Kevin DeYoung and Alistair Begg Q&A | 2013 Magnify Conference

I have a number of questions and then we'll see when this gets boring maybe after five minutes and then we'll open it up to the rest of you but I have some serious questions and some not as important questions so Allister what sports team would the fans in Cleveland most want to see win a championship what are they most rabid about a guy would have to be the Browns I would think wouldn't it um yeah it's oh I think they have a wrist I just yeah yeah well we've lived I mean I in the time that I've been there you know the Cavs were a great team with with a low and and Mark Price and Larry Nance and people thought you were going to LeBron but you went way back ya know and forget no forget LeBron no not it ya know I've actually lost interest in the in the NBA almost entirely I love the college basketball and but I don't really watch that very much so I I don't remember the last time I went I do remember the last time I went to a Cavs game it was when we played Orlando and LeBron hit that amazing shot at the absolute final buzzer to extend the the possibility of us going forward Academy where it was that but so that was good but we're always close to Norton no cigar and then of course the same thing there with the we had a tremendous run in the in the baseball it went really really well and now it's kind of a shadow of what it's been it's really too bad actually I as a sports fan I I'd like to have seen us win something I've done obviously Anthony on the horizon mind you yeah so what's your favorite sport of the American sports or what other sports football and soccer football I mean where the world calls football and what and America called soccer now I'm still on a game I've ever really played effectively well and it's the game that I understand the most and enjoy watching the best I mean right now my my recorder on my TV is working feverishly while I'm here recording all these games from the English Premier League and and I'll watch them when I get home before I watch Michigan hopefully win tonight and and then golf of course is is there is a game that I get to play no and and I've played that since I was a wee boy as well I'm not any good at it but I love it with a passion they give this goddess children clubs when they're born you have to play yeah yeah yeah you know as a boy growing up in Scotland and you have to really search for them now there's not many left but in some of you'll know this from your travels that were in in small towns in Scotland there would be putting greetings public potting greens in the middle of the town with a little with a little box if those of you've got Dustin Andrews the famous one there of course is called the Himalayas and had the the the there's a private club there of Edinburgh layovers in Andrews ladies who the tea is closed there is often in the day so that they can they can play but it was a tremendous bunch of fun to be able to go up and and pay six pins and get a putter tonight and I really got into putting and I still love putting today because I used to be in competition with my father all the time I took his golf clubs first time probably without permission and then I've gone on from there I started playing with my hands the wrong way on the club because I didn't have a clue what I was doing and I was at one of those horrible days when I was playing with a boy from school and he said you know you hold the club the wrong way I said I do not and he said would you see anyone else out here holding the club like that and then I looked and I look said Billy I do hold it the wrong way you know so then I had to get it by guy I was holding it in a left-hand grip but hitting it right-handed that's hard to do and Dad and it wasn't because of how how good I was have you ever played a golfer in a movie yeah well I played the golf pro in the movie you know I played Stuart made in the taciturn Scott and what is this movie some people here watch movies unlike your yeah parents but unlike my mom and dad you might his wedding a guy came up the other night last night I said do anything is a bit of an irony there you know I said thanks for pointing that out but yeah it's a long crazy story but the movies called Bobby Jones stroke of genius so dreadful moved me it stars Jim Caviezel playing the part of Bobby Jones he had just played he had just played the part of Jesus in the passion and and then he he came to to Atlanta to play Bobby Jones and sorry suggest shouldn't really say this but my so my role was Stewart maiden and so I was the head pro at Eastlake when Bobby Jones was a little boy and Bobby Jones learned to make a golf swing not by taking lessons but by emulating the golf swing of the pro that I played which had an irony in itself by down you know so people said what are you doing and I said well I'm actually down in Atlanta teaching Jesus how to play ball that's terrible yeah thanks yeah sorry so okay then we'll move off your back so you've been in America you're a citizen now is that right yeah okay so you've been here longer than some of the people in this room but yet there's nothing like coming from another country in another culture that gives you a fresh set of eyes what what surprised you about America and what what still surprises you about the church here either good or bad yeah well you know I had never met an American family until I was 16 and I and I met them in suburban London I was invited to lunch at their home they had four daughters and I chose one of the daughters to be my wife although she was only 13 at the time it didn't fully understand how old were you I was 16 