Nathan Finochio: "Get Up And Eat" (July 4, 2021)

[Applause] [Music] where people pray when we hear praise [Music] where people pray [Applause] [Music] see this praise [Music] [Music] is [Music] foreign is is is [Music] is oh [Music] is oh sing us the praises [Music] [Applause] [Music] he he is our champion come on church to see this human today [Music] i've tried so hard to see it it took me so long to believe in that you choose someone like me to carry your victory could never earn it you give what we don't deserve and [Music] you take the broken things praise them to glory [Music] you are my champion giants following you [Music] i am who you say i am [Music] undefeated [Music] teaching me how to receive it this is my victory [Music] i am who you say i [Music] [Music] who is conquered [Music] [Music] every wall comes crashing down i have the authority [Music] jesus has given me [Music] miracles [Music] [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] it [Music] every wall comes crashing is jesus christ [Music] i'm yeah [Music] stronger you want i am who you say i am you crown me with confidence i am in seated heavenly place undefeated by the power of your name i am seated in the heavenly place undefeated with the one who has conquered it all [Music] [Applause] [Music] breath [Music] [Music] us [Music] [Music] myself [Music] our hearts will cry these bones your [Music] is these walls is [Music] we pour out our prey is is [Music] oh our hearts will cry [Music] oh these laws is your man [Music] oh pour out our praises i am [Music] our god is so great amen at this time you can go ahead say hi to your neighbor and find your scene hey everyone my name is justice and i serve on our production team we're so excited to have you here with us this wednesday july 7th we're kicking off our summer public series this week we're hearing from franco martinez come join us for an awesome night of worship and time to connect following the service with ice cream and treats outside on the patio during our summer pulpit series we're offering a summer fun program for our kids and youth group for our teenagers at the end of the month we will have water baptisms on july 28th if you've never been water baptized and would like to be scan the qr code at the bottom of the program to register the best way to stay connected at htc is a sign up for a realm account realm is a great way to find a life group register for upcoming events connect with people at htc and give if you have any questions about realm head to our connect desk for more information church we love you and i'll be having the best day ever god bless you good morning everyone happy fourth of july god bless america we're so glad that you've joined us for worship today you know sometimes when we worship we just punch a hole right through heaven how many of you know that we punched a hole right through to heaven during our worship this morning god is with us and we're glad that you're with us too want to welcome everybody that's worshiping with us online we're so glad did anybody get confused by the service time or did you do all right with our new schedule our 10 30. do you like this 10 30 worship time i like it too we want to thank you for your loving financial support of harvest time church in just a moment the ushers are going to come to wait on us for our morning offering the lord says in his word bring the whole tithe into my house so that there might be food in my house you know it's the only place in the whole bible that god says test me in this and see if i won't open up the windows of heaven and poor uncontainable blessing how many of you like a little uncontainable blessing from the lord you know giving is not only god's appointed means of supporting the work of the kingdom of god on earth but it's his appointed means of blessing you there are a few ways that you can give this morning in your program there's an offering envelope you can use that offering envelope to give by credit card or debit card if you like or slip a check inside if you're giving by cash and you want credit for that just make sure to write your information on the outside of the offering envelope so our office can uh credit you appropriately for your giving today some people like to give by text and the information for that is on the screens behind me for those worshipping with us online and for everyone you can make a gift to harvest time church anytime online at our website htchurch.com just click on the giving link on the top of the home page and it will guide you in making a secure gift online just before the ushers come to wait on us this morning first of all i want to say a huge thank you to my wife denise and to our staff and to all of our volunteers who put on a great vacation bible school for our kids this last week we had over 175 kids that came through vacation bible school and we had over 160 volunteers isn't that amazing thank you to everyone come on let's just express our appreciation to everyone that served it was a you know it's a great thing on the last night at vacation bible school the kids all booed because it was the last night and they wanted a little bit more the volunteers were happy it was the last night but the kids wanted a little bit more and it was a great thing if you do want some more of that every wednesday in july we're going to have a wednesday evening program we're doing a summer pulpit series i'm calling it sons of the house i wanted to call it sons and daughters of the house just acknowledging some of the kids that have grown up in harvest time and are in ministry now um all the daughters of the house that i contacted are so busy in the work of the ministry they couldn't get free to come and join us but some of our sons who have grown up here at harvest time and are now serving the lord are coming back uh this coming wednesday evening our friend franco martinez is uh going to be bringing the word his dad homer is on staff with us here at harvest time uh on july 14th josh gugliamo is going to be bringing the word on july 21st pastor dan mccauley is going to be with us we're going to have a worship night and then on the 28th of july we're going to have a water baptism service if you've not yet been baptized in water since you've made a decision to follow christ we would love for you to join us in believer's baptism that night youth group is going to be meeting every wednesday in july and we're going to have