Guest Speaker Sean McDowell - Addressing Deconstruction and Cancel Culture

hey church welcome to the weekend we're so glad that you're here with us welcome to calvary church at home this is our online lobby my name is matt and i get to host today with my wife alyssa alyssa welcome to the online lobby hey thank you i'm happy to be here and if you're just joining us for the very first time ever we would love to be able to connect with you and even if you've been with us for many many years or for quite a while we would love to be able to connect with you our team is online right now in the chat area make sure to say hi to them i think miguel's on right now i think pastor kerry is on right now they would love to be able to say hi to you and answer any questions that you have and then like i said if it's your first time we've got a small gift for you so make sure to chat with the team they'll get you a link and they'll get that gift to you honey can you tell us what do we have going on today yeah of course we are worshiping this weekend with mac brock he's here with us at calvary and we're so excited that he joins us pretty regularly and so we love to worship with him along with our congregation so um we gotta look forward to that later and then we have a special guest speaker today his name is sean mcdowell chances are you already know all about him but i'll tell you just a little bit just in case so sean has written several different books um in fact you can find them on sean mcdowell.org little shameless plug right there but we've been in this series hunting giants and we've been talking about having courage every week we're looking at somebody else in the bible who had courage whether it was david or esther or nehemiah so many different people that needed courage and had courage well sean mcdowell is going to be continuing in our series this weekend talking about how we can have courage in the midst of a cancel culture wow that's good there's so many instances you feel i feel like in social media these days and with different businesses being cancelled and even friends of ours we've been living life with people that have gone through that and gone through those hard times and so i'm really excited to hear what sean mcdowell has to say yeah it's really crazy we're living in a day where if you don't post something that somebody else thinks you should post they're going to rally up all their social media friends they're going to try to shut you down and so we're living in a day where if you don't do exactly what the world wants you to do they're going to try to shut you down and so i think i am going to need this message i think you're going to need this message this is a great opportunity right now to invite somebody to join this weekend i think it's going to be a powerful message who knows how god might use this in somebody else's life so right now if you're on facebook or youtube or live.calvarynm.church just hit that share button we've got that button on all of those platforms and you can let people know to join in this weekend absolutely and if you don't have a facebook or anything like that maybe just invite someone into your living room to do life with you that's good well honey what's coming up this week ooh next wednesday we get to welcome fall which i'm so excited for it's one of my favorite times of the year not because it's just my birthday month but i love just getting into fall and the cooler weather and here in new mexico we get to roast green chili we get to see hot air balloons it really is such a great time of year i like that you did like a little plug for your birthday it's my birthday everybody i love fall not just because it's my birthday birthday presents welcome but uh yeah it is fun and here in new mexico maybe you've never been to new mexico one of the things that we do as a tradition is we roast green chili pretty soon anywhere in the city anywhere in the state that you go you're going to smell green chili roasting how would you describe that smell does it smell like it smells really good but it's also kind of like burnt roasted i don't know yumminess yumminess i guess yeah okay well we thought it would be really fun to bring you into our culture here in new mexico so we are having a little bit of a challenge our good friend tish is over here she's gonna bring some burritos because here in new mexico we like our breakfast burritos with green chili inside and um you know what i just realized one of us is going to have to hold the mic and kind of talk through this so i think that means you're going to have to taste it all right so we have a few local favorites we have blake's we have sopo we have taco cabana which is um one of my personal favorites a good one and then i think you know nationally recognized we had to bring in a taco bell but the unique thing about taco bells in new mexico is they carry green chili right no they they don't we're gonna have a green chili-less burrito that's right all right let's see how it is all right so you have to take a bite of these start unrolling them start unpacking them you're gonna have to you're gonna have to uh hey you can't be biased here you can't be biased just because sophos our church uh coffee shop and and burrito making factory you can't you can't you can't you gotta rate them the one to ten all right pretty good do you want everyone to hear your cheering thank you all right well give us a sample of what is it what does it taste like green chili sausage cheese sure are we are we talking like crunchy a little gooey well you got three oh is that the green chili making you choking no it's nice all right let's put that let's put that one down let's go to the next one well you have to rate that one to ten i don't know i have i have to compare this one to ten oh maybe like a seven seven yeah all right now blake's is kind of known as one of the hottest chilies in the city they always they go they go all out so the good shredded potatoes she said what are we what are we tasting that mainly looks like egg right there all right second bite let's go blanks i love that i was just like i'm gonna have my wife do this she's just gonna have to eat in front of all my friends online anything about blake's what do you have to say i don't think i got green chili yet oh man red isn't it even there's spreads not yet everything right all right rate it one to ten usually i would rate it pretty high but this burrito's lacking so maybe like a six okay maybe that's because i got it through the drive through like an hour ago oh you're feeding me old burritos at that all right this one's taco c taco cabana local food this is like a taco this is a taco instead of a burrito all right let's hear it let's look at that you gotta get in there take a bite of that look at that green chili come on that one's good best so far the bacon's really melting scale one to ten probably a good nine melty bacon is that what you said the bacon is melty for all of my friends we don't want to offend you if you are a vegetarian or a vegan i'm sorry that she described that bacon as melty apologizing lastly let's jump over here to taco bell taco bell one again no green chili we'll see what kind of burrito is this then just it's just the