okay and that family introduced me to Campus Crusade for Christ and that had come to Britain in the 60s and they thought it would be a good idea for me to go to these things called institutes for Biblical Studies and I went to one at the University of Aberystwyth and it was there in that context that American Christians vibrant folks essentially taught me the importance of sharing my faith and of helping me how to do that and be embolden witness and I found that in enlivening challenging and thoroughly unlike the basic sort of clipped conservative English Scottish context where you would have to prise information out of the person even if it was good information and so that was my first introduction to American Christians and American Christianity and it Cheng's for me to this day you know the the fondest and happiest of recollections and I I feel a peculiar debt to that period in my life and to those people and that then led in 72 to me going to explode 72 which was a big Campus Crusade extravaganza held it in the Cotton Bowl I think it was in Dallas and I have just always been enamored by and encouraged by the openness and the vibrancy and the inventiveness and the can do it nests of American Christianity that I think would be the biggest thing and in local church context to come from a situation in Scotland where if you had you know a relatively decent idea you could pretty well guarantee that it would be short down in flames before you managed to fully articulate it I would go it would it would hit the the wastepaper basket you know under a deluge of fire hoses saying we've never done it that way before and I've heard some people reply that and it's no good and so various things whereas here I have to be careful on the other end that there the willingness to to get behind a concept an idea and get it going so I'd want to be there first of all in affirming those plus things and and the fact that America continues to make such a huge impact in the world and in the world of World Missions on account of the generosity you know if it is in giving let let us be generous and I haven't found another nation in the world that's as generous as as the American nation well those are all nice things now that's great I've learned I used to start with bad things but I've learned to make sure I started my sense so so what are some blind spots as you can see that we can't I know I don't think there's any that I can see anymore I am actually enculturated now I really think I am I think I I couldn't say I'm thoroughly Americanized but because I'm on the side of things you know when I go when I go home to Britain I'm constantly defending the circumstances that I left behind and I realize that I'm doing so because I actually believe these things well though you know III have been just that one of the things that struck me when I when I arrived was this peculiar sort of political thing that emerges I think as I've watched it out of a out of an understandable proper and right desire for the well-being of the nation and for the impact of the Christian community in the halls of justice and in the execution of the political process however in watching this saga go general election after general election after general election advice ly concluded that in some measure among some folks it emerges because of our an aberrant kind of theology that they do not understand what this kingdom is that Jesus Christ came to build that they have not fully wrestled with the the fulfillment of the of the purposes of God in putting together a company that Nolan can number from every tribe people language and so on and that the danger that America that Britain faced and fell into especially in conservative Christian circles America has has just walked down the same path when I was growing up as a boy there was a thing in Britain called British is realism it was actually a sort of a phenomenon but it went like this you know that the promises that attach to the children of Israel are really apropos Great Britain because we have an empire we rule the waves Rule Britannia here we go and so you had these biblical promises miss appropriately applied to political entities and then of course as the as the as the Empire begins to unravel and disintegrate then we can't go to cast around for another explanation and only to discover that actually these promises have nothing to do with what Britain was doing in Rhodesia or in Zambia or in any other place and so I fear I I actually I was I'm kind of excited at the moment because I think that there is a peculiar opportunity now for the the Church of Jesus Christ to take seriously what it means not to be disengaged from the political process but to be engaged in it in a way that is bringing to bear upon the circumstances the values of the kingdom and and a picture that actually that we're prepared to recognize that certain things can be bad for the country and good for the church and and unless we're prepared to understand that distinction then we'll probably be buried under a morass of things and and I'm disappointed to find out how many Christians are have become increasingly angry and and sort of miserable and negative about so many things and the the idea of the joy of the Lord being your strength of having a story to tell to the nation's of being able to say these things I think we've lost a beat or two by by aligning ourselves with certain agendas that have to this point being unfulfillable and probably will always be unfulfilled by every Empire in the world has what is the Ottoman Empire that any any Empire has come to an end and America is able to do things faster than any other