a summertime sports program for kids outdoors and so we hope you'll join us and you'll be part of that i'm going to ask the ushers if they would come we have a picnic right after this service and we have a lot of food so i need you to all stay and eat some food all right join us we have some lawn games we have some food set up outside and before you go on with your other fourth of july celebrations we hope that you'll join us how many of you know that america was god's plan [Music] in the scheme of human history god planned that there should be a country called the united states of america and god still has a plan for america god has a purpose for our country the apostle paul was preaching on mars hill and he said these words he said from one man god has made every nation of men the word is ethnicity from one man god has made every ethnicity the bible has the answer for the problem of racism it's that we all have one father and one creator god in heaven and the bible says paul says that god determined the times in which they should live and the places where they should live the boundaries the borders of their countries and he says that god did this so that people would reach out for him and find him because he's not far from any one of us and then you can finish the sermon on mars hills paul says in him we live and move and have our being do you believe that this morning amen let's pray as we give back to the lord father thank you that you lavished your very best on us when you gave us your son jesus lord with glad and grateful hearts we give back to you today our tithes and offerings giving to missions for the work of the kingdom around the world father i pray that you'd bless every giver in this offering today in the wonderful name of jesus if your heart agrees would you say amen and amen god bless you while you give [Music] up [Music] is [Music] lord [Music] it's your breath [Music] so we pour out [Music] amen aren't you so thankful for our worship team i want to tell you what i want you to open your hearts because we have an amazing word to hear from the lord this morning just before we do we're going to take a moment and we're going to honor america would you stand with us we're going to sing the national anthem together and after we sing the national anthem we're going to pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states joanne and courtney and mary come lead us in the national anthem they're doing an amazing job with it if you know it and you want i want you to sing along with them let's do it [Music] together can you see [Music] by the dawn's early light what so proudly we have [Music] [Music] and the rock is [Music] still there oh says [Music] free [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] wasn't wasn't that awesome and man [Laughter] so our friend remained standing if you would for just a moment our friend joanne who put that together just retired last friday from teaching music in new york city public schools and so happy retirement joanne i i called her i called her one week ago and i said joanne how much do you love me and they put that together in one week isn't that beautiful what they did awesome i want to invite you to join us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag so denise and i this august will be 26 years that we're married and um denise just thank you denise just became a u.s citizen a couple months ago she was born in canada [Laughter] and so for all of these years when we've been at different functions and events and they said the pledge denise hasn't said the pledge and and i wanted to tell everybody it's not because she's protesting it's because she's canadian but now she can say the pledge if you're a citizen of the united states would you join us and let's say the pledge of allegiance to the flag together come on let's do it i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all remain standing give a hand to pastor blaise as he comes this morning good morning church how y'all doing happy fourth of july i know it's fourth of july but where else would you rather be than in the house of god am i right hey wouldn't you uh welcome i have a dear friend if you've been here last couple of weeks you've seen a promo of a guy wearing a leopard shirt and preaching and communicating and he is here in the flesh pastor nathan finnocchio is a dear friend of mine i've known him for a decade and you're in the right place at the right time to hear this message because he has a word to speak to what is going on in our world but not by just going world to world but by going kingdom world against the world and he has a wet message and he's been anointed and really gifted for this season for this time to really speak to a generation but really to speak to anybody here who loves jesus and wants to see the kingdom of god go further in your workplace in your neighborhood and your wherever god has called you so would you before we do that he runs an organization called fiasco and you can go to theosu.com and find out more about it but really what he does is he entrains and he teaches people how to talk about the things that are really coming against them whether you're young whether you're old but really whether you just want to see the gospel go further he trains and teaches people how to have the conversations through gospel biblical principles so find out more about that but could we please welcome pastor nathan pinocchio as he comes up and speaks thank you thank you all right grab a seat grab a seat we've been standing for at least two minutes you're exhausted it's horrible that was really cool uh i love singing the national anthem my favorite national anthem i think that i've ever heard was when marvin gaye sang the star-spangled banner for the all-star game in the 70s you can find it on youtube it'll change your life it's really good um but it wasn't as good as that one we just heard obviously because we were singing it um i wonder if if um you would be patient with me for the next 30 minutes or so and um come on like a thought thought experiment i want to push back a little bit on some things that i think are creeping into the church and some destructive thinking um and so i just ask you to maybe be patient and just hear me out maybe at times you might be like ah nate you know what you lost me there just give me uh just be patient with me as i move through this material this is probably less of a preach and