individuals that i studied in seminary you know and you go whoa that's not what i was told about you you read the bible you know like you really know the word of god and you really cannot stand sin in your church why would they say this about you you know and you you start building these relationships and hearing from their mouths and then on top of that uh you know i get i i just read the news about myself occasionally not anymore but i'm like whoa what are they saying about me why would they say that when you realize oh man that's what other people did and i believed what others wrote about them without even asking them yeah realize we live in a very unfair time where when people are trying to push their mindset uh you know they're gonna squash others you know for whatever reason yeah and so now i'm just at this point where i'm going i am so sorry for people to people that i've slandered um before i really knew you uh sorry for just listening to what others said about you or maybe catching one phrase that you said improperly and making assumptions about you uh i don't know just as i got to meet these genuine brothers and sisters in christ i realized i really missed out not only did i slander you but i missed out on everything that god could have taught me through you through the gift he's given you i know one and if i start wandering in an area that needs to be more private just let me let me know um we can either edit it or just but i i know one relationship or at least speaking engagement that got you into trouble i saw i was with benny hinn um right and and and uh that's probably one of several but like yeah are you able to talk through like how what that was like getting to know him and sharing the stage with him and i know you you're just is he one of the guys you're thinking of that you used to probably speak really negatively of and or no i still don't know him like he you know he jumped into a picture i was taking a picture with someone else that i don't know he photobombed you and then benny like hey can i jump in i'm what do you say uh no you don't know why you know this is gonna ruin my reputation you know it it wasn't that uh so i don't i don't know that well but i will say this uh and i i wasn't sure he was gonna be at the event um but uh a friend my friend andy who started out who led the the send he told me there was a chance he was gonna invite benny and so he says do you mind uh i'm about to have lunch with him and some others could you come along and just help me sort through this and so i went i mean all i know of him is just watching him on television obviously just he and i are very very different opposites in many ways um but when i was there at the lunch it was i'm not exaggerating it was the most shocking surprising uh encounter with a person i've ever had why that's crazy hey so we get there there's like six or seven of us in my group he's got like six or seven people in his group we meet him at a hotel uh banquet room or something you know i'm sure he paid for lunch and uh he just says hey can you guys start eating i have some things to share and so sure and he starts he just starts off going he goes i want you guys to know i have really uh basically said i've made a mess of my life he says i have not been close to jesus in years he says these last two months i believe it was about two months is i've changed things around where i just block out time where no one can get to me and it's just me being with jesus and i he goes and it's it's changing everything it's changing my life he goes by he goes i don't know if you guys believe that that that god can actually lose his trust in you he goes but i believe god no longer trusts me and he's taken the mantle off of me because i got too into my friends to into money to into fame and and now all i want is him in fact he goes why don't we pause for a moment i want to play this old hymn that i was just worshiping god you know listening to this hymn the other day in my office and just and you know can we just have some silence and worship the lord just you just be alone with him and so i'm just like what in the world this is not what i'm expecting and then after we had this time of prayer and i'm having a wonderful time of fellowship with the lord you know it's old hymn i think it was my jesus i love the you know and and here's this man just repenting of so many things and he points to me now he didn't know me because we're in much different circles and i and he says you young man and that's why you know me i'm like uh not that young and he goes god has taken his anointing or his mantle off of me he doesn't trust me he goes but you young man he trusts you and he's going to manifest himself to you he says but you better love jesus more than you love if you're married your wife your kids your money your reputation you better love him way more than all of these things you know don't make the mistakes that i made and i'm just like i'm just sitting there dumbfounded like this is the last thing i would have expected from this lunch and and so i did begin praying for him after that going lord you're doing something in his life i cannot imagine the pressure he must feel from his circle his world and everything else and then when i did see him at a different event in brazil or something and we had a brief conversation but um it was just i don't know i don't know i i know that he's made some public statements about denying the um prosperity gospel really and it's wrong now when he repents of it and he even talks about how he ran into some young people uh who live life differently and it's impacted them and um i'd like to think on maybe one of those that may have helped out or something and i'm sure i don't know what he's doing today he may be doing i'm crazy and asking for all your money but i'm just saying like gosh that was pretty powerful um and i am not vouching for anyone here i'm just saying gosh i don't know what else to do then to pray for a person like that and love someone like that and ask god to continue to reveal things to him and maybe even use a guy like that to teach me some things about something i don't know that was a couple years ago or that's fairly recent right or maybe four three or four years ago uh maybe like a year and a half ago oh wow okay so yeah last interaction i think uh i think brazil was just a little over a year ago wow that's i should get him on the podcast what's his email give me stuff yeah i mean that first session that i was with him at that lunch uh they were taking pictures and afterwards we were like hey can you destroy all those pictures just because i just didn't want to cause any confusion um but yeah it's like who's to know you know like how far to take these relationships and how that's the way there's there's a circle that is so panicked that you shouldn't have even spoke to him you shouldn't have done this you shouldn't have spoken at a conference he was at and okay so was i not supposed to go to lunch okay i wasn't supposed to eat was that you know like where are you getting all of this how do you know these parameters yeah and like well you're harming people around the world by being in a picture with him um is that is that you you got really critiqued for that did people i think i saw one headline that was like what's francis chan doing with benihan or yeah yeah there's i again i've had to stay away from headlines and yeah articles yeah stuff because it's just it's just too much i deleted all my social media from my phone news apps i don't read amazon reviews i i try to pay attention to what i would think are good thoughtful humanizing criticism you know by somebody who's like no i'm trying to understand what you're saying i do have some pushback i want to learn from yeah but most of the guy if you google your name 9 out of 10 stuff that comes up is just not anybody with an internet connection a keyboard that's angry is gonna post something you know and um yeah well it's their opportunity to they can sometimes be opportunists like well if i just expose it a passage of scripture no one's gonna listen to me yeah but if i bash this guy i'll get a lot more views you know and that's kind of the yeah that's it's like jay-z said you know what did he say if if you if i shoot at you i'm brainless but if you shoot at me you're famous oh it's so good it's so good we're good yeah that doesn't i stopped responding to people even on social media for i think somebody told me they they said you know that person is just trying to get attention right like they're trying to use your platform to get a name so when you respond you're just giving them you know i'm like that's a good point plus i just who has time to respond to every little comment here and there so i just i just don't i just ignore it i mean i don't even see half this i don't see most of stuff because i just don't have time to sit there and read everybody's little comment but um yeah um what are some other i guess steps or even people or events or even theological themes that in the last few years maybe you've either rethought or maybe you still believe the same thing but you're like but man but we can still have unity around this issue or whatever i i want to get into the eucharist and lord supper i know you've kp and others have helped you to rethink that but are there other events or people you've met that helped you to have a maybe a better view of unity or yeah so obviously i think there's the people in the uh charismatic world which i guess i'm i guess you could kind of label me in there now whereas before i was absolutely against everything and uh yeah just some godly godly people um like the ihop movement with uh mike pickle yeah man the guy who loves the word of god cannot stand any sin in his life in his life or in his church um fights against it he hates any excesses in that world and and i'm thinking wow i thought you were like the king of excess he was like no oh he's just like oh and the people are like ah the spirit said you know i'm like whoa like you think that he goes yes because i hate that stuff because look in my office it's filled with macarthur commentaries it is you know what i'm like what uh so and just seeing his lifestyle going oh what a godly godly man i will absolutely stand with him he is my brother in christ and you know guys like that um probably the another one that really bothered people was uh i was asked to speak at an event with for charismatic catholics and uh that's a thing and yeah yeah oh yeah and the leader he i was out in an event like an evangelical event but there was this this thing that was happening concurrently which was for charismatic catholics and he said the leader comes to me and says hey do you mind just stepping into our meeting and sharing the gospel and he says before you answer he goes let me just explain i we feel like there are so many people within our church the catholic church who have never heard the gospel and in fact some of us are actually excited when they leave our church and go to an evangelical church and hear the gospel for the first time um we want you to come in and present the gospel would you present the gospel to our people [Music] and i thought oh man what do you say to that no nope sorry no way i only share the castle with people who already know it um i i just thought you know i'm kind of stuck because i'm thinking i i everything i do gets filmed or you know whether it's someone's phone or they actually record it and i thought oh there's gonna be people that are gonna be so angry at this but before the lord i had my two son-in-laws with me and my gosh what do you guys think man and they're just like gosh it just seems so much of god and so i get there and this is the first catholic all-catholic event i've spoken at and uh the leader gets up and he says first of all you guys need to know francis agreed to come but he is basically taking a bullet for you guys because he's gonna get hammered and you guys may not realize that but he he is he's gonna get hammered and uh and we need to stand up for him if we ever get the opportunity um and then he says uh he goes my wife actually believes that francis chan is the greatest catholic preacher alive please tell me you didn't just say that like what are you talking about and but it's it's the idea of reverence and sacredness and caring for the poor you know that i you know i think he feels like i'm just standing for the holiness of god and maybe in a world of where there's a lot of silliness and goofiness um but then after that several priests come up and they take my shoes off and start washing my feet and praying for me and then they asked me to share whatever is on my heart and they're sharing look we just want people to really know jesus we want them to have a good understanding of the gospel would you share with