nation I've ever seen so it wouldn't be surprised you know the bigger they come the faster they fall and I think Christians are going to have to face up to the fact that it may not be the way we expect it to be and an actual fact that the election of the President this last time may have saved us from a real disaster if you think about what the alternative might have been nobody really thinks that way because the Christian Rite was so allied to what we got to take the best of whatever the bad job is but I'm not so sure anybody fully understands what it would be like to have somebody who believes that Mormonism is not an absolute fabrication and the worst kind of lie and a dead dark emptiness to have somebody in that position sitting in the White House we've no idea what that could possibly be and so I'm just thoroughly confident I'm sure you are too that God is sovereign and all these things he knows exactly what he's doing and his purpose is for his people in every shape and size therefore he loves the Palestinian Christians just as much as he loves the Israeli Christians on the West Bank and he's just as concerned for them as he is for the believing Christians in Jerusalem today unless we have an understanding of God's kingdom that is garnished by the Scriptures then we will almost inevitably go wrong on those things and I think in many cases we have done talk about books you look green yeah okay so transition here don't ask me what's your favorite book right now okay won't ask you that okay God's gonna say I suspect it's gonna say yours you know oh yeah I'm just really really yeah yeah your newest one yes uh who's one of your favorite dead theologians oh one of my favorite dead theologians well Americans BB Warfield um Gresham machen pretending liberalism yeah I really found him helpful professor Murray whom I've mentioned three four three Presbyterians yes I know I know well my roots go that way you see you see I'm the most Presbyterian guy that ever baptized an idol that you've ever seen the second you guys I've got a lot of it right you just can't be right on everything so I love to baptize adults too I'm and their kids no that's the other thing you have to try and have it both ways you just can't make up your mind Spurgeon yeah Sports is happiness yeah why don't you read the list yeah do you read non-christian right yes I did I did what's for the genre I like I like historical non nonfiction and I just become a big fan of a fellow who's only written four books that I've been able to find his name is Eric Larson oh yeah and his most recent book which I read first is in the garden of beasts and the rise the person that America that Roosevelt put in as the ambassador to Berlin during the rise of Hitler and the fascinating thing about Larsson is that he is able to he is able to create these books out of extensive research where he has found the transcribed material of conversations that have taken place between individuals and then he is able to write those conversations into into dialogue in a way that does no disservice to the actual historical development of the plot he did that he did one called there is it death in the White City which is a story of the World Fair in Chicago Isaac storm on the development of of weather forecasting and the the storm that destroyed Galveston historically it was a hard book for me to start because I don't really like people who weather forecasters much now that I know any of them personally but they're always trying to make it sound worse or better than it is so I but anyway and the other one that he did was the story of Marconi and the development of the Telegraph I also I also read a pea James murder mysteries the lady who's still writing in her eighties actually I'm pretty eclectic I I just I I pretty well read I don't read rubbish I don't read junk but I'm reading all kinds of stuff like you know contemporary philosophy in absorbable chunks you know not not not highbrow stuff but like all things shining the book on trying to make sense you know the subtype of love it was something like trying to make sense of our world by reading the classics you know you've got a professor from Stanford and a professor from Harvard who are both really clever and the best thing they can offer to the world is if you're going to try and make sense of your world you know read Moby Dick and you know for those of us who have tried to read Moby Dick we thought if that's gonna make sense of the world I don't have much to go on so I'm trying to I'm trying to read I'm trying to read in such a way that both is an enjoyable exercise for me and and also creates a creates a seedbed out of which I'm able then to interact with a culture do you have current Christian authors or books that you'd come into people yeah I just have to think about that for a moment I mean I don't want to do it be funny guy but Kevin writes really really well as you know and and his stuff is always worthwhile and and so I do I do read Kevin stuff and my guys are my pastoral team do and so if they're going to that I have to just so that I can see mm-hm see one nonsense they're coming up with next so I um I I read I read well I shouldn't say I read I read the first three books that Tim did Keller I to my great prophet and gave him out I've been helped by the stuff that John Dixon has done up until his prescient book yeah which I which I have not read yeah red but I approach with severe caution John is it John is a good historian and he's argh and he's an excellent evangelist and so for his is those we books that he did if I were God I'd remove all pain is a is a really helpful treatment of the