more of a teach today if that's okay are you okay with that okay so i've titled this uh this talk i'm gonna call it a talk because it's just probably a bit more accurate i've entitled this uh get up and eat get up and eat because that's what we're going to be doing today it is july 4th and there's going to be a lot of there's going to be acts of gluttony that are committed today it's going to happen i think there's a special dispensation though for that okay so you won't have to confess okay but that's only for today i believe that the church is called to be a prophetic witness to the world and what that means is that now the church is not perfect the church the church you know the reason why this church isn't perfect it's because you're here right like the church is full of people and people suck we can laugh about that right it's just a reality but uh somehow and mystically jesus is ruling his church and we don't abandon you know the christian ideal because we fail to live up to it no we uphold it because it's jesus's right so we're called to be a prophetic witness for example um we're called to be a prophetic witness to a world that desperately needs moms and dads you hearing me right we believe that that god is the designer of human flourishing that god is passionate about people being and living up to their full potential and so that's why we we undergird and we and we highlight and we encourage and uh you know the the family we believe that that an individual isn't the basic building block of society but we believe that the family is the basic building block of society right um so in that way we're called to be prophetic witness and we call the world to go hey we believe that that god's passion about you and if you will follow in his ways however imperfectly um that you will flourish right and so we're calling that's just an example of us being a prophetic witness obviously we have the gospel we tell people the good news of jesus christ but we call people to to live the gospel also and we're called to have gospel solutions you know that i believe that the church has solutions for the world i believe that the the fix for racism is the gospel i believe that i believe that i believe that uh jesus has broke down the dividing walls right and there's neither jew nor greek and there's no jockeying at the at the foot of the cross right the the powers you know society would love to to pit man against woman right um but we don't believe that that uh that men and women need to be at odds anymore at the cross you know that we can actually serve one another and love one another and and prefer one another and then finally we believe that we're called to give a reason for our hope i believe that the church should be the pillar of truth that paul calls the church did you know that the church is called the pillar of truth that's what we're supposed to be not once again because we're perfect but because we have the jesus is here and we have the scriptures right and we have this then this standard this ideal that we live up to by the grace of god imperfectly you hear me but we're called to give a reason for our hope and that means you that you're called to give a reason for your hope and so today what i want to kind of do is take us through some conversations that people are having in our world conversations that are happening on instagram god forbid tick talk facebook you know i'm sure some of you are some are incredible keyboard warriors out there like my mom my mom and she's incredible she's like a a ninja assassin on facebook you can't get away with anything on facebook jan pinocchio will find you um and of course our our speech is supposed to be seasoned with salt but we need to have uh reason and sanity to the things that we and know the things that we believe and so that's kind of my heart today i'm gonna say some things that are probably going to be you know you might be like wow i can't believe he just said that in church you know um but uh i just want to uh hopefully that you hear my heart as i push back against some of these things so um are you ready to jump into it okay then we're gonna we're then we're gonna party we're gonna eat too many hot dogs it's gonna be wonderful okay now before we get started people aren't our problem worldly fleshly and demonic ideologies are right and this is something that we often forget that people aren't our problem you know we we don't wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers etc all right let's keep moving two philosophies uh that are entering the church and i want to address these two head on today and um and and what i'm going to do is i'm going to give responses to each of them are secularism and postmodernism secularism and postmodernism now i'm going to explain these um in a moment and then we're we're going to get to them but let me just let's just pray really quickly and just ask the lord to guide our time father thank you that you're here thank you that your presence is here thank you for america thank you for this church lord thank you that you are on the throne today and that your plans and your purposes will not be thwarted god thank you that everything that you purpose comes to pass and father i just ask you that you would equip us today sharpen us and cause us to see uh and know the times people that know the times p prophetic people that know what is going on in the world and and have prophetic answers and gospel answers um to the problems in our world and give us the boldness lord to confront and to have conversations and be able to just talk things out and have conversations in jesus name amen okay so let's start with secularism so secularism is essentially the idea that our societies should not have any religion any god in them whatsoever and that that's actually a good idea um that that there should be no christianity that there's that god shouldn't be in public spaces um christians at the beginning of the 21st century began to believe this it would it would shock you how many young people believe that christianity and christians shouldn't bring their christianity into the public sphere it's actually pretty frustrating how many christian kids believe that today um but christianity abandoned and sort of retreated from public spaces about 100 years ago and secularism isn't neutral it's actually quite dogmatic and it took up all of the space that christianity retreated from and so that's kind