burrito i just told them i said give me your best burrito i'm nervous make the very best where's my taco sauce oh you even look hey we're going to take a quick break and clean up our mess but why don't you take a second to clean up wherever you are and get ready for god's word you can go grab your bible your coffee we'll be right back what are you not in control of a ton but what are you in control of yourself you can choose to honor god you can choose to say i believe he's got a plan i'm not going to become bitter i'm not going to become jaded i'm not going to become small i'm not going to become a victim i'm not getting stuck right here i'm just gonna focus on what i can control right here right now today and a lot of people allow what they can't control to keep them from doing what they can but that just gives away all your power [Music] hey well welcome back we just got our mess cleaned up hopefully you had a few minutes to get your bible uh together and ready for service in just a second we're going to be starting worship we have a special message from sean mcdowell on cancel culture and the christian response so if you haven't invited anyone yet make sure you invite somebody to church let them know that they can join now calvary church at home awesome we're so excited for that and we want to let you know of a few things that are coming up um joel rosenberg is actually going to be here next wednesday so you'll want to join us as well for that as he shares a really great message to the congregation and then next weekend we're going to be continuing in the hunting giant series with a really special weekend pastor skip is going to be interviewing a few different people he's going to be interviewing his wife lenya haitic who started reload love she was very courageous in in starting that ministry they run towards the bullets to help kids and bring them out of terrorism he's also going to be interviewing graham lynch she has a podcast called fearless and then a local new mexico state politician vince torres we're going to be talking about the role of christians in politics and having courage in the world that we're living in that'll be so exciting we're so looking forward to that and then the following wednesday we're going to have levi lesko here at calvary he is always he just brings power he brings um heat when he preaches and so we're so excited to have him here and we hope that you join us um the following wednesday for levi lesko hey last weekend we were in the book of esther with pastor skip and uh honey did you have like a favorite takeaway was there something that stood out in your mind from that message that you're just like oh my gosh this is what i've been thinking about i've always loved going through esther i feel like she is kind of one of those like role models she was very brave in what she did she took action and then mordecai pushed her to that i love that he pushed and encouraged her to live the life that she did because he had a huge impact on her life and it just shows that we need to have people around us that push us that encourage us and that just make us great hey that's really good well here's a quick recap from pastor skip from last weekend's message what mordecai asked of esther is to do something great this could be your finest hour you you could be alive and in this position for this moment do something good do something great let your life be raised to a higher level i'm asking us to do something great here it is in a nutshell stop spending your life start investing your life if you are planning your life for your comfort and and my joy in my latter years it's all about that okay you can do that it's a free country free world i suppose but that's just spending your life invest your life into something that will outlive you that's something great jesus didn't stay in heaven he said i'm going to come to this earth i'm coming to ground zero i'm coming to where sin exploded and hit the human race and i didn't come to be served i came to serve and to give my life a ransom for many welcome back we are so excited to get into the message and get into worship but we just want to encourage you one last time to shoot out that invite invite we want to encourage you to do that um it could change someone's life yeah absolutely could we're going to be starting worship in just a second our first song this weekend is raise a hallelujah max gonna take it away in just a second but one of the lines that i love says this i'm going to praise him in the middle of the storm louder and louder you're going to hear my praises roar i don't know what storm you're finding yourself in but i'm gonna tell you that one of the best weapons in that storm is worship and i think that's when worship matters the most is when it hurts when it's not easy when life's not all great and perfect and so whatever you're going through i encourage you lean in sing along with us during these songs let's worship together hey good evening church how y'all doing tonight come on can we stand together we're just gonna worship our god in this place lift your voice here we go hallelujah in the presence of my enemy [Music] i raise a hallelujah louder than the unbelief [Music] i raise a hallelujah my weapon is a melody [Music] i'll raise a hallelujah [Music] and heaven comes to fight for me come on you say [Music] [Music] hope will rise death is defeated [Music] with everything inside of me [Music] hallelujah [Music] in the middle of the storm [Music] death is defeated the king is alive [Music] you [Music] a little louder sing a little louder sing a little louder sing a little louder sing a little louder i sing a little louder i sing a little louder [Music] my enemies [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] fear [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] hallelujah [Music] can we celebrate that [Music] are you hurting and broken within overwhelmed by the weight of sin jesus is calling if you come to the end of yourself [Music] to your thirst for a drink from the world jesus is calling come on sing this out oh come to the father's arms are open wide forgiveness was boring the precious blood of jesus christ [Music] leave behind your regrets and mistakes come the day there's no reason to wait jesus is calling [Music] [Music] ashes a new life is born jesus is calling out yes he is oh come to the altar the father's arms [Music] oh come to the altar the father's arms are open why forgive [Music] the precious blood of jesus christ it's the precious blood covers everything [Music] calls us in oh what a savior [Music] isn't he wonderful sing hallelujah christ is a reason [Music] to lift your voice bow down before [Music] [Music] our god is alive in this place [Music] [Music] for he is [Music] this is welcome to the altar the father's arms are open wide there's forgiveness yes there is he was born with the precious [Music] [Music] jesus christ [Music] cause the father's arms are open wide yes they [Music] [Music] yes he's calling us in right now our god is with us right now he's in this place he's living he's breathing he's speaking to us right now yes you are lord we're ready to hear from you god we're ready to listen lord speak to called to us cause you are alive