question of suffering not because as you know he he resolves everything and ties a ball around it but he does a masterful apologetic job of saying okay let's let's see what Buddhism has to say about suffering and then he explains let's see what pantheism says about suffering and let's see what and he just goes down and says let's see what the Bible says about suffering and then he says at the end a judge for yourself who you think has got the best angle and suffering here even though we don't have all the answers and I found out a really helpful book because it was it was easy to give to people rather than books that are trying to be far more definitive than they can actually be you know good all right one more question and then we'll open it up to questions two-part anything sung I'm 35 are you really I am she that's much more gray hair than you 35 who when you look back what what by God's grace can you say by God's grace alone I had that right when I was 35 something right about life marriage ministry and what would you look back and say oh boy the Lord was merciful to to help me even though I can see now I made a complete hash of that hmm hmm well I think we'll go back to 25 if you had more Messiah and a half I could I go back to this morning for the horse races what I think I think I think a35 I I was I was thoroughly convinced probably about you know about two things if you wanted I mean one would be the know I was I was thoroughly convinced about the sufficiency of Scripture right I had I couldn't answer every question but I had no doubts that that that I had in this book all that God wanted me to have with nothing extraneous and nothing missing therefore I could with confidence proclaim the book I was absolutely convinced to about the exclusivity of Jesus that there's no way to dodge this one either Jesus is who he says he is or he isn't if he is then he must be reckoned with if he isn't then let's go get a decent job so I was I was really convinced on that and at 35 I don't think that I had fully got a hold of the distinction that Goldsworthy addressed and that I alluded to last night about pressing people about the benefits of the gospel or warning them about the dangers of his rejection and not actually telling them the gospel itself in other words the same problem that you get when you read Martyn lloyd-jones Ian Marie's biography and somebody comes to Lloyd Jones and tells him I don't think you're preaching the gospel and Lloyd Jones is completely devastated by that need and he says but you know I'm preaching the new birth and the guy says yeah I know you're preaching the necessity of regeneration but I don't need your preaching the gospel and then Lord John's goes away and he gets Smeaton on the atonement he gets two or three books he goes in his bedroom and he won't come out and Marie tells how they have to go get his brother to gamma of his bedroom his wife's worried about him but eventually he comes out he says I think I got that clear is taking me time to get that clear I think I got it clear and the other thing is the whole sort of redemptive historical plan of things my background starts off as a sort of sorry I wouldn't say crazy dispensational perspective but largely you know chopped up in pieces thing my Scofield reference Bible is still on myself with the pages barely intact my wife gave me that Bible when I was 15 she wasn't my wife then so I couldn't meet 15 I was between 17 to CB 14 she gave me that Bible I used it for a long time I use it so I started studying theology and only when I when I got rid of my Scofield reference Bible and then I and I couldn't find the I didn't find all the sections and then I said maybe they're not there and then as soon as I said maybe if they're not there then something else has to be there and then I said well what is there and then I started off on that whole journey and I just get in the notion of the big picture of God's purpose from eternity to eternity it was something that I didn't really have a grasp of even at 35 and hopefully have a much better handle on it today just to clarify the Goldsworthy and then Lloyd Jill right are using that distinction that Lloyd Jones makes and preaching preachers the difference between being an advocate and being a witness right where he talks about so maybe that may be helpful for the people in ministry here to say a little bit about that just flesh it out because Lloyd Jones is so good and I think you're right that there is a lot of preaching where people are in there an advocate for the truth right but they're not what Lloyd Jones would call a witness right yeah I mean that's that's exactly right I it's so long since I read that particular section that I can't I can't work through that but what I remember Lloyd Jones is pointing out is that the Apostolic testimony the way in which the way in which even straight out of the gate that Peter preaches in acts 4 listen folks listen to this Jesus of Nazareth a man attested by God by miracles and he basically lays down then the the life the death the the resurrection the Ascension the prospect of the return of Jesus Christ and and the approach that he takes there is then the approach taken by Paul where Paul goes from place to place first into the synagogues and in a synagogue he argues he reasons with them from the scriptures showing them that the Messiah must suffer and die and and then he says and this Jesus is that Messiah so that he is he's saying this is that and he is affirming the historicity of who and what Jesus has done and has accomplished and that this this this Redemption that is now accomplished is to be applied by the