of what secularism is secularism is the idea that that our our governments and our public spaces should not be religious and so you might have heard a statement like this or read a statement like this religion should stay out of government you know and and typically it's followed by i believe in separation of church and state um before i read my response i would just say that the founding fathers didn't they didn't say separation of church and state in the sense that the church should not be a part of the affairs of the state they believed in separation of church and state in the sense that the government should never meddle in the affairs of the church [Laughter] um so that was their design the reason why they said that and the context was that they were all escaping europe and at the time in europe for example in england you had the anglican church which was and is still uh the state religion and if you were not an anglican you could lose your head or a finger you know um and if or for for example in france if you were a huguenot and you you were essentially a baptist uh and you're in catholic france the same thing goes the state would would oppress you confiscate your goods and so there were all these people from europe fleeing and they were just sick and tired of living in nations where there was a legal or a national religion and if you had if you were uh didn't practice your faith or practice christianity the way that the state did that you would be oppressed and so they were thinking that the founding fathers were thinking we're not going to do that we're not going to have a state religion where it's married to the government we're going to have the government can't tell churches what to do they assumed that the populace would be a restrained moral christian populace they assumed that the government would always be infested with christians you hear in me so it's only in the last 50 years that now secularists have turned that and twisted uh the intention of the founding fathers and so you cannot believe in separation of church and state you know and i'm going to show you just how uh how incompatible and sort of ridiculous the statement would be but a response would be well all morality is transcendent all morality is true as in morals come from above right and wrong come from above you know like we had the ten commandments in all of our courtrooms like we believe that these ten these thou shalt not kill is a god idea you're hearing me um and all legislation is moral even tax laws are moral someone say amen you hear me there are em there can be immoral tax laws right and so we need a moral people to create legislation therefore because all morality is trending people are getting their morality from somewhere you're hearing me and it's either a morality that is that is from above or it's from somewhere else you're hearing me it's it's a corrupt or it's it's a corruption right sin is a corruption it's not a thing it's a corruption of a thing and it's a corrupt there are corruptions of morality that have come from above so our government is full of people making religious decisions they're making moral decisions so which religion are they getting their morals from to say that christianity shouldn't be you know christians shouldn't bring their faith into the public sphere it's just that's nonsensical no actually we don't want compartmentalized people serving you know in our in our government we want people whose faith has permeated every fiber of their being you hear me [Laughter] right the people that elected senator tim scott and knew that openly that he's a christian are going hey man like we we know you're a christian we want you to keep being a christian you're hearing me right we know the things that you stand for you believe in jesus and you and you you know you get please be that in the senate please we have democratically elected you to be that person and thankfully tim scott is the same man in the senate as he is when he was standing before and and asking the public to vote for him you're hearing me okay here's another statement um religious nationalism is evil okay this is a fun one you've probably seen this one recently this is a hammer that the kids love to swing and a response could be like this everyone has a moral national vision for a country and a democracy everybody every single person has an idea of what america would look like like what good would be right it's not that you don't like religious nationalism it's that you don't like my religion right why is it and this is what you somehow some sometimes need to ask people you know so people are like well i don't want christians enforcing and you know their beliefs i don't believe that that we should enforce uh morality or we should legislate have you ever heard somebody say we shouldn't legislate morality really is slavery a moral issue yes it is slavery is evil aren't you happy that we have legislation that has abolished slavery we should a thousand percent legislate morality where all legislation is moral anyways right it's a giant sidestep but what sometimes we need to ask the question to people who are saying that is why is it okay for you to force your beliefs on me right so well don't enforce your beliefs on me you know like well why is why is it is it okay for secularism which is a faith it is a faith it comes with more why is that okay but christianity is not right this is just it's nonsensical okay all right let's keep going i told you it was going to be spicy this morning this is taco bell spicy it's not even that spicy okay here we go nationalism and patriotism are evil this is another good one and kind of similar similar to what we just said okay and here's a response is scottish nationalism evil when we think of nationalism we need to think of it in terms of other countries is william wallace actually the villain of braveheart remember braveheart with mel gibson you know freedom his face is all blue am i supposed to be cheering when he's being drawn and quartered by the british at the end no right no no edward longshanks is the villain and william wallace is the hero right but but we don't think we just oh nationalism nationalism is evil you know it's like dude what about irish nationalism is that good or bad what's good right indian nationalism um when the when when gandhi was going hey yeah we don't want the british to rule us anymore we sort of want self-determination it's a