Transcript

There’s something about the fact that you’re not standing in front of me that makes me able and willing to do things in communication I would never do if you were in the room. It’s wrong and it’s harming us. And that communication, that form of communication is not just harmful to the person who hears it. It’s harmful to your heart.

So I want to talk with you about being a Christian in the world of social media, whether it’s Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or all of those apps that are out there. There’s a lot of negative talk about social medial in the Christian community and that concerns me a bit; and I will tell you why, from my own personal experience. I think that social media is just like a screwdriver. A screwdriver, you can build beautiful things with, wonderful mechanical things; but you could also stab somebody in the face with it. It’s just a tool and social media is a tool that can be used for enormous good.

About 12 years ago, I realized that the way that the human culture would communicate was going to change and that would be driven by these new internet media platforms. And I immediately thought, “What a powerful tool for the gospel!” One of the first things I did was I decided I would tweet the gospel three times every morning and that began to just build and build and build. And I can honestly say that my entire ministry, the scope of my influence has been changed by those social media platforms. We only ever project gospel messages, gospel messages that attach the truths of the gospel to the things of everyday life. It’s been a tool of enormous good. And in that way, I think we ought to plunder the Egyptians, take what the world has created and use it for the kingdom of God. I think there are powerful ways we can do that.

But I want to share with you my 4 concerns for your consideration. The first is the concern of moral authority. It used to be that there were institutional ways that you would reach a point of authority, like the authority of pastor was because he was recognized by his local church and sent off to seminary,  who would train him well and be ordained by some group, some denomination. And so, he had established a recognized, guarded, accountable authority. Or maybe it was someone who had risen in an educational institution and had gone through degree programs, and established some kind of authority because of that.

But that has all changed. Now, because of the power of social media, anybody can become an authoritative voice, can begin to speak to critically important issues without ever having gone through those normal institutional accountable ways of garnering authority. And I would just ask you the question, “Who are the authoritative voices in your life and how do you know those voices are trustworthy?”

I am saddened again and again by the messages I get from people that they have listened to and submitted to and made part of their life. I had an example of someone who did that with parenting, just found a voice out there and they were excited about this new kind of parenting. And I thought that voice is contradicting everything I would think about that the Bible would enjoin us to do as a parent. Who is this person? How did they get to authority. How did they become an authority in the Christian community?

Be careful. Who are you listening to? Who have become moral authorities in your life, authorities for parenting authorities for marriage, authorities for building relationships, authorities about moral cultural issues? All of a sudden, anybody can rise to a position of authority, collect an audience and begin to have followers. Be careful.

Second thing is I’m concerned about what you’re exposing your heart to. There was a time when you would have to leave your house and go somewhere to expose your heart to the darker parts of the moral world, but that’s not true anymore. They are right there in front of you. You can view horrible things on Instagram. You can real terrible things and expose yourself to terrible things on Twitter. Not everything on Facebook is worth you spending your time with. There’s a huge temptation to start one place and to end up in a place that you would be embarrassed if others knew this is where you were spending your time.

What are you exposing your heart to? What is the impact that it’s having on the way you think about yourself, on the way that you think about life? Where in social media do you go for pleasure? We’re in a completely different world when it comes to how, now, do you guard your heart. How do you keep your thoughts pure? What is it that you expose, not just your physical eyes, but the eyes of your heart, too? This tool that is enormously beneficial for good is also a powerful tool of sin and temptation, and we need to be honest about that. The church is being weakened by that, by the fact that we are now comfortable with exposing ourselves to things that we should have never exposed ourselves to.

There’s a third area and it’s the area of communication. I think particular of Twitter at this point because it’s become a form for this. There is so much unwholesome, ungodly, unhelpful, negative, disrespectful communication that takes place on that platform. You know, the Bible says I should never speak unwholesome communication. Now, by Bible definition, what follows is not a list of four-letter words that you should never speak. It says speak only what is needful for the moment that gives grace to the hearer. In other words, I should always speak in an other-centered way. I want everything I say to result in benefit. Let me say it this way: God’s definition of benefit to the person who is listening.