Holy Spirit through the witness to the gospel in the preaching of the word responded to in the hearts of those whose eyes are open to its truthfulness is that is that enough on it or do you want to clarify it even though I usually feel free to well I just think it's what you said yesterday and now it is helpful and it's right along those same lines whether you said it's to summarize it from me I think so I think you did it with what Lloyd Jones he was saying you know there's some preaching that's all true right in its saying true things and here's the Bible and and Jesus did this and he died for sinners and people must be born again and there's a heaven and there's a hell and this is what the Bible teaches and it's all true let's pray right and you know don't get to that that moment where the the preacher cuts through with a laser sort of grabs you by the scruff of your knife and says and you whether you're rich poor you got degrees you don't you need Jesus are you going to come to them today that's right and that sort of preaching I think I think sometimes conservative evangelicals field ads to to erect to emotional to something yeah personal passionate pleading that is a separ is received the reconciliation that is being provided for you you know you must you must um but yeah I mean I'm I'm I I don't have a problem with that part of it I my problem is I gotta make sure that I have laid down the groundwork before I get to that part of it you know so for example last Sunday when I we did what we were in mark 16 the opening verses of March 16 which worked out perfectly because we've been doing mark but I said well let's just simply let's take the 3 R's approach to these eight verses let's consider the record as it is given to us this is March record of these events let's let's let's consider the relevance of this record to life today and then let us recognize that there has to be a response to this and in and in the response part United stood away from the pulpit and I'd you know use the old chair and I said you know you can believe in the intrinsic benefit of this chair to to hold you without ever sitting on it and some of you are just there your unconverted believers your Orthodox in your understanding of the person work of Jesus Christ but but your faith has not found a resting place in him and if you do not believe you will die in your sins that's that and that's why it's so important and you must know this and I just in Enfield I was in England for a week three weeks ago now doing evangelistic talks I had 16 talks to give between Tuesday morning and Sunday evening and in a variety of contexts you know like a men's curry night in an Indian restaurant with you know 60% of the people completely pagan and unchurched the proprietors of the restaurant standing behind me you know half a dozen Hindus you know getting ready to bring out the curry and serve bordick go ahead to her totally you know they are going going now he went to preaching no I am understanding you know and so I'm listen to this in general go ahead I give you Korea and so and then and I've got to stand up there and go right out in the middle of you know like in the cases okay the Anglican vicar says all right brother do tell the people will you have twenty minutes and so it's just like a believing Ellis trees here with a cease from America you'll understand that he's going to give us a little talk about Jesus okay Ella so go ahead you know and you get you got you know guys have never been 35 years old like yourself the guy sitting obsolete at a table before we started thirty five years old from Newcastle I said what's your religious background he said none I said okay I understand but where did you go to church I never went to church I've never been in a church in my entire life what about your parents never took me to church never went to church he's not unusual the generation posted beneath age 25 in Britain is increasingly a secular generation the Christians are vibrant which was so exciting about this because what struck me was just what you're saying I went back in that environment and I suddenly realized these fellows are doing it we're talking about it we are at the we are at the local fair day given our bottles of water hey we're from Parkside Church which are like a bottle of water who cares who even cares we might as well have you know the Pregnancy Center next door you know saying hey we're from the pregnancy center was your like a bottle of water or are the Muslims hey we're from the I'm the Imam which are like a bottle of water these guys they were on the streets of Enfield with Gospels of look and in the Gospel of Luke was in a little cover and the cover said on it everybody needs Jesus don't take our word for it take his and we were stopping people in the street and saying excuse me do you have a moment here about a bad man that went to heaven I mean in your face straight at the thing and I came home and I said you know we've got we've gone off the boil here we're so busy building bridges for people you know to make sure that we're not you know we're building the bridge yeah you know you know what we're chickening out that's what we're doing let's get to the point here this is these are the facts it's really unpalatable in a pluralistic environment but the folks are we're stuck with this one and I was actually really humbled and helped and the young people I was struck with how committed they were to you know taking this on and the amount of abuse and disinterest in the street was significant I mean people were not gone oh thank you for the gospel of look you know it was it wasn't it wasn't quite like