good thing you're hearing me right um how about when america was like you know what we kind of don't want taxation without representation so we're gonna have a tea party you know like so we want self-determination right self-determination that's what nationalism is it's a good idea now when you look through history history it's humanity was basically goaded by two horns of the bull one horn was the empire you know you we go through all the empires of antiquity you know the syrian empire and then the babylonian empire and then the greek empire and then the fracture of the greek empire and then the roman empire you have empire after empire and they just you know they just dominate and they kill people and they crucify them and they impale them and cut their heads off and if you don't join if you don't do you don't get with our plan you know we bring peace through killing you know what i mean my empire was so peaceful i remember reading an egyptian uh pharaoh saying when i was you know our empire brought brought great peace i'm like yeah ask the people whose skulls you crushed you know like very peaceful so you've got empire which is imperialism right importing your your empire everywhere and then in antiquity you have tribalism which is just anarchy it's it's fighting in the streets amongst everybody and there's and there's it's very dangerous the bible presents this third option and it's called the nation and in the nation it's a people different ethnicities in the the children of israel moses was married to an ethiopian woman and a midianite um there were egyptians that came with the israelites there were all types of people that joined israel but they had a collective story and then remember god gave them defined borders that they were not to transgress the promised land had borders right and those borders represented hey this is your allotment and egypt doesn't belong to you right babylon doesn't belong to you this belongs to you so you can self-determine here you're hearing me that's the story of nationalism nationalism is the story of self-determination self-determination is a great thing and if you read the bible we see that well a nation that desires to self-determine it's a good idea nationalism is not imperialism for example sometimes people are like well hitler was a nationalist no hitler was an imperialist he wanted everybody to eat sauerkraut and he was shoving it down people's you know throats with a bayonet right he wanted europe to be german that's not nationalism nationalism is you stay in germany bro you're hearing me that's that's nationalism imperialism is when you're trying to import physically and with militant might you're your country right and you're transgressing your own borders so america uh you know christian nationalism is essentially the idea that i have a vision for my country it's a christian vision for my country it includes lots of people from all over the place you want to come and join our story come and join our story and be a part of our story we our story is a collective and there's many different stories in our story but we are a story that is committed to liberty and freedom and and yeah we don't have a perfect past but we're we we have a good god and we're we're gonna when we're celebrating the wins that we have you're hearing me that's christian nationalism okay let's keep going [Laughter] here's another one america is evil i'm ashamed to be an american okay a response america is evil compared to who right okay yes yes yeah yes america is imperfect yes absolutely i can tell i mean my family is imperfect for sure come to the finocchios on thanksgiving no family is a family of angels doesn't that's not how it works you're hearing me there's dysfunction of course uh but compared to which what sorry which which station are you talking about where you're going to be more free right which sorry which one which one is it which one in which country are people less oppressed right you hear me i'm not saying that we're all the way where we should be i'm just saying you know compared to who i mean who would you rather be you know yes america is imperfect but americans have reason to celebrate things too yeah there's reason to celebrate okay um you know on thanksgiving i don't go through the litany of all the things that might that i don't like about my parents can you imagine well mom you you got us to school late every day you know honestly it was embarrassing mother you know and then dinner two out of five two out of five mom uh christians this is another one uh christians uh use the bible to defend slavery okay christians using the bible defended slavery and that's true but christians using the bible destroyed slavery you hear me the the abolitionist movement was a christian movement um now even satan uses the bible to get what he wants i don't know if you're familiar but in you know two two major times that satan tried to you know when he came at adam and eve you know he was twisting god's words and and and manipulating god's words um but do you remember when he tempted jesus in the wilderness he quoted scripture the whole time right that like people not people taking scripture out of context is what the devil even does it's a brilliant tactic but how did jesus respond to satan he quoted scripture in context you hearing me [Laughter] so we don't we don't abandon the bible we don't abandon christianity what we do is we we blame bad people i mean you can find a scripture first for basically anything that you want you're hearing me you know like that's that's that's what cults do they find a scripture verse then they you know they they all start you know doing whatever it is that they they want to do all right moving on uh post-modernism post-modernism post-modernism is aimed at the way that we decide uh reality how how we interpret reality and how we our epistemology is the technical term how we know what is true our process of knowing what is true and so the statements post-modern statements go like this we are incapable of escaping our internal biases truth is local to the knower you can't really know what's true and depending on where you are on the intersectional scale you can know what reality is but you can't transcend those things and a response to that and i'm going to unpack this statement it might go over some of our heads but i'm going to unpack it a response to that would be well truth exists both experientially as in