and you're living in us yes he is yes you are alive and you're living in us oh you are alive and you're living in earth as you are alive [Music] and you're living [Music] isn't he wonderful [Music] sing hallelujah it's so beautiful when god's people sing bow down before here for he is lord sing hallelujah christ is reason [Music] you give life you are love you bring light to the darkness you give hope you restore every heart that [Music] is your birth in our loss so we pour out our praise we pour out our praises so we pour out our praise to you [Music] you give a life you are love you bring light to the darkness you [Music] that is great [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so we pour our praise to oh [Music] and all the earth will shine your praise our hearts will cry these bones will say pray for you lord yes it's true [Music] our hearts will cry these bones will say [Music] come on every voice in this place to clear this out [Music] [Music] so we [Music] we pour out our prayers [Applause] [Music] is [Music] it's your breath it's your breath in our lungs pour out our praise it's your breath oh needs your breath [Music] so we pour out our praise to [Music] are you the lord yes you are [Music] father god we are alive because you are alive we have breath in our lungs because you put it there so right now we just want to offer it all back to you as an offering a sacrifice for your praise god you are great you are good you are worthy we give this to you right now lord we give you our praise we give you our worship we give you our hearts we love you lord [Music] uh [Music] my hope is built on nothing less than jesus blood and righteousness i dare not trust the sweetest friend but holy trust in jesus name [Music] my hope is built on nothing less [Music] jesus blood and righteousness i dare not trust the sweetest frame but holy trust in jesus name come on this is our hope the christ cornerstone [Music] through the soul he is lord [Music] when darkness seems to hide his face i rest on his unchanging grace in every high in stormy game [Music] my anchor holds within [Music] love [Music] is [Applause] is love he is lord of us [Music] through every storm he is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] amen what a special time of worship thanks for joining us [Music] church next weekend pastor skip will interview three courageous people as we continue our series hunting giants graham lynch will be here her popular podcast fearless discusses living life with fearless faith in a compromising culture vince torres of the family policy alliance will be here and pastor skip will also talk to lenia heitzig about her global ministry reload love don't miss this courage boosting service you know there's a place for you to serve the lord and his church right here at calvary church life track is the starting place for anyone who wants to find their best fit for serving the church body find lifetrack times and locations for your campus on our website imagine standing on the temple mount in jerusalem worshiping on the bank of the jordan river or taking communion in the garden of gethsemane pastor skip is taking another tour group to israel next summer see the itinerary and tour details on our website and start planning today speaking of israel this wednesday pastor skip will interview new york times best-selling author joel rosenberg joel and his wife live in jerusalem and his latest non-fiction book enemies and allies examines the future of the middle east 20 years after the terror attacks of september 11th bring someone with you to hear this fascinating conversation between pastor skip and joel what great worship that was i love when mac comes and visits us leads us in worship hey if you're just joining us right now we're so glad that you're tuned in we're glad you're here with us my name is matt this is my wife alyssa i get to serve as one of the pastors here and alyssa serves the body by making fantastic caffeinate you all yeah that's true she keeps us running she oversees the coffee shop so we're grateful for that hey if this is your very first time we would love to be able to connect with you we have a team online miguel's in the chat pastor carrie's in the chat they would love to be able to connect with you and give you a small gift yeah make sure to do that they just want to say hey and get to know you a little bit we also want to let you know if something we call connect groups here at calvary we are in the middle of our fall semester right now but it's not too late to join i do know that there are some groups still available online for you so make sure to check that out and get plugged in we are meant to do life together even if that is online yeah and you know what connect groups for us has been really instrumental i think in our life here's the thing is sometimes i find like oh can that group night is coming around i don't know it's late the kids have school tomorrow should we really go and we never ever have regretted going to connect group so we'd encourage you maybe you think there's excuses or there's reasons or there's things that maybe are keeping you from it hey take the plunge take that step of faith and see what god might do to use that in your life i also want to let you know that we have baptisms coming up at the end of this month september 26th so listen we know you're part of our online audience you're a part of our church online but maybe you live in new mexico and you've given your life to jesus and you haven't been baptized then make your way to one of our campuses we have one on the west side of albuquerque and this is kind of the center of albuquerque and then one in santa fe as well you can register online if you're nearby come to a campus and get baptized and if you're out of state there's nothing in the bible that says you have to be baptized by a pastor find a christian friend and have them baptize you maybe it's in a bathtub maybe it's in a hot tub maybe it's in a swimming pool but make that declaration of faith that jesus has changed your life absolutely we believe that i mean baptisms are such a cool thing to witness as a believer from being like you said from death to life and we really want to encourage you to take part in that um and we just want to share something about someone that is following online and that's listening to god's word through um this ministry and his name is joseph and he said i have back and forth with following god for quite a number of years over the past few weeks i have watched and listened to a number of skips teachings on this site and have thoroughly enjoyed them as well as come back to believing in the lord and in jesus thank you skip and thank you calvary for these teachings we love that we love that he wrote in and told us about what god's doing in his life through this ministry yeah and we also want to encourage you to be a part of that life change by giving online i know you can give through um the giving button yeah you can just click give in the top right corner if you're on our website or our team in the chat just posted a link so that you can click on that and you can give that way as well they'd also love to be praying for you so maybe you're going through something you want