that you know we have a lot of bridges and we're not asking anybody to go across yeah not nice exactly right you know we have microphones we have time for some questions that would be relevant not just to you and you know whether you should get married or but the person you want to fire from your church staff but Alistair reserves the right to say I don't know or that's right I'm not interested yep and I'm good at I don't know I Alistair a Mike from Grand Rapids first I'd like to just thank you for the years about your radio ministry that's meant so much to me in my life just an honor to be in God's army with you again my question is what's your thoughts on the Western Church and their tendency to turn towards entertainment rather than worship hmm well that's a pretty big category you know the Western Church well the underlying the underlying issue is man centeredness or God centeredness genuine worship is is god-centered spurious worship is man centered when we begin to when we start the thing off with man and his need rather than God and His glory we've started off on the on the wrong food to begin with and so the underlying issue if there is an issue in certain cases is a theological issue it is an understanding of the nature of God himself what it means to be brought into a relationship with God and what it actually means to worship God my eye my experience is is as varied as I travel I I'm getting a sense that in in many cases that that sort of perspective is losing steam people are are growing older that we're the beginnings of that kind of approach and they themselves have haven't found it peculiarly satisfying they haven't found that many of the endeavors to make Jesus so incredibly accessible to everybody by kind of blunt in the edge of his clear directives has actually produced much in the way of genuine and unexpected conversions and so I'm kind of hopeful that there's a there's a turnaround in in the direction of beginning with God and his glory is not much of an answer to your question I'm trying to be guarded in my answer as well because I don't want to become the I don't want to be they come the champion of if I took things to their logical conclusion where I come from in my own mind with my basis in the Highlands of Scotland in the in Calvinistic Scotland then I would be the pastor of a Sam singing congregation that had no no musical accompaniment at all and sang only the sounds if I can do that with conviction and I can because I don't really believe that but if I move one step away from that then as soon as I move one step away from it then I've opened the door to all kinds of possibilities and ways of engaging both the material that one uses in worship and the liturgy that one employs in worship and everything else and I go certain places in California that would not necessarily be well-received in in the Outer Hebrides but I'm struck by the vibrancy of these people's commitment to Jesus and to the gospel and what they're doing and I might wish that the way in which they did certain things was different but I've got no reason to doubt their motivation and in these instances I'm not referring to people who are trying to do the Johnny Carson show which dates me you know and and just kind of sneak the gospel in under cover of darkness these are just people who worship in a way that is different from from what might be most familiar and pleasing to me the questions or has a long answer about now and I was a good question a bad answer sorry uh thank you for joining us today thank you I have a question first of all I'd like to thank you for doing the revision of Charles Spurgeon book and morning and evening I wake up every day looking forward to that reading my question to you is what impact has that book or his ministry had on you alright so yeah good well thanks you know I think the sparge in review was it was a tough thing in that it really needed to it really needed to be done it needed to be done better than it was but to do it more would be to remove almost Spurgeon from Spurgeon and so I to leave it that so but I'm glad that is I'm glad that is helpful it's helpful to me as well this is morning in the morning and evening sorry devotional devotional Spurgeon's you know I told the guy across we I see you know I think I can do this I won't it won't be too difficult yeah it was a real labor of love because there's 365 mornings and 365 evenings and since I started on it I said oh man it's going to take a long time but and Spurgeon stuff is great his some of them are just gems some of them or not and I I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm with him on Song of Solomon and and and I cleaned up some of his references to the Roman Catholic Church although I must say I agreed with the way I'd put it in the first place but that's not for you to know and and and Spri thinks Portuguese lectures for your students as though as a thing you know I mean that is I even read it now I dipped into it just last week looking for something and you know spor G a good old sport do you know that you know the doggerel don't hear that once was a preacher called spur G who really detested liturgy but his sermons are fine and I use them as mine and so do most of the clergy so yeah Spurgeon is one of the dead guys who speaks yeah he does I find him profoundly helpful he cuts to the chase very quickly and and he's God centered I like the fight that nobody can nobody can actually drive him into a corner in terms of eschatology or even in terms you know he is so good on the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man he's very very very good at that and so big influence