we experience it and outside of ourselves a tree can be described accurately and experienced for example if you if i tell you hey man that's a tree and you're like dude it's just your internal biases saying that i'm like okay well go ahead and drive into it you will experience the truth of a tree now you can either experience that or you can take my word for it that reality does exist don't pretend that you're we're incapable you know because we're uh because we're we're things are subjective that we that that total now total objectivity cannot be known but we can become increasingly objective right and in post-modernism you know people just run rampant with this well because you know total objectivity cannot be known then would just be subjective about everything it's like no that's ridiculous all right let's keep going this one's a mouthful the world is divided into oppressors and oppressed oppressors created the systems structures of the world like christianity sometimes people one of their objections to christianity is that it's a white religion which is not true most christians are not white [Laughter] it's just true most christians are brown they're they're they're they're from africa they're from india they're like christianity is blowing up and it's it's still um a global south phenomenon and and to make another point um two of the greatest theologians in the church were both african athanasius of alexandria and um and augustine so when people are saying well we need we need more african theology i'm like i agree read augustine um you know okay let's keep going i get i'm sorry i get sidetracked am i you would there's fireworks going off in my brain right now i'm having my own party up here oppression is hidden from oppressors and obvious to the oppressed there's an element of truth to that thus oppressors cannot know truth in the same way the oppressed can there's an element of truth in that people have various invariant experiences in life this is why we need to de-platform white men and re-center women and people of color those who know how the world actually works is an element of truth to that but then our response would be whose theology should we platform oprah winfrey or td jakes you don't just know what's true because of your gender or your skin color that's not how it works the reason why i would prefer td jakes is because he's a fire bible teacher and he's a prophetic voice not because necessarily of his skin color or because of his gender you're hearing me hear me and oprah winfrey isn't a horrible theologian because she's a woman who's a person of color or black it's just that she's a bad theologian and we know this because of because we objectively uh measure her theology to the scriptures you hear in me are you following me here [Laughter] okay let's keep moving here's another statement this is this is a spicy statement but but bear with me here the world is divided oh here we go we should never challenge lived experience there's an element of truth to that that people do have lived experiences and they're very real and we do want ex we do require experiences of the things that we believe experience is important in life okay um my wife has had experiences that i've never had my you know my wife riding on the new york subway has experienced things that i've never experienced okay as a as a woman okay you hear me there's an element of truth to that it's profound and we're going to unpack this in the next one as well but a response which proposition is true okay as a woman i know that society is deeply sexist as a black man i know that society is deeply racist as a lesbian i know my sexuality is how god made me as a muslim i know islam is true and this is where i'm getting at here if you're going to be consistent you have to accept all of those statements in terms of elevating lived experience over biblical or objective truth okay as christians we can't allow lived experience to be the the number one thing that decides what's true are you hearing me [Laughter] okay it can't take precedence over biblical and objective evidence now it doesn't mean that somebody's lived experience isn't true okay and sometimes we do need to list listen to people who have had exp like listening to my wife telling me what things that have happened to her on the subway i can't believe it i i didn't see it because it didn't happen to me you're hearing me okay um which leads me to my to my next statement here we have to believe all women i want to show you the difference between empathy and rational compassion and we need both okay as a husband i show empathy and believe my wife right i'm a husband if my wife comes home and says some dude just grabbed my butt on the subway right i show empathy in that situation you know like i'm her husband so i believe you okay and we're gonna get to the bottom of this but i believe you right i'm showing empathy put myself in a situation but if i'm a judge it's not my place to show empathy it's my place to show rational compassion okay and rational compassion because with empathy it can be biased but rational compassion calls us to wade through matters carefully i don't want judges to show empathy i want them to be rational you hear me that's biblical justice when you read through the old testament when you read through the book of proverbs the book of proverbs is like hey you know proverbs 18 13 for example somebody who responds to a matter without listening to it is a fool right you know believe all women where did the metoo the hashtag metoo movement come from well there's an element of truth to it that women couldn't speak up because they were afraid to speak up about being about sexual assault you know you're hearing me um and so it empowers women who have gone through those experiences to say something and i'm thankful that women feel empowered to say things like that they should feel empowered to to say things about traumas that have happened to them you hear me okay but we don't believe all women why because that's not justice and and my wife told me this so i'm gonna say it sometimes women lie are you here in my heart my heart is that there's elements of truth to things but we can't throw out biblical justice we have to wade through things i will mourn with those who mourn that are not my wife i'll mourn with my wife you're hearing me but i can't show empathy to the whole world i have to walk in rational compassion in my