us and i'm telling you i and i'm not saying it's all feelings i'm i explained to you what they were saying i'm explaining what's coming out of their mouth and and i told them look i know there are differences and i know there are issues there are things i'm still trying to wrap my mind around like how can you believe this then but i cannot deny that at least the people in this room your understanding of the gospel is very very similar to what i believe if not the same thing and i i don't know what to do with it still there's a lot of um i learned when i was doing my phd um a lot of misunderstanding with the catholic understanding of faith in works that's something that really blew me away because i was reading like comment commentaries and scholars by catholics talking about justification by faith and grace and faith and all these things and there were some some nuances that i'm like yeah i'm not sure i'd line up on that but man it was not at all this kind of working your way to heaven and you're in your salvation by works and it's like it was way way more careful than that i'm not saying that some like lay catholics in the pews or whatever they just like might not have a very workspace yeah whatever but i know lots of baptists or evangelicals that do the same thing functionally but on the higher up i'm like man these differences are there's differences but they're not nearly as dramatic as i had thought when it comes to like soteriology the priesthood the pope and yeah purgatory there's some things like yeah i just can't get on board with that but um but man i think yeah i think there are more similarities than than we grew up i mean you and i went to the same tradition school and everything and to kind of come back to your previous point it's like man you start actually meeting the people that you thought were the devil or just so far out there like you don't match what you're supposed to be what i was taught what i was told you're supposed to believe you're not saying you believe that you know yeah and it's a tricky line when it comes to you know like at our school with lordship salvation yeah you're constantly looking at your works we're constantly telling people you can't just say right these things say that you believe these things your actions have to show it what does that mean yeah it's faith of works it's it's everything we were taught and uh because we were tired of this cheap grace and easy believism that didn't change your life and so if i'm talking to these people they're speaking the same language and i agree with you are there people that you know pick up statues and just you know that's all they see absolutely and that's what this group is even saying to me like we don't want that wow and so i don't know i'm just i just think we live in a time where i meet a ton of baptists that i have a real hard time believing the holy spirit is in them by their actions by their lifestyle by the lack of love joy peace patience kindness goodness faith you know like and but would i align a little bit more closely theologically on paper yeah um probably so what do you what do you do with that it's it's about individuals yeah that's just the world we live in now yeah one calls himself a baptist doesn't mean that they're going to heaven and someone calls himself a catholic doesn't mean that they don't have a relationship with jesus christ right right right right get to know some of these people and you're like wow if we took a test i would score similar to yours i think but this is this but we have very little in common i don't know is that is that why you're wearing the collar i didn't no i'm just for my podcast audience francis isn't wearing a collar i'm trying to throw him into the bus yeah great he's got a big hat no um that one part though um on that note i mean the i know in the last few years you've really rethought the role of the lord's supper um the eucharist whatever you want to call it in the role of the rhythm of the church or like you know as as non-denominational baptistic reformed-ish kind of people like you and i are grew up you know it's like the lord's supper is kind of you know maybe once a month or it's just it's kind of part of what we do as christians but it's not like you would never miss a sermon you would never go to church on sunday and like yeah today we're not going to do a sermon like why am i here but we would do that with the lord's supper no problem and yet for many christians around the globe and for the last 2000 years the opposite would be true like we might have a homily but we are for sure i mean obviously why are we here we we would never even dream of missing the the bread and the wine anyway so i'm probably throwing you too much of a softball here but we'd love to hear your journey and how you've kind of been thinking through the centrality of the lord's supper well i've always wrestled with it you know whenever i preach you know just like i i wrestled with preaching acts after graduating from a cessation sensationalist uh seminary i just kind of breezed through real quick oh yeah anyone here hear your ear all right let's get to an epistle um you know you just don't want to deal with all those miraculous things but in the book of acts you know you have that acts 2 42 that they devoted themselves right they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship and the prayer and to the breaking of bread so it's like whoa that's one of the things of the four things that that early church devoted themselves too and honestly someone challenged me in my knowledge of church history and they said you know it seems like all the church history you know is from the last 500 years do you know much about the first 300 and well yeah the bible you know and uh and you know as a challenge i'm like i i guess i really didn't take a close look what did that early church do before they had a bible and you know and what did they depend on and how was god's grace given to these people um and as i looked in history and again i i doubt i'm anywhere near where you're at as far as what i've looked into i was just surprised at how important the eucharist was to them and and how there seemed to be a general understanding that it is more than just a symbol now how far to take it yeah i think there's variation but it just seems like for a good 1500 correct me if i'm wrong 1500 years or so there was you don't hear anyone talking about it just being a symbol um there may have been differences on whether it was the actual but you know you know it or it actually turns into that when it comes into you or this or that but there was something about the real presence in some way and and and i it caused me to go gosh why did i believe it was just a symbol well because that's just what i was told and it seemed like until uh was it a zwingli or uh was no it wasn't zwingli i think zwingli was the more symbol one luther was what was he trans i don't know this is not my area at all man we're gonna butcher this i'm gonna get some emails if i maybe i overestimate you i think you know everything no i don't know my church history ends at 80 70. yeah okay okay yeah so i believe it was wingley it was the one that um you know took communion away from the center of the church and put the pulpit up there and uh and he was the first one to really propagate that hey it's just a symbol there is no real presence at all and so that's what even if most churches i think most denominations today if you look doctrinally they'll still believe in a real presence but you would never know it by the way they practice it's very uh you know they grab it on your i mean even if you don't have a real precise understanding of what you believe the elements are to me that's that's one important question but another one is what role does this event play in the liturgy the rhythm of the church right i mean again the fact that we can get away with doing it once a month or even a tag tack on or even like i don't know it's just in almost every evangelical setting i've been in um it's just it doesn't it kind of like we don't understand it we're kind of like you know if you have any sin in your heart don't take it whatever but like other than that it's kind of like we're just kind of doing it but not really i don't know it's like i'm not sure if we understand what we're even doing um yeah sorry someone was knocking on this that's fine is that cool well don't you have like 15 kids or something in the house probably no i'm only i'm down to four oh my god i don't know what to do with myself you gotta oh actually five my uh married daughter just came back a little bit i mean not like with her husband um yeah you're a grandpa right i am i've got two oh my word yeah yeah what's your what's your name what do they call you grampy or grandpa uh oh they use the chinese because uh they were born in hong kong one of them was so they uh they call me gong which is grandpa in chinese no way yeah can you talk about um and i'm sorry we're gonna wander around but i mean you were in uh how long were you in hong kong what were you doing and you're back now whatever you feel comfortable sharing i'm sure people are wondering what's he doing now that's a random jump from whatever eucharist yeah uh yeah sorry um someone was a neighbor was bringing me eggs it was nice i didn't even thank him i was so preoccupied um but uh yeah i went to hong kong and uh they're just under a year and then had visa issues they made me come back some of it's because it's coveted and um my planted a few house churches there discipled some guys really really loved them really beautiful beautiful churches that um were started there and now i'm still discipling the guys via zoom but they're doing great the churches are growing um and so i just miss them i love them it was an awesome time with the family i i tell people i think it was the best year of my life really well yeah think about this think about think about having your married children believing god is calling them to join you in a foreign country and so the 12 of you go over to a country together and just start seeking the lord and looking for opportunities to share the gospel or do like who gets to do that i don't know of anyone who's got to do that um so here i am with my children and grandchildren having these amazing worship times and then meeting these people out there and it was just it was the best and so even when we left and we are just like so sad because we were so happy but to see my kids like you know one son-in-law is like yeah we'll probably end up in oregon i might do something the other one's like yeah we'll go back to ireland and and we'll do something there and my family are going i think we're gonna go to uh we're gonna try singapore because there's a travel opportunity there and and you know so it was sad but i looked at them i go you know what this is so amazing i go look you guys we're leaving in two weeks like we're going to different parts of the world and everyone's in perfect peace like no one's freaking out i'm like oh man what is god's grace on our lives i'm just i'm just so happy to see my grown daughters being you know led by these men of god that will just take them anywhere god calls them to and so there's just a piece about that even though there's a sadness of uh bummer we're gonna end up in different places in the world so this is the first time i've seen my daughter in uh four months and uh uh i just don't want them to ever leave again but you know the lord's gonna call him somewhere but it's it's pretty awesome so you're not you're probably not gonna go back right or i mean you would like to but not sure is that kind of up in the air and then if not what do you foresee the next few years looking like i'm probably just going to teach on the eucharist everywhere with benny yeah i'll take communion with benny in around the world um i don't know what's next uh i really believe that there is something god is doing in the u.s right now um i think the pandemic the craziness of this last year the amount of division in the country um it's causing many christians you know are just walking away from the faith and but there's another group that just they really do love jesus and cannot let go of him but they can't stand some of the division in the church and they are looking to be one and they're done with denominations they're done with you know being labeled in this box or this box or this box and and they really want this oneness that they they see that god commands and they don't even know how to do it i ran to a few guys just the other day at chick-fil-a they came out and they're like hey can we talk to you about what you know you know one guy was a catholic one guy was a pastor from a baptist church one guy they're all working at chick-fil-a now we don't know what to do because we so love