big influence feel free to chime in as well and clarify things but you also have a I thought I heard you a little doggerel about John Stott or the first time you always say as John Stott says do you know where I'm going with this and the second time I say it as a man once remarked and the third time you say as I've always said yeah maybe I got that from somebody yeah yeah guys no I don't think that was me but I like that as actually it says it's a little painful well good well you can't read John style outline on anything until you've already gone before you guys because what you see is outline you think well that was inspired it's just in the territory it's horrible see it's just a what act what a guy nobody can thread the needle like like start through a passage ya know and it's such a terrible thing you know that uh that you you know as soon as you look at that you go one of my wasting my time for you know I why don't I just go up and read the chapter so yeah other questions back there oh all John we got up here first I was correct I think uh sorry and then your neck I you just go in the restroom going back to the Christians of augment in politics he understand that the that God's kingdom is not of this world and yet you know we we live in a republic in which Christians have an opportunity to be either involved in government or removed from politics and government you know so we have the option as individual Christians of you know just staying out of it and simply praying for those in authority over us or we could run for office so when you think about that you know situation that we face in this nation and the opportunities that we have could you provide some you know both some encouragement and some cautions from that perspective of of the Christian Christians relationship to politics and government in the any age that we live in sure well I mean succinctly my encouragement to to to my people is to be entirely engaged in the political process at whatever level they have opportunity to do so I mean we we are we are suffering we have suffered as a result of the kind of isolationist tendency that I alluded to last evening that has removed people from the journalistic world and given them the opportunity to be writing leading articles and so on in the press and and that is that is an unfortunately it is an unfortunate thing I just saw something on my screen telling me about a sitcom a Christian sitcom that is being launched in Britain what a world is a Christian sitcom well you know what do they do do they say the Lord's Prayer in the middle of it or something I mean what is a Christian sitcom I don't understand these kind of things what I want is the brightest and best girl in my congregation the artist the creative person the genius engaged in the world of the arts living out their Christian life and when asked about the nature of motivation and so on answering that Jesus Christ means everything to them okay there was just a piece yesterday two days ago Wall Street Journal in the if you read The Wall Street Journal and you read the personal journal section of it you know there's always in there on a weekly basis there's a little section in there called in my bag okay and it's about either a guy or a girl who has like a briefcase or a travel bag and they say you know what what have you got in there say they got a blackberry I got an iPad and everything else well the other day the guy who was in there is a friend of my son's his name is George Esquivel and it was it was so nice just this just to see right in his bag because they do a photograph of the bag is Bible his Bibles right in there and they asked him and he told him he said I have my Bible in here because because I read my Bible and if I'm late for an appointment or I'm early for an appointment I read I read my Bible okay now this is just this is just a Christian guy in a secular world being asked a question because he's become the he's become the creative director for to me the luggage the luggage company although he himself as a company of his own but anyway and so when it comes to politics I'm on the same thing you can you can become the local mayor become the local mayor but don't come to me and ask me to turn my pulpit into a bowling station suited to endorse the agenda of something that it so I made the distinction between the role that has played for me which is to exhort and encourage my congregation to engage fully in the political process in the world of the Arts in the world of Medicine to commend the businessman for being in the real world and living for Christ and being made for his pleasure commending the school teacher in the public school for holding the line and relationship to Christian things all of those elements that's part of my problem as part of my privilege I myself then I'm engaged in the political process as a member of a democratic country where I can register my vote which I do and where I can be engaged in conversations I just spoke for the Center for Arizona public policy a few weeks ago the reason I took that opportunity is some people would be surprised by was in order that I might encourage people who are engaged in the political process to make sure that they don't do so disengaged from the truth of God's kingdom in the Bible so it's not an either/or and no III I would like to go back to Britain become the Prime Minister of Great Britain I've someone says you can do that we can set it up for you do the alcohol I'll do 30 years in Cleveland I'm going back because because that sucker has lost the plot over there as well and and the absence of leadership and the absence of other kind