world and so i will mourn when all the details of a matter have been heard you're hearing me okay i'm not gonna jump to conclusions i'm not gonna you're hearing me i think as christians we could be a lot more measured hearing me sometimes we do lack compassion and if you're somebody who lacks compassion then ask the lord to give you more compassion we should in fact we should be just like jesus who was moved by compassion right but there's there's a pendulum swing where people are trying to say that justice is now empathy justice is not empathy justice is rational compassion let's keep moving um here's another statement we're almost done okay guys i know you can basically taste those hot dogs you're just like i'm dying next statement i'm deconstructing because the church is deeply flawed here's a response you are deeply flawed too oh you oh the church has problems well shocker remember you know like yes the church has problems because you're here you know and what if your problems with the church are ideological and not theological which often happens it's like you know these kids have been shaped and formed uh by look i i i'm not going to come i went to the pub i was in a private christian school for most of my life and i was in public uh education and and public education um you all know this you all know that that that there's ideologies out there that are shaping and forming kids okay i'm a firm believer in christian education i know that not everybody can have access to christian education it's just not a reality my my dad was a used car salesman um and um you know in my parents sacrificed to put us through uh you know school and and um it was it was just a value and they're just like we we're just we're not you know we're we're not going to send you to the public school at your young age so you'll you know you'll go to high school so all that to say they kind of prepared us but kids are shaped and formed by these secular visions and then they begin to critique christianity through somebody else's lens and then then we wonder why our kids are deconstructing how did that happen well i don't know maybe you sacrificed your children on the altar of secularism you know like the the the amount of cleanup that i joyfully do is staggering uh but you know kids are shaped by their university and tick tock that's what happens and so what i continue to argue is hey man it's probably better to not place yourself at the you know as the center of authority and rather dude grow in your knowledge of the lord you know there's 2 000 years of historic christian orthodoxy where christians generally believe all the same things you know for 2000 years start there rather than read peripheral heretics who satisfy your cultural biases [Laughter] there's a lot of pressure on young people because there's a crisis of authority people trying to find out who the authority is and right now the authority is the self and that's kind of the point of post modernism is it's my experiences and it's what i think everything that i think and everything that i experience i am the i am the way the truth and the life you're hearing me and that's why self authoring and self development and self help and self authenticating and self discovery are so big in our generation because there's all this pressure on me to decide what is true because people don't trust the church or they don't trust this or they don't trust that and post-modernism ultimately has a lot to do with it post-modernism is wild cynicism people are cynical about everything but when we begin to read this is why gk chesterton and c.s lewis for example they saw this and prophetically they wrote about it they said hey like every generation they called they called a modern thought chronological snobbery and essentially what it is it's like well it's it's 2021. we know everything now i like to remind students that like the greatest art in the world was created 600 years ago and it's all gone downhill like like we peaked at william shakespeare like measurably that is accurate like our greatest literature has already been written sorry you know go read dante go read milton you're hearing me but we see that we seem to think that we have it we know everything because it's it's 2021 chronological snobbery another issue is that every generation has problems with scripture so for example one of the problems this is the last statement that i'll make and then and and then we're going to read a passage of description we'll be done but one of the problems that my generation has is with hell my grandparents didn't have a problem with hell the world war ii generation dude they knew people were going to hell i mean my you know like they sent people there with bullets you know all over europe battlefields you know like it was it was crazy but they knew that evil existed hear me they never they never wondered if there was sin in the world they faced sin you hear me they had other questions about god but today we have very unique questions and so what happens though is we read all of our modern theologians and we read our modern heretics and we read our modern you know analysis and we never read past generations and past generations help us they stabilize us and young readers young people who are deconstructing they think that they're the ones who have to solve all of the theological problems they don't understand that there's 2 000 years of church history of people reading the same scripture verses maybe it's worth finding out how the church read this scripture verse 200 years ago and the church before that 100 years ago and the church before that 100 you're hearing me that will help you eclipse some of your biases allow this the the the sea breeze of the past to blow through your modern mind this is how i was i would respond i don't believe in hell assume that when you get to a place in the bible that you don't agree with you're the one that's wrong right what if what if rather than projecting onto god what he should be like which is generally you know you know well my jesus i could never serve a god that had hell well you're that god you just created god in your own image right what if rather than projecting onto god what he should be like you allowed him to self-define [Laughter] our young people are so passionate about self-definition but they don't allow god to self-define no i'm not like that i'm like this stop trying to manipulate me well you should