jesus we so see the unity and i can't even talk to the people in my church about this um and they're like i don't know if you're dealing with it i'm like yeah i'm dealing with it big time like i just wrote a book about it you know like unity is huge in the heart of god yeah but they're like but then if we start a gathering what do we call it once we call it a name then it becomes like this group or that group and i'm just like you guys first of all i'm so encouraged that you young men are thinking this way and that you're not bashing the church you have a heart for the church and you just want to see the church come together and be about the right things and centered on the right things and i said i don't have an answer for you but see god together on this and and i just i i think it's gotten so ridiculous you know sometimes it has to get so bad if you get so overweight that you're like forget it i'm going on dying and i feel like that's the way the church maybe we're finally at that point do you just see how ridiculous it is that it's every man for himself and whoever you're following is the only one that's got it right um has it gotten so bad that you finally go okay we got to do something yeah and i'd love to be a voice in that conversation and in that urging the church that we have to become one if we want to reach the world christ said this is the way we do it yeah yeah i'm curious and this is um maybe this is kind of me and you bantering more privately but with a podcast with thousands of people listening but like because i mean for those who don't know both francis and i went to john mcarthur's you know master's college and seminary and um man there's so many things that i valued from that experience the high view of god high view the word of god a huge emphasis just on the seriousness of christianity and repentance and um i still have several professors i keep in touch with that i really value and yet there is something about that culture that i'm like man i just there's just some things that i just and i'll say it i i you know i i do feel like our are toxic really i mean that like when i was in that environment i i was a spirit in me was cultivated that everybody else who's not in this tribe is on a slippery slope is kind of liberal or just kind of missing it i remember thinking like you know they're like john piper like well i don't know he's not pre-trib you know he's a little charismatic and like wait john piper's not biblical enough for your wayne grudem you know he's a little bit liberal because he his systematic theology was you know he endorsed it or had dedicated it to john wimber and he's charisma and all this stuff that i just like i just don't know if that spirit of everybody else is missing it that's one negative every every every educational context has pros and cons and i want to make that clear to everybody listening like you know because i think some people overly bash like a conservative or you know master whatever and i'm like look there's a lot of good that happened there values i still have you know um but there are a few things that are just really disturbing that that i'm like man that it took me years to kind of detox from that to meet somebody who's i'm just gonna sound funny to a lot of people listening but like to meet an amillennial and not have that knee-jerk reaction of like oh wait no that i think they might still be a christian they're not like they're not evil like i had to kind of get over that knee-jerk reaction like what in the world like where that's just bizarre you know and and now i'm eating i've had loads of like women pastors on my podcast love the lord loved the bible wrestled with years with first timothy 2 and you know um and like man they don't they're not just like drop kicking the bible out of their feelings or whatever it's like wait we gonna disagree or disagree or whatever but i mean at least respect the journey and not tarnish their motivation and everything and so i don't know man how do you keep in touch with people in that environment how do you how do you view yourself in relation to that your kind of upbringing and nurturing and that environment you're raised in yeah is that fair i mean i don't even know what the question is really but um no i'm super grateful for the commitment to the word of god um that we were taught there and the the work ethic yeah that we were brought there but i will say you know my two years of bible college and three years in seminary those were the five worst years of my life just if i could redo i would do in a second and i'm not blaming that on the school i mean there was sin in my life but i also would say that it comes from an arrogance a pride that was in my life with this uh you know i i attained a lot of information um but i don't think i really knew any of those truths in a biblical sense um and i think because i came out just thinking everyone has it wrong except for me um or us in this circle and i i was saying some very slanderous things toward brothers and sisters in christ and and i wasn't emphasizing the things that i now see emphasized throughout the new testament and um just just priorities it seemed like there were just some priorities that were off um and but a lot of it that i look back on was we just didn't talking it talk about loving each other um let's try to think did i ever hear that phrase um it it was almost diminished like okay that's cute let rick warren talk about love one another we're gonna do love god with all your hearts all mind and strength too you know it was just like we're we're scholars here we're theologians here almost like oh and please don't talk about unity that is you know like those types of things then you're immediately labeled someone who doesn't care about truth and so i guess the saddest part about me was i was not a loving person um i didn't think about people i didn't um yeah i i fought for truth as i understood truth at that time but it was also very unfair um now that i look back and uh and i was unfair to people and i don't keep in touch with very many people there are quite a few that have come out of that same circle have the same issues and talk about wow it's taken a long time to recover and um they too have met godly people that were bashed by our school and um i mean i'm bashed by our school i mean i don't know of an alumni they dislike more well you do were you kicked off the alumni list for a while i know several of us were i think uh years ago you guys were my association and what was it it was you did a couple things on stage i think that they got wind of do you i'm trying to think of what i think i well yes and i even went back and apologized it was the one time i went up with fake breasts and i you know was talking about this is what i feel like every week you know come on up here let me feed you let me feed you you know when you should be feeding yourselves and uh and so i even you know that's not what they said though they said one it was my association with mark driscoll um someone else said because i'm not a cessationist and then someone else said um it's because that video with with the fake breasts and so um i actually ran into john at an event and i'm like hey you know i hear you're saying a lot of things about me and um gosh you have my number like let me know what i i respect you like what he goes well you did that video with uh you know the fake press and it's it's online and i'm like i didn't even know it was online um you know i'll remove it we removed it i don't think you can find it um although some guy might have it and throw it up and it's making money off of it but it's uh i said look i i i don't you know i hear these things say he goes why i usually don't i don't use your name i go but everyone knows who you're talking about and i just don't understand why you wouldn't call me and and uh he says look i only say those things because i love you and i go well then say them to me you know like right now i'll i'll find out how to get the thing off of line if if we are the ones that post it or whatever like i'm not not unreasonable um and so i don't know it's just it's just been a weird journey um and now my association with other people just causes more and more of that recently there was one with uh todd white oh yeah what was that no that was the same conference that one really got me in trouble with benny and todd at the same one um and but as i've gotten to know todd you know because there's a picture of me praying you know as i just felt like i was supposed to lay hands on him and pray for him before he spoke and then afterwards i mean it was one of these in your face messages like get that sin out of your life you know he was addressing pornography lust of the eyes anything i mean just and i'm just like embracing him praying for him just going man that was one of the boldest messages i've heard but then it's like oh but look we caught him saying this you know which he made a statement and he just it made it sound it didn't sound theologically accurate he didn't nuance it right at all but he was already confronted he was confronted by uh bill johnson really yeah and i forgot who else it might have been benny hinn maybe i'm just getting that but i know bill was one of the guys that like hey time really messed up on that and it's like so sorry sorry but it got around our old crowd and uh and so in fact someone from that circle was like hey i think you're being deceived by this guy why don't you listen to 20 or 30 hours of his teaching um because maybe you just had you know so i listened to a couple hours i'm thinking everything i'm hearing is this and so now it's like why don't you listen to 20 or 30 hours and you may realize oh we caught him saying something wrong this one time or two times but out of 100 hours man you follow me around there are a lot more bloopers than that and i guarantee that's true of anyone yeah even when i i told john that i go man i go i i remember some of the things you said in chapel when i was at the college and you were a lot older than i am now and he goes yeah but that was before the internet and before everything was posted i go but it you still said it just because you could erase the tape and i can't you know so there's just it just felt unfair to me yeah but my my issue is not like anti my old school or whatever like that i mean i am so grateful i'm just i don't understand why there's such a need to uh bash even someone like myself like i'm just going man i am trying and i'm trying to fight and hold the line on some of these issues that are absolutely biblical and then the people i get blasted by the most are the ones that are supposed to be on my side i i say it's it's almost like i'm getting beat up as i'm out in the world in this fight you know like i'm a boxer and then i go back to my corner and my coach just knocks me out whoa you know like that's exactly what i feel like i go back to the corner and they're the ones that have their gloves off and i'm just going lord i i don't even know what to do and that's why for years i just gave up on unity like it's not going to happen just get busy with caring for the poor and other things that i know i can help with yeah yeah well this could be the time this and i got i have to fight for it because god cares about it so much do you have a certain denomination or even christian subculture or tribe that you would resonate with the most or do you feel like kind of a mutt i mean or homeless or if if you could pick one kind of group to say this is my these are my people who would that be i mean i often ask myself that question uh it's you preston no that was a great description a mutt um i've never been called that but i will take it gladly because here's here's what i found was i would go to these events i would speak at the pastor's events of all these different denominations and i'd go there and i'd go i really like these guys yeah i mean i really like you know at least the ones i got to know like i'm not faking it i'm not up there oh i love you brother you know i'm really hanging out back there and going i really like them yeah i could be you know ev-free oh i could be conservative baptist well i could be church of christ whoa i could be you know uh um foursquare go on down the line i meet these people even like those priests i talked about that are washing my feet and they're describing their concern for the gospel i'm going gosh and you believe in the gifts of the spirit and you're i don't know what i am i really don't i i i don't know what to call myself anymore because i've learned so much from those i used to just think oh liturgy and like oh stand up sit down and reading these prayers from hundreds of years ago and like what does that mean and now i'm going whoa people have played that same thing for hundreds of years and you're not just making it up off the top of your head that's kind of cool yeah you know and and now it's like whoa you just prophesied over me and there's no way you could have known these things were true there's no way on earth that is crazy and so i'm going in these different circles and then i think when you see humility like for example church of christ pastors conference and i'm going wait you guys don't even believe in music and uh you know and and to have the leader go yeah we really can't support that one biblically i'm like whoa like they're just admitting like yeah i don't know what to do with that one i mean it's kind of been our tradition but i don't see where we got it biblically you just go wow thank you um yeah some of these you're not so sure you're doing your best you love the lord now you're second guessing some of the things that are your traditions because you're not seeing them in scripture um that's pretty cool so that's that's why i'm a mix and i'm not trying to be like a uh i don't know chameleon right uh i i'm not i am who i am and and in fact uh like like i mentioned ihop mike pickle one of his staff last year said do you realize every time you come you rebuke us do i well we love it like it's you and you're challenging us on something that you see that is often what we're doing and how do you not love someone that is like thank you we needed that uh i don't know i i love a lot of people one of one of my greatest joys in the ministry that i do is we get the as an organization we get to work with 15 maybe 20 different denominations add to that various species of non-denominational churches and honestly i could i'm a hundred percent res i 100 resonate with everything you're saying like i every place i go i'm like there's i see so much beauty and goodness and things that i'm like man that is so cool the way you do it that way and your emphasis on this and that and you know we'll i'll be in a you know a charismatic church one sunday and then uh you know reformed church the next sunday and then the baptist church whatever well not too many baptist churches but um and evangelical covenant church or whatever anglican and just like there's so much gospel like there's so much similarities too i just got just yesterday i was speaking all day at a fourth square church and in beaverton oregon and it's like gosh this church feels very similar to 10 different denominations i've been in because they're just passionate about jesus the scriptures following him and so yeah i don't know it's um yeah there's a denomination or a group of churches called new frontiers it's based in the uk i really like uh they're going to love this because it's a small denomination i'm not a denomination but now quick network of churches they're charismatic kind of reformed without the arrogance they're uh very gospel very gospel centered very authentic very just raw and real they're not overly churchy and they're very very missional very multi-ethnic and i i just man i spoke at a conference a few weeks ago and i was like man this this feels like family here man yeah i love them they're uh their founder terry virg yeah yeah he and his wife lisa and i spent like a week with them in the uk i'm speaking at this conference and i just great great people and he was talking about beginnings and because he was seeing what i was doing with the small gatherings yeah that's the way it was that's what we started with and someone got big and insane you know but the humility the love for jesus um yeah i could be one of them yeah they have better accents but i they just were great yeah great people did i i just see spirit-filled lovers of jesus um but yeah that's the way i feel with a lot of people i feel like people are missing out yeah and again i am not saying truth doesn't matter i'm just saying okay this morning for example i am just infatuated with john 13 through 17. um and this season of my life like i can't get out of it which also was amazing because i memorized john uh 13 to 17 when i was 14 years old quizzing things 40 years later i'm like this is all i want to think about i want to know every word of this because it is so deep and i didn't realize how deep it was um so powerful and i'm even reading this morning in john 14 when he's saying you know when tom says hey we don't know the way where you're going in jesus i i'm the way the truth and the life and he doesn't say you don't know the way we'll hear you you go here you do this or you do this and then this and then this and then you'll get there he says no i am the way but then he says i am the truth and i never thought about this see when i think about truth i think about all those books behind you that if i want to know truth i need to read all those books behind you um and then there's a trillion articles online and if i really read all of those and figure out who was telling it that's how i figure out truth and yet jesus is saying no no no i am the truth it's just like you don't learn directions to heaven you don't learn just it's not just let me get more information he himself it's the person it's knowing jesus otherwise we're saying the illiterate can't know truth and all the generations didn't have all these books can't know truth and i i just even this morning god was showing me like you really still are stuck in this post-enlightenment um education mind this is the way truth and and there's something deeper there's something deeper like right now as people are listening it's not just about you and me saying bits of information and them getting it into their ears and into their cognitive reasoning and now they know truth no we're talking about something else that has to happen by the spirit to enter into the inner man and that's not the way i was raised i was raised with strict information and because you have to be more you have to be logical enough to figure out who's a little bit off and who you know and so now i'm the center of logic and it's up to me rather than knowing this person like knowing him really knowing him that's what he was saying i am the way i am the truth i'm the life life doesn't come by doing all these things life comes from knowing me and i will abide i'll live in you like i was looking at that verse where he says if you if you love me you'll obey my commands and i will love you um and i will manifest myself to you like what does that mean and you know and they're like well how do you manifest to us and not to the rest of the world because now if you love me you keep my word my father will love you will come to you and will live in you it's all about this relationship and this obedience and in this this knowing of him which is truth and so i'm just the more we we stop staring at these mysteries and going okay god i i don't get it like last time i i led in the eucharist i'm like look i don't know all i know this is an insane mystery that somehow god in all this glory speaking the world he exists became flesh and somehow on that act on the cross his his blood was shed and his flesh was broken and somehow that transfers into me and now i don't know how that i don't know how i get perfectly cleansed and i don't know why he says eat of my flesh drink of my butt like and i don't know what it'd be i'm just like shocked by the mystery of this whole thing and in awe of it and the more time we spend just in awe and reverence saying nothing and just going why would he do that wow how could he be so good the more there's going to be a unity and a oneness but the more we think that no my i understand things better than you because of my iq my ability to reason my teachers were better than your teachers whatever it is the more we're just going to divide and the more we make it more on earth like it is in heaven where everyone's just staring at him and go oh my gosh holy holy holy um i really see that as the only way we're ever going to be united as a church wow gosh man that's so good is that is that a glimpse of your book i mean the last five minutes yes thank you preston it's available on amazon no um it's some of it uh it's in some of it it's i learned i'm learning daily after you know writing the book you know just realizing that it's sacredness um that maybe we're missing and it says if i could re-title my book it'd be called sacred unity because i think we've just lost the thought of what's sacred and in in this in a society where everybody's so divided so polarized the church has a wide open opportunity to model a different way unity across differences you know like wide open door and i'm just saddened but hopeful i'm saddened that we haven't taken that opportunity that we have many times reflected the very polarization in our churches that exist in society when we could say yes we have democrats republicans we have communists and capitalists but we get along because we all have jesus and that's that's the bond of unity you know um but that's not enough for some people and that's that's yeah yeah i would argue that we we really were the trend setters in division uh seriously i mean the world just got more divided this year you know uh the church has been a mess for a long time churches are splitting every every week every day it's just it's getting ridiculous but but i think god's doing something new you're hopeful i i really am i'm super hopeful yeah yeah in this next generation yeah yeah many that'll walk away and uh because they've never really encountered god um they're walking away from their belief system or their parents belief system but if you really encountered him like like moses doesn't walk off mount sinai and go ah i don't know about my belief system um right it's like you don't argue with that how do you how does job after encountering god go yeah i think i'm walking away from my parents faith you know it's it's that true encounter with god last thing and i'll be quiet but i'm just so excited about and in isaiah 29 verse 13 how he says these people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me and their fear of me is a commandment taught to them by men oh wow and i thought that's it that's it this is why people are walking away is the fear of him was something that was just a commandment taught by men oh i heard this message francis taught about the holiness of god so i fear him you know my pastor was very big on that and so rather than having a peter like conversion you know and in matthew 16 hey flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you that was my father in heaven you actually encountered him and he put that in you and so you're good you know it was the opposite of your fear of me whatever you believe about me was just something that someone taught you about me you didn't encounter me because when you know him and you've experienced him in that real way that's why first john says well they left us they were never really of us you know they say they know him but you can't really know him and be in fellowship with him and and walk in sin and that's why i i just you know when i i heard myself once on a interview like this and i thought ah i sound so arrogant i don't like that and i was arrogant at that moment i thought uh that means i was not close to you god because if i was close to you no one close to you talks like that it doesn't sound like a man who's close to you the high angels aren't going hey look at me you know they're just those closest to his throne are humble and and and they're holy and they know better than to walk away from that and so a lot that's a lot of scattered thoughts i'm just saying i just really want people to know him and experience him um and so if you're thinking about walking away or questioning this or that i just have to say have you ever really encountered him or is this just something that people told you to believe and so you believe it i think that's a good word to end on right there man uh dude so much so much more we could talk about but let's uh cut it off there thank you so much for uh your honesty man and humility and i just love it'd be so easy for people i'm 45 you're older than that um it'd be so easy for us just to kind of hunker down hold on tight to everything we believe not really learn not grow not examine our lives so i just really i learned so much from you man just watching you being this perpetual you're all continually on a journey deeper into the presence of god and and you're not letting up on that and that yeah it keeps me going i'm sure it keeps a lot of us listening going so thank you for that thanks for modeling that yeah all right take care man all right you too

Channel: Preston Sprinkle

Views: 102,546

Keywords: Francis Chan, Crazy Love, Masters Seminary, Masters University, Preston Sprinkle, Benny Hinn, Church Unity, Until Unity, Francis Chan Until Unity

Id: m8LckCSevto

Length: 69min 40sec (4180 seconds)

Published: Sun May 02 2021