I wish this horrible communication that is disrespectful and negative and harmful was only outside of the Christian community, but it’s not. I’m amazed, even in the Christian community, the kind of communication that I don’t think we would do face to face. There’s something about the fact that you’re not standing in front of me that makes me able and willing to do things in communication I would never do if you were in the room. It’s wrong and it’s harming us. And that communication, that form of communication is not just harmful to the person who hears it. It’s harmful to your heart. It’s you lowering your standards. It’s you, willing to be part of something that is not honoring to God and not helpful to others.

What is your talk like on social media? How helpful is it to others? How much of it is motivated by love and grace and joy and patience and faithfulness and mercy? How much of it is outside of those standards? How much have you allowed yourself to be part of the outrage culture? You’re just looking for a reason to be angry, looking for something to rip. How about wanting your communication to build people, to encourage people, to motivate them to do what is good, to let them know that they’re loved and not alone? This powerful tool for good can be a powerful tool for evil. How are you using this tool?

And then, there’s the issue of the stewardship of time. I must admit I hate the fact that my time on social media is not logged for me. It can be pretty embarrassing. When I, at the end of the day and I see 3.2 hours and I think, “No, that’s not possible. It’s not possible that I’ve spent that much time.” This world can eat your time and take you away from the things that God has called you to.

There are three areas that God has designed to be the major investments of your time. First is your relationship with Him, that personal, devotional, worshipful time with your Lord. Second is your love of the people in your life, your investment in those relationships. And I would include in that the extended community that is the body of Christ in your church. Those relationships have high, high value in God’s economy. And good relationships are good relationships because the people invest good things in them. Good relationships don’t just happen. They take investment. We are living in a broken world. We are sinners relating to sinners and it takes lots of work, lots of investment to have truly godly, grace-infused relationships.

And third is your life of labor. Even before the entrance of sin in the world, God ordained human beings to work. And so, those three things are the places where I’ve got to invest most of my time and energy. Of course, I need rest. Of course, there are moments of leisure.

Now, here’s how it works. Because I only have 7 days of 24 hours, if something begins to eat up time, it’s got to eat into something else in my life because outside of that 24/7, I don’t have anything. I’ll never get 10 hours, 10 days a week. I’ll never get 30 hours in a day. So if something like social media with all of its attractiveness and all of the clickbait that keeps you coming back, begins to eat up time, it’s got to eat up into priority things that God has called you to invest in. And I think that’s happening. It kills me when I’m in a restaurant and I look at a family, and mom and dad are on their phones, and the two children are huddled in front of an iPad. That’s a wonderful time for a family to be together, for the schedule to stop and for them to actually relate to one another.

I was in a Starbucks recently for worship. That was a joke. And there were five kids sitting next to me. I think they thought they were being together but they were all on their phones and their talk would be by sending something to the person next to them on the phone and they would laugh. And they got done with their phones and they all walked out. And I thought, “What craziness is happening?” Or we were in Australia then. We were at the Blue Mountains, absolutely gorgeous part of God’s creation. And half the people had their backs to the view because they were taking selfies because they couldn’t wait to post themselves on Instagram. I think we’ve gone crazy!

So how are these new platforms eating away at things in your life? You know, do you get up in the morning and the first thing you grab is your phone? And does it occupy more time in your morning than your Bible does, than a good devotional does? Stewardship of time is a bigger issue for us than it’s ever been because of these powerful things that we’re carrying with us all the time.

Now, I’m going to say this again. I actually love social media because I love what it’s done for my ability and my team’s ability to get the gospel to people around the world. I love when I post something that will get a response back in a language I can’t read. It’s amazing to me. I said so the other day that I had sat in my little family room and I had tweeted he gospel three times and by about 12:30, 40,000 people had seen those tweets. What a beautiful thing that is! But that beautiful thing is also a dangerous thing. It’s dangerous in terms of authority. It’s dangerous in terms of what your heart is being exposed to. It’s dangerous in the area of communication. It’s dangerous in the stewardship of time.

May God help us to examine ourselves and to take this tool, and use it for gospel good.