try that with god god's god he's not you you're not more merciful than him you know what i mean i could never believe in a god that has he's just not merciful you're not as much you don't love people more than god loves people stop that stop playing that that's ridiculous god is so infinitely wise he's so infinitely loving he's so infinitely merciful and the day that he judges the earth will be caused for praise forever and ever and ever because his righteous judgment will be so perfect that it will blow us away god can be trusted he can be trusted i want to read this passage and then we're going to end this is a story about elijah and he's the burned-out prophet he's tired he's hangry and kind of like you right now you're hangry you can taste those hot dogs and so here we here we go and so ahab and jezebel are after him and elijah was afraid this is verse three first kings 19. elijah was afraid and ran for his life when he came to beersheba and judah he left his servant there and while he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness he came to a bush and he sat down under the bush and he prayed that he might die talk about depressed you know imagine this guy i want to die i want to die lord kill me kill me now god really powerful time of prayer and um and he said i've had enough lord you take my life i'm no better than my ancestors then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep and at once an angel touched him and said get up and eat and he looked around and there by his head with some bread baking over hot coals in a jar of water and he ate and he drank and then he lay down and the guy he took a nap he needed it he needed a nap and he needed to eat and so then the angel comes back and wakes him up hey eat some more you need to eat some more um for the journey is too much for you so we got up and ate and drank and strengthened by that food the guy then traveled 40 days and 40 nights it was like a supernatural meal that god equipped him with for the journey that was ahead of him and so then we know the story you know and he he so he's looking for god and he journeys to mount horeb and he gets the mountain and god's like why are you here and elijah's like well i've been very zealous for the lord god almighty the israelites have rejected your covenant and they've torn down your altars and they've put your prophets to death with the sword and i am the only one left i'm the only christian left god and now they're trying to kill me too and so the lord said go and stand you know on the mountain in the presence of the lord because the lord's about to pass by so you know there's a there's a wind and god's not in the wind and then there's an earthquake and god's not an earthquake and then there's a fire and god's not in the fire but then he was in this still small voice and then the lord speaks to him really elijah why are you here and he replies again dude i just told you and he verbatim copy and paste he says the exact same thing again he's like i've been really zealous okay the israelites are messed up they're killing people or pets heads are falling off and i'm the only one left i am the only christian left and they're trying to kill me too and the lord said to him dude go back to the way you came and go and anoint jehu and and i'm gonna work for you and i'm these good things are gonna happen um i'm gonna work in in israel and then elijah went from there and he went and he found elisha who was plowing and elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him and then elisha left his oxen and ran after elijah and it's just this story of this burnt out prophet who's going god i'm the only christian left and god's like you're hangry you just need to take a nap have eat some food there's seven thousand there's a remnant of seven thousand that have not bowed to me you know what i mean like sometimes we feel so alone here and i mean like god america's going to hell you know like god's like take a nap eat a hot dog there is there's a remnant of seven thousand like jesus jesus is ruling his church right jesus is ruling his church and god's plans will not be thwarted jesus isn't coming back for like some lame blind crippled church he's coming back for a beautiful and glorious bride you hear me the gates of hell will not prevail as in the church is attacking hell and plun and plundering hell that's the biblical vision the vision is not that we're holding on for dear life and it's just like oh we're losing and no the church is going to be beautiful and we just need to continue to okay god i'm here i'm serving you i'm going to continue to eat the food that you have me to eat and eat the word eat your word and and be in your presence and and receive and hear from you lord and but lord i know that i'm not going to get exhausted i'm going to get up and eat i'm going to take a nap and i'm just going to trust that you were going to accomplish the things that you seek to accomplish in your church and in our country in jesus name amen come on let's sing this out me with confidence i am seated in the heavenly place [Music] is [Music] heavenly come on if you're grateful that god has conquered the grave he has conquered this world we have nothing to fear come on can we lift up a fourth of july shadow praise can we please thank pastor nathan pinocchio for preaching for teaching well guys we have ice cream hot dogs games fun fellowship whatever you want to call it our team is going to play here for just a little bit longer if you want to stay worship for a second but why don't you guys head outside our team's going to be opening up the ushers are going to be open up the doors over there happy 4th of july come on guys let's lift up a shadow praise happy fourth of july we love you church have a great rest of your week ice cream out that way hot dogs out that way fun and games out that way god bless you all we'll see you this wednesday night 7 p.m summer pulpit series [Music] in the heavenly place [Music] conquered [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] every wall comes crashing down [Music] [Applause] [Music] down [Music] crashing down [Music] [Applause] is [Music] is oh we hope you guys have a great 4th of july

Channel: Harvest Time Church

Views: 827

Rating: 4.5789475 out of 5

Keywords: Greenwich Connecticut, Nathan Finochio, apologetics

Id: 6D7fl7fF6JQ

Length: 87min 4sec (5224 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 04 2021