of factory gutsy approach to stuff as you just just dissipated it's just washed out this is that fair distinction I mean you his book on it has got the whole thing you know why is the mission yeah what is the mission yeah distinguishing between what individual Christians are called to do right what the church as an institution yes its mandate yeah and sometimes when I say the things about the church people actually think I'm seeing what you might think I'm saying that is drop out let it all go we're doing the kingdom I'm not saying that for a minute no for a moment mmm we have time for one more question was was all right okay at the last one you both spoke of presenting slash preaching the truth of the gospel and then taking it to the next step of exhortation where you actually get personal and exhort a response and I believe you both use that word a response can you comment on what that looks like I know it's repentance and faith and an internal confrontation with this with the Spirit of God but how does that play out in the physical public arena what what do you mean when you say response what do you what are you looking to if you're preaching the gospel and you're exhorting a response from the people can you comment on what that response would look like yeah well in at Parkside it would probably look like this when I've said what I've said I either I would I would preface it in this way and sometimes I preface it in this way and post post alluded in this way say you know I I spoken very straightforwardly today about these things and and my hope and prayer is that some of you actually do want to get serious about what has been said and if you do there are a number of ways that you can one is through the doors to your left and my right there is a prayer room and in that room there are some folks that have both literature and a listening ear and a desire to respond to your response if you would like to do that if you would like to do this if you'd like to do that if you would like to come to this we would like to go to that once in a blue moon and never on the strength of emotion have I actually asked for a public response right there and then in the congregation and I've done so probably you could write it on I could probably count on my one hand the number of times I've done that in 30 years and always because I had a strange inclination in the weeks leading up to that that there was kind of that I had I had so on and so on and so on and and led and led and led and that that there might just be a moment here for sentient people let's just let's just identify ourselves with whatever this is but to make that a standard pattern for me there's not something that I've ever that I've ever chosen to do and so the way it would look is just like that we have we have folks outside the key is that in your heart I'll often lead in a prayer at the end of my time that would again be prefaced by something along the lines of you know this may be the end of a link in it this may be the final link in a chain for you someone has told you the story somebody gave you a book and you've come along this morning and and for whatever reason that you can really fully explain the pieces in the jigsaw have formed up and you're sitting there going can somebody please help me to know what I should say or how I should say it and I'll lead them in a prayer that would give them an opportunity to pray along with me and then and ask them to come and and and let me know let me tell you one one funny interesting story I was in somewhere not so long ago and I guess into this guy he was looking after me like Joshua was looking after me and and I just were killing time and I said how did you become a Christian there's a long story but eventually he's in a church service and the minister blaze it out explains the gospel or just upon people a response praise finishes looks up and says if any of you out there responded in the way that I suggested phoned me up tomorrow morning here's my number you get you get a telephone number and this guy that I was sitting with who was a businessman whose wife had come to faith and who had told her you can have faith if you want but I'm not having it she pled with him please come to church he came to church God used the word nailed in between the eyes he phones a guy out hello yeah hey you said you should phone up if if if you were you know in on the deal or whatever you had going there or whatever your thing is and the pastor said he says yeah I said well you know my name is Joe and I did it what am I supposed to do now it's just like that the pastor system come by my study I want to give you a Bible when you want me to come come whenever you want okay he goes by the study and and and the person gives him a Bible and he gave him the Bible he says listen I expect you to come to church I don't know if you will or not come back in a year and tell me if this thing is actually real just tell me in a year if it's real and the guy told me says every year on the 11th of January I fall him up and I say hey pastor it's real okay now did his response bring about his transformation no the transformation of God brought about his response and and so I'm confident that that all that the father gives him gifts to Jesus will will come to him and he uses all kinds of mechanisms in different ways all right anything better to add than that thank you thank you

Channel: University Reformed Church

Views: 56,352

Rating: 4.7877097 out of 5

Keywords: Kevin DeYoung, Alistair Begg, University Reformed Church

Id: evd2mpLbWPs

Length: 54min 45sec (3285 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2013