prayer you can start a private chat with our team members or you can even make it public and let us know how to be praying for you well right now here's pastor skip to introduce our guest speaker [Music] [Music] up [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] me well how are you today tonight good i want to give you a large welcome to those who are listening online those who are part of calvary church at home we want to welcome you we also yeah come on give it up for them there's a lot of people joining us we also want to welcome our santa fe campus our west side campus we are separated only by a few miles but we're just glad that we can be together this way you chose a great week to be a church we have a lot of things coming up today tomorrow wednesday next weekend this wednesday i'm going to have joel rosenberg here you don't want to miss that you want to find out what's happening from the biblical perspective and what's happening in the middle east and uh from somebody who lives there now as well as somebody who's been a political insider in washington it's going to be fascinating but this weekend we have a special friend of this ministry in 1973 when i was going through some undergraduate work in medicine an internship in san bernardino california i was surrounded with unbelievers atheists agnostics who were challenging my newly found faith in christ and i found a book by an author named josh mcdowell called evidence that demands a verdict not only did it equip me but it excited me to engage unbelievers in dialogue it changed my life well his son sean mcdowell is passing it on to the next generation and he's going to be our guest speaker and talk about the giant of cancel culture it's going to be a great weekend he has two books he's also going to be signing afterwards he's written like 20 but this young man has a book that we're featuring this weekend called so the next generation will know preparing young christians for a challenging world and then one called chasing love sex love and relationships in a confused culture both very timely and sean will be available to sign those afterwards but would you please give a warm welcome calvary welcome to sean mcdowell in the house thanks pastor skip man it is good to be here pastor skip you are such the cool pastor man when i i'm telling you let me just say when i grow up i want to be like your son nate a second generations need to stick together man for sure well talking about cancel culture we're gonna begin with two stories you might recognize these names in these stories one is the name brett weinstein you recognize that name been all over the news he was a professor 14 years at evergreen university in olympia washington he was targeted for disagreeing with something that a powerful group on campus held see for years at this university they had something they called the day of absence where black people and then later other minorities would leave campus voluntarily to remind people of the presence that they regularly played well in 2017 they flipped the sq the script now would certain minorities not voluntarily leaving but they were requiring white people to not show up on campus that day now professor weinstein interestingly enough found this appalling this is 2017. now he said asking people not to come as different than people voluntarily absenteeing themselves so he sent an email out explaining why he disagreed with the policy well to put it mildly all hell broke loose protests erupted for a week until 50 students showed up outside of his classroom and you can actually see this online if you just google it students shouting at him calling him a racist attacking him and eventually he turned and he sued the school for not defending him won the case but he and his wife a fellow professor resigned and stepped down second story you might recognize the name jack phillips jack phillips is the owner of masterpiece cake shop in colorado now the name masterpiece is not about the cake it's he told me it was about his master and he wanted to make cakes to express the artistry and love that god had given him it was a ministry to him so he started this to serve his community and he also started this his family worked together it was a family venture and it was a ministry for him but in 2012 everything changed keep in mind he happily served people in the lgbtq community on top of that he also refused to bake certain cakes such as cakes for halloween because it violated his conscience two gay men come in and asked him to bake a cake for the same-sex wedding he said no well to make a long story short the colorado civil rights commission sued him and actually compared him to a holocaust perpetrator and i had a chance to interview him and he goes sean my family fought against the nazis and they're comparing me to a holocaust perpetrator his own dad the media went nuts attacking him he got a call and said we are 10 minutes away from your shop we're coming to kill you now he actually won the case at the supreme court you probably heard about it when i chance to interview him i was like what's it like to win a case at the supreme court i'm pretty sure i'll never have that experience he described how amazing it was and then shortly thereafter another case came up he won it and right now he's embroiled in a third what do these two stories have in common they're part of something we now call cancel culture if you don't hold the right view and you express it even secretly and somebody records you and posts it online you will be publicly and privately attacked and shamed and it might cost you your relationships and in some cases even your livelihood this is what's been called cancel culture i actually pulled up i was like i wonder how you actually define this term and the cambridge dictionary said it's a way of behaving in a society or group especially on social media in which it's common to completely reject or stop supporting someone because they've said something that offends you so someone says something true or false and offends you you not only stop supporting them passively you actively start criticizing them and attacking them and you try to cancel them now sometimes you and i watch the news and we see some natural disaster and our hearts are moved and we're saddened but it feels like it's out there doesn't it oh that's in another state that's somebody else's problem cancel culture is not somebody else's problem it's all of our problem you see what happens is we can start living in fear that you and i will be canceled we can start living in fear that if you post something on social media it might cost you a relationship if you say something it might get spread to the wrong person and it might cost you your job or your reputation see one temptation with cancer culture is to start living in fear but there's another temptation which is to become the one who cancels to also become angry to also express our outrage and cancel people last i checked living in fear that were canceled becoming a bully in canceling other people are not options for followers of jesus so how should we think about cancer culture allow me to tell you a story which is the place where i think we can begin so one of my favorite things to do churches conferences is i show up i do a little role play put on these glasses and i become an atheist i've done this at conferences universities christian schools camps i did it in a youth group with 10 students i did in the philippines with 8 000 people which i think was maybe too many just for the record i role play i take questions from the audience and then i answer as an atheist might and then i take the glasses off and i walk through how do we better engage our atheists or non-believing neighbors well i was speaking about six months ago at a church at a at a christian school in florida and the guy goes and goes hey i role play with my students all the time i want to introduce you as an actual atheist i think it'll make the conversation better so i remember hesitating a little bit eventually was like all right this will be fun why not so he introduced me as his friend from ucla i teach at biola university christian school he introduced me as like a philosophy professor from ucla his atheist friend in town for conference so i do my atheist role play and then i do the reveal to the students walk them through how to better love our atheist neighbors thought it was great moved on with my life until i started getting dozens and dozens and dozens of emails because this little christian school put it on their website and let's say it went viral last i checked it had about 2.5 million views on youtube i was getting a lot of people saying thank you this is great i'm like oh this is awesome and then all sudden something changed and then all sudden i started getting some of the most vicious hateful emails i have ever received in my life you are a lousy atheist you just need to shut up go back in your foxhole i'm like why is everybody angry at me well a couple atheists one with a huge youtube channel did a big review of my atheist role play and they were actually trying to be pretty gracious but that's not what everybody heard at least those who contacted me and then i had some friends call me that's like hey do you know these huge youtubers did a review do you want to come on my channel and respond to them and basically what they said is they said look we appreciate that you're trying to create dialogue between christians and atheists but you shouldn't do this because you misrepresented us we have a suggestion for you why don't you bring in a real atheist instead of role play fair point well all these people are texting me going come on my youtube do a response and i thought is this how we're supposed to communicate as christians when somebody criticizes or comes at us we turn around and we correct the record and we go right back at them i thought you know what maybe we should do things differently so i reached out to one of the youtubers and i said hey you were critical of this but i thought you had a good spirit and you saw what i was trying to do instead of doing something public would you be willing to just zoom with me and tell me your story you go sure so we got a zoom and by the time we had zoomed i'd already done a response i was going to post a couple days after this but a very gracious response we zoom for an hour you know what i discovered this atheist like many of the most vocal atheists today grew up in the church grew up in a conservative church he's 27 years old and he started to question his faith and unlike you pastor skipper you had resources that helped you he didn't find the answers he was looking for you know what he said to me it i was sitting there and all i could look at him is say i am so sorry this happened to you he goes sean you have no idea how i was treated when i started to question my faith i said what do you mean he said you know when i was a kid i'd get bullied so i took karate to defend myself because being bullied as a kid pales in comparison to the pain of the way christians treated me when i started questioning my faith and became an atheist can you imagine that doesn't that break your heart he said i had a pastor tell me you're going to die alone and you're going to burn in hell forever hello i said hey you've been doing this for years have any other apologist or evangelist reached out to you guys know you're the first one i thought why am i the first christian when criticized to reach out to somebody and try to bring the temperature down and show love rather than raise the temperature and try to cancel somebody else he said he did have someone reach out and basically say yeah i'd love to have a conversation with you because i'm going to bury you yeah what a great christian way to approach somebody like what is happening so you know what i did i said you had a suggestion for me to bring in an atheist by the way i've been taking high school students to places like berkeley and bringing in atheists for 15 years all my arguments came from what atheists gave to me believe it or not i said but i got a suggestion for you i've had mormons i've had ex-christians i've had progressive christians on my youtube channel but i never had an atheist will you be the first i gave him my cell number and i didn't say that to him i said this is on the video that i released publicly when you watch it i have an invitation for you let me know what you think he called me instantly he goes i'll come on your channel sure i brought him on not to debate him just to listen i said what are helpful ways christians responded what are unhelpful ways christians responded what can christians do better to help people who doubt what can christians do better to love our atheists friends and neighbors you know i'm sharing that story because we can talk about cancer culture there's a lot of things our culture needs to get right but we better start getting our house in order first [Applause] and i tell you when i talk to people who've left their faith those who deconstructed those in the lgbtq community one thing i hear over and over again is hurt and pain and an experience of feeling canceled by the church i have no interest in beating up the church trust me on that church is the bride of christ when jesus in matthew 7 says judge not lest you be judged he's actually saying he's not saying not to judge he's saying first take the plank out of your eye so you can make a righteous judgment as we see in john chapter 7. friends we're supposed to make judgments but we are supposed to judge ourselves first before we criticize cancel culture let us look with it within and ask if we are loving if we are living the way jesus wants us to live because i'm pretty sure jesus cares more about the moral state or maybe primarily his church than a group of people who don't even call themselves followers of his can i get an amen amen all right i knew there's at least two baptists here when something like canceled culture hits because i teach a grad program apologetics i'm reading analyzing culture one thing i ask is why now like what are the things that come together that we find ourselves in this moment that we think it's right and good to cancel people because i thought about this and study this i think there's kind of a perfect storm of three things coming together some of you probably saw the 2000 movie with george clooney and mark wahlberg which was based on a storm in 1991 off the coast of massachusetts that's been called a perfect storm because two storms kind of came at the same time they coalesced and it became a massive devastating storm i think right now we have cancer culture because a few things have been coalescing at the same time and in fact when we think about these things cancer culture makes perfect sense you know i think the first storm is i think it's that we have an epidemic of hurting and broken people in the church and without the church mental health epidemic loneliness depression anxiety stress suicidality anger fatherlessness joblessness rick warren said it well he said hurt people hurt people why is there such a move to cancel people because there's a lot of people who have been cancelled in their relationships and if you have been hurt and canceled it's human nature to return the favor it makes perfect sense when we look at how hurting people are i was doing a live stream sometime during covet it's like pre-covered and post-covered is now it seems things to break down with sometime during cove but i was doing a live stream on on on youtube and i normally have somebody monitoring the comments because sometimes trolls just come and it goes the opposite direction i want it to but the one time this happened i forgot to have somebody monitor it now keep in mind my wife likes giving me a hard time because i can only do one thing at a time i can't talk on the phone and cut onions i seriously can't she's she'll like take my hands and be like cut i'm like i can't i'm talking with my hands i'll do the onions when i'm done like the humbling thought hit me i was like i actually couldn't work at mcdonald's because they're taking orders and giving orders at the same time i don't even think i could honestly do that i'm like single-minded focus on whatever i'm doing well i'm doing this live stream and i see the comments coming in i tell you that because this is like a stretch for me and i see the comments going south and there's this person who's just kind of attacking christians being very critical and the christians responded not with graciousness and kindness but ramping it right back up going at this guy so i'm trying to ask good questions and i'm seeing this take place and i'm like oh you've got to be kidding me because people their eyes get drawn to that and at one point someone who i think was a christian says something effective why don't you just be quiet and stop talking you know what he says he goes i have a right to talk and she goes what do you think gives you a right he goes i served the us in iraq and i lost my vision don't tell me where and when i can speak i sat there and saw that and thought holy cow so i stopped the live stream and i just said hey i'm sorry i'm asking we're doing an interview but i saw this comment i said sir i am so sorry this happened to you i can't even imagine what it would be like to go serve your country and lose your sight thank you for your service and just know that i hurt for you and i'm honored you'd even come on my channel and care about spiritual things he went silent why because the bible says a gentle word turns away wrath it's your kindness that leads to repentance paul says in romans 2. proverbs 25 says a soft word breaks a bone there's a power in humility and a power in kindness but we forget that why because in the church and out of the church part of the storm is we have people who are hurt people who have been canceled and we respond out of our brokenness that's one piece of the storm the second piece of the storm that i think is we live in a time not only where there's greater clashing world views than there's been but we can no longer stay on the sideline we all have to have opinions about certain things and the moment we express those opinions we're put into a box at a conversation with someone who's become a what you might say gay affirming christian he thinks the bible is fine with same-sex relationships says he's a follower of jesus we were having a discussion that believe it or not the new york times was covering at biola university and i was fostering this conversation about how the church would respond to the 2015 supreme court ruling of burgerfeld versus hodges and i asked him a question i'll never forget his response i said okay here's my question are you saying that i can hold on to my theology that god design marriage one man one woman one flesh one lifetime but be gracious and loving towards you or are you saying to be loving towards you in the gay community i have to actually change my theology and basically his answer was my theology kills now that's the narrative isn't it if you don't embrace the lgbtq plus movement you're the reason kids are depressed you're the reason kids are lonely you're the reason kids are thinking about taking their own lives now if you're on that side of the equation a lot is at stake right in some ways if you really believe that you'd probably look the same at us but that's not how i see it i look at first corinthians 6 you know what paul says paul says those who practice homosexual behavior will not inherit the kingdom of god now before you think i'm singling that out paul pretty much mentions every sin that condemns all of us but you see what happens we live in this culture that says if you don't embrace lgbtq ideas you're responsible for the suffering of kids and then you have this other side that says wait a minute if i do embrace this then i'm teaching something not true that puts your soul at jeopardy for entering the kingdom of god can we see why there's a canceled culture because there's such a clash of world views between the church and between the wider culture but you know what that clash of world views is not just between the church and the wider culture it's in the church it's in the church i remember having a conversation years ago with my grandpa served in world war ii my mom had asked a question and i forget the details i just remember the point but it was a question about like flag burning and i was probably a high school kid and i remember thinking it's just cloth like if you want to burn it that's free speech and my grandpa's position was like i fought and saw people die for that it's not just a piece of cloth and i have never forgotten that so for me when i saw people kneeling at the at for our flag of the national anthem that was hard not to look at that and feel like what are you doing my grandfather served so about a month ago i had a friend a black pastor from the south one of the fastest growing evangelical bible believing churches in america who by the way played in the nfl and we were talking about race relations and i said let's just talk about all the thorny issues and see if we can find some common ground here together and i said let's how do you address this at your church because for me when i see new of the flag i can't funnel this through anything but what my own grandpa taught me he goes sean i am thankful for your grandpa's service because it makes sense given that that you'd see the world this way he goes can i tell about my grandpa or my family served in world war ii came home and faced bitter racism in america can you at least see why he views the flag differently friends i'm not saying you should side with a or b i'm saying even within the church there's division and when we disagree you know what it is it's easier to demonize it's easier to divide and it's even easier to put somebody in a box and cancel them then humble ourselves and listen and try to find common ground [Applause] i think we have canceled culture because think about we have a broken generation of people hurting we have deep clash on issues like race and vaccines and on sexuality and on politics in the church outside the church the third thing quite obvious is smartphones not only are people hurting and told to have opinions about things but now we all have the ability to tell the world any moment exactly how we feel no wonder we have a cancel culture why should we even be surprised at this phenomena perhaps the most important question is because you feel this you know this you've heard these stories you've had these conversations is what do we as christians do now when we talk about cancer culture we could talk about the importance of having christians be lawyers to defend religious liberty important we need christian politicians to defend free speech we need christian filmmakers to make movies telling captivating stories not only about the christian worldview but the importance of just good relationships forgiveness and redemption all these things are important but we're going to focus on is just our relationships with our neighbors in the church those we work with those we interact with online my question is how do you and i respond to cancer culture and i think the first point should be obvious i did my dissertation on the deaths of the apostles ever wondered did thomas really make it to india was peter actually crucified upside down was bartholomew flayed alive well i studied this for my dissertation all the stories and myths and legends trying to figure out did they actually die as martyrs and is this a good piece of evidence for the resurrection can i trust them well all those stories aside one thing that amazed me as i poured myself into the book of acts and just read it over and over again and you just read the beginning of acts you know the story in acts 2 the spirit comes down it's pentecost people are filled up the church grows now what they start to do is they're healing people they're doing miracles but they start to preach and spread the word and very quickly the religious leaders want to silence them what do they do they threaten them they beat them and then very soon we see the death of stephen do you know what peter says one of my favorite lines now in the bible the apostles are threatened to be canceled basically what does peter say in acts 5 29 he says basically no we can't stop talking about jesus sorry why we must obey god rather than men friends that's what this question is about who do we fear who do we fear jesus said don't kill the one don't fear the one who can kill the body but the one who can kill the body and the soul for eternity we are to fear god we are to fear god and be obedient our first response friends is no matter what they do to christians we are to be obedient to our lord and savior and trust that he is sovereign and going to work all things for the good [Applause] one of the best left backs in u.s women's soccer her name is jaylene hinkle if you're a women's soccer fan you might recognize her name well in 2015 again was the year that the obergefell versus hodges supreme court ruling came down which made same-sex marriage legal all 50 states well jaylene as a christian simply posted this listen to the words on social media i believe with every fiber in my body that was written 2 000 years ago in the bible is undoubtedly true this world may change but christ and his word never will that's it she didn't say anything about sexuality didn't say anything about marriage she just said this world changes my confidence in jesus the bible's never going to change and you know what happened she became a marked woman that people tried to cancel fast forward two years in 2017 playing for the u.s national women's team now just think about this if you're on the us women's national team and your love of soccer you have been working your entire life for this think of the sacrifice and the money and the pain and the glory well she withdrew from the team why they were being forced to wear a sport jersey with rainbow colored flags on it to support gay pride that was a requirement but here's what she wrote she said i just felt so convicted in my spirit that it wasn't my job to wear this jersey i gave myself three days to seek and pray and determine what god was asking me to do in this situation if i never get another national team call up again then that's just a part of his plan and that's okay maybe this is why i was meant to play soccer to show other believers to be obedient step number one cancel culture when it's all said and done all we can control is that we show obedience and fear god not man second what cancel culture lacks is forgiveness there's no grace there's no love when someone gets canceled they get marked as a canceled person for life there's no redemption in cancer culture we're tempted to live in fear because of this aren't we i know all of us at some point of thought should i post this should i say this do i have this conversation what about at work i don't want to get canceled it's tempting to live in fear you know what sometimes as christians let's be honest sometimes we create another whether it's another religion whether it's another philosophy whether it's another minority and we act like they're out there it's us against them and we live in fear of them we do what the bible says what should we do with fear perfect love casts out fear you know what the number one fear of americans is last i checked maybe this changed during cove but i haven't seen updated stats it used to be public speaking like more than heights more than snakes more than enclosed spaces public speaking why because you don't want to be standing in front of people and look stupid trust me i get it i've done plenty of things in my speaking career but fear is selfish because you're thinking about yourself love is selfless because you're thinking of another we live in fear because we're thinking about ourselves rather than thinking about showing love and grace and kindness to others it's grace it's grace i know your church i've had conversations i know you extend grace and you stand firm on truth but all of us have areas to grow because you know what that's true for my church but about a year before covet i was speaking on pro-life sunday and i brought my a-game home church prepared a message i was fired up made a case for the unborn and at the end i had two of my kids and some of the other high school students at all the doors as people would go out we were asking them to take bottles because if you take a bottle home like a baby bottle and just throw a loose change in there our local pregnancy center got thirty thousand dollars one year just from loose change that people gave away that's incredible so at the very end i was telling people it's like hey grab one of those bottles take it home fill it up bring it to church we'll get to the pregnancy resource center well on the way out my son hands it to a lady who just left church she goes i'm not taking that if they get pregnant out of wedlock they get what's coming to them i thought what the heck is happening where's the grace she made a mistake so let's cancel her in luke 7 36 jesus has an interaction with a woman who the pharisees were trying to cancel it says this luke 7 36 it says one of the pharisees asked him to eat with him invited jesus over and he went into the pharisees house and reclined at table and behold a woman of the city who was a sinner it's always interesting how the bible describes people they're from this family they're from this region they're rich they're poor this is a woman of the city a sinner that's the way she's described many think she probably was a prostitute nevertheless she's a sinner when she learned that jesus was reclined in the pharisees house she brought an alabaster flask of ointment and standing behind him at his feet weeping you ever seen somebody weep not just cry but 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 the ointment can you imagine this scene in one sense you're tempted to say this is pathetic but in the other sense it's like this is beautiful it's beautiful but what happens now the pharisee who had invited him saw this and said himself if this man were a prophet he would have known what sort of woman this is who's touching him for she is a sinner the text said it twice to make sure we didn't miss that she's a sinner and we're supposed to think about it this way what do the pharisees just say he sees jesus showing this act of grace and love and kindness and this thankfulness that jesus maybe was the only one who didn't cancel her and what does he say he goes clearly jesus doesn't know if he knew that she was a sinner he'd treat her differently aren't we tempted to act that way do you know what this person did do you know what this person said do you know their past that person's a sinner what does jesus say and jesus said to him simon i have something to say to you and he answered say it teacher verse 41 of course jesus tells the story a certain money lender had two debtors one owed five hundred denarii the other 50 when they could not pay he canceled the debt of both of them now which of them will love him more simon said the one i suppose for whom he canceled the larger debt what does jesus say he said you have judged rightly then he turns towards this woman who's weeping and she's probably dirty and she's on her knees and everybody thinks she's a miserable sinner who didn't even have the right to talk to jesus he says to simon he says 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 from the time i came in she has not seized 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 are forgiven for she loved much but he who's forgiven little loves little and he said to her your sins are forgiven can you imagine that moment where ev three times the text tells us she was a sinner instead of canceling her jesus showed grace you know what i look at cancel culture and my dad always taught me he goes this is an opportunity it's opportunity i don't like being canceled i've had people try to cancel me and pile on social media somewhat regularly it happens that's life but what our culture lacks is grace and the heart of the christian faith is grace in our cancer culture we have the very medicine that people deeply need that's why we must be obedient we must be obedient we've got to show grace and love and friends third we need wisdom we need wisdom should you use the preferred pronouns or not should you go to a same-sex wedding or not how do you answer that question it's wisdom it's wisdom i think of daniel one of my favorite examples where daniel is in babylon what does he do he's basically told if you don't eat this you'll die but daniel says i will not defile myself he was not going to be disobedient but what does he do he's like how do i come up with a creative solution that honors the king gets what he wants which is healthy educated young men to serve in the court how do i do that while maintaining my conscience before the lord and he has a brilliant solution friends that's wisdom years ago i wrote a book on same-sex marriage and we're trying to figure out like people would ask us like should we bake a cake for same-sex wedding or not should we photograph a same-sex wedding and a businessman gave us an idea he said well why don't why don't you put this in the book why don't you tell people if they have a photography industry that they can go ahead and perform same-sex weddings but put a sign up on the wall that says we perform same-sex weddings all the proceeds go to focus on the family i mean that that's brilliant is that brilliant i'm not saying there's always a crafty way out like that but we're tempted to be like cancel culture aren't we we respond with defensiveness but first we need to be obedient second we need to show grace and love to people especially a people afraid of being canceled and third we need wisdom i think if we live wisely before the lord refuse to compromise truth and live in grace this can be our finest hour amen friends i'm so honored to be here i'm going to sneak to the back if it's helpful to sign a book one of the books is for students on sexuality one of the things i found is one reason we get defensive and we don't have good conversations with people is because we don't know what we believe and why we believe it so we respond in defensiveness i wrote that book to help a generation have a biblical understanding of how to think about sex love and relationships for you to talk with your kids and your grandkids about and the other one is just a how to guide so to speak how do you actually pass on your faith to the next generation practical ways to do this even if you have a question or just want to say hi i would love to meet you but church we live in our dark divided times let us be obedient show grace and live in wisdom and this can be our finest hour amen amen father thank you for this church thank you for the willingness to stand in the gap to preach biblical truth and to do it in a way that is loving i pray if there are any people here right now that are feeling the pinch from cancel culture give us the confidence that you are sovereign to trust you and your love and wisdom to navigate these tough times we praise your name amen it's your breath in our lungs so we pour out our praise pour out our praise it's your breathing church [Music] [Music] so we pour our [Music] [Music] listen if you're joining us online we just want to say that we're going to stay online our team is going to stay in the chat for about 10 minutes maybe something stood out to you in today's message and you have questions about it you want to talk about it you can still chat with our team they'll be online for that and as a reminder for everyone here sean is going to be signing books right after service so you can make your way out there god bless you guys we'll see you next week [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Calvary Church with Skip Heitzig

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Length: 94min 8sec (5648 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021