Transcript

I can’t think of a sadder, more heart-rending thing than for a parent to watch your child suffer some physical, mental or emotional disability. It does tear your heart out. Our daughter was walking down the street in Philadelphia several years ago and a drunken, unlicensed driver careened onto the sidewalk and crushed her against the wall. She had massive injuries. If it happened in the suburb, she wouldn’t have made it to the hospital. She was bleeding profusely and internally, had twelve breaks of her pelvis alone.

And when I went into her hospital room, the highest level in intensive care, she’s hanging between life and death at that moment, vital signs out of control. As a dad, I fell apart. And the only thing I could think of doing was to climb up into her bed, put my cheek next to her cheek -- I didn’t know if she was conscious enough -- and say, “Nicole, I’m here, your dad. I love you and I won’t leave until you’re okay.”

Now, by God’s grace, that was a temporary thing and Nicole has recovered quite well. But some of you may be facing things like autism or a physical handicap where it may go on for an extended period of time, may never change. What do you reach for, what do you grab for? I feel the weight of the holiness of this kind of question, and how easy it is to throw a piece of theology and walk away. And I don’t want to do that.

If you would ask me why God would do such a thing in your family, my best biblical answer is I don’t have a clue. But I know things about God and I know things about His plan. Here’s the first thing I would say is God, for our good and His glory, has chosen for us to live in a world this dramatically fallen, broken, not functioning the way that He had intended; and, somehow, some way, that brokenness will enter all of our doors. There’s no indication that the brokenness of the world and all of the harm and danger, disease, whatever, that exist, there’s no indication that as a child of God, I’m given a ticket out of that. I’m not.

In the mystery of God’s plan, He has chosen us to stay in this broken world for an extended period of time. And that brokenness will invade us -- sometimes in the birth of a child, sometimes in the death of a spouse, sometimes in a crippling accident. Suffering is a universal experience of everyone who lives. If you’re not suffering now, you’re near someone who is. And if you’re not suffering now, you will someday. It’s a universal experience. Don’t think that you have been singled out because suffering is a universal experience.

Second, God promises that the way He rules His world will make Him near. I love what it says in Acts 17 that He determines the exact place where we will live and the exact length of our days; and He does that, so that He’s not far from each one of us, so we can reach out and touch Him. It’s the theology of imminent sovereignty. God is close. He’s near. The God who you cry out to for help is near, so at any moment, you can reach Him.

There’s one third thing I would say. The scripture is very clear that God will not call us to a task without enabling us to do it. The grace of God is not just forgiving grace, but it’s right-here-right-now enabling grace. Now, in the huge burden of parenting an autistic child, you could say, “A good God wouldn’t do this,” and walk away. Or you can say, “I don’t understand why God would do this, but everything the Bible says about Him is He’s good and loving and merciful and near. And I can’t handle this by myself. I’m going to run to Him and say, ‘Won’t You meet us in this moment? Won’t You provide for us what we could never provide for ourselves?’”

I’ll encourage you. Don’t bring God into the court of your judgment. That would never go anywhere good. In the mystery of His sovereignty, run to Him and He will meet you and He will provide what you need.

Transcript

One of the things that’s very important when you talk about themes of punishment in scripture, the theme of consequences for sin, the most ultimate of those is hell, is the position from which you examine those themes. Here’s two starting points that will always get you into trouble.

First is the starting point of the centrality of the human being in the biblical story. Human beings are not central. God is central. This is God’s story. I think the most important words in the Bible are the first four words. “In the beginning, God…” If God is on site, if God had created all of this, then everything is His. Everything belongs to Him. Everything is from Him and of Him and through Him. To Him be the glory. That’s Romans 11:36. And so, whatever doctrine I look at, I have to look at it from the centrality of the glory of God, the glory, the holiness, the perfection, the centrality of God. You’ll never ever understand difficult doctrines unless you start there. This is God’s world.

Now, this is where this goes. He has the right to do with this world whatever He wishes because it’s His. If I’m a painter by avocation, when I put my hands to that canvas, it’s my creation. I can do with it whatever I want because it belongs to me and that’s the position of the Creator.

There’s a second starting point that will get you in trouble. It’s the worthiness of the human being, that we are innately, theologians say ontologically, worthy human beings. We deserve good happening to us. And so, if you don’t start with the centrality of God, you get into trouble. And if you start with the worthiness of the human being, you get into trouble. What the Bible declares is that God is central and that we are unworthy.

One of the most shocking passages in all of the Bible is in the Psalms, where it says, “^58:3 The wicked go astray from the womb, speaking lies.” There’s never a moment in my existence where I’m good. There’s never a moment, not my very first breath, where I have God in His rightful place. And so, hell is not this horrible thing that God does to these good people who are in the center of the whole thing. That’s not what it is. Hell is actually the rightful state of everyone who has ever been born because everyone who was ever born rejects and rebels against the One who is central.

So I don’t actually struggle with the doctrine of hell. I struggle with, “How could it ever be that I would be freed from that?’ How could there be mercy this great? How could there be grace this huge? How could it be possible that people who shake their fists in the face of the One who is central could have His arms of love wrapped around them and spend eternity in His presence? How could that ever be? That’s crazy to me, but for the cross of Jesus Christ.

Hell isn’t crazy to me. It’s sad. We should not want for anybody to ever be in hell, but it makes sense to me. God’s mercy given to me makes no sense except for the sacrifice, the payment of Jesus. That’s how I handle the doctrine of hell.

Transcript

So I can’t answer this question about Christians and yoga without putting it in its theological context and that is the theology of God’s common grace. Every human being experiences God’s grace everyday. Because God loves us, because He’s a God of tender, faithful mercy, He allows bad people to do good things, fallen people to make wise contributions, so that life would be livable for us.

Let me give you one of the clearest examples of common grace that we all experience: that selfish people, who don’t love God, have no reason to do anything else but love themselves, generally, are willing to obey traffic laws. You know, if God would remove His grace, the most dangerous thing you could ever do is get in a car and drive, but God restrains us. God gives a surgeon, who repudiates the Lord, the ability to discover things in the human body that bring healing to thousands and thousands of people. So, I’m always going to be in this tension where I will need the wisdom of people. I will be blessed by the wisdom of people who don’t love God, who don’t serve Him, who don’t know Him, who, in their lives, believe things that are not true.

So it is with yoga. Yoga is two things. It’s [an] errant philosophy and it’s something really healthy you can do with your body; and you just have to be able to distinguish the difference and I can tell you how I would do that. I think it’s very important, when you have young children, for those young children to be regularly examined by your most often unbelieving pediatrician. He is skilled and at the science of human development. He knows what should be happening in the bodies of those children in their physical and mental capacities; and he’s going to be very helpful to you. But I would not look to that physician for parenting help because that pediatrician doesn’t have a biblical model for parenting and he’s not going to offer me the kind of counsel that I need.

So I can benefit from the physical regimen of yoga, because that stretching of the muscle system can be a very healing and health-giving thing, without buying into the philosophy of people who designed that system. God is willing to give them wisdom about things in the human body for the betterment of our lives.

And so, that’s what you’re always doing. You’re always matriculating this world. That is an example of God’s common grace, discerning when you can participate and when you must withdraw. And that’s just not a yoga thing. That’s [an] everyday thing for all of us.

Transcript

I’ve been to South Korea many times and in one of my trips to Seoul, I was in a conversation with a pastor who had been in the United States for four years and doing a doctoral program, and had just arrived back in Korea to continue his work as a pastor. And I asked him how his return was. He said something I will never forget. He said, “I’ve come back to a culture I do not know and I do not understand.”

I think that’s an experience of many believers in our culture. There has been such a rapid change in our culture that often, I feel like I’m living in this world that I don’t understand anymore. People have said, “I feel like I’m attending some other family’s family reunion and I don’t get the culture and I don’t get the language.”

There have been massive changes, particularly, very rapid in the last ten years. Most of that, driven by a social media form of communication, where communication is constant and it’s instant, where the entire world is available to us, where we know what everybody’s thinking,  from no-name individuals to people of tremendous influence, where everybody has a voice; and the den of that conversation can be very distracting and very confusing.

We carry in our pockets and in our purses these communication tools that have dramatic power to inform us, to distract us, to confuse us. I believe when Steve Jobs made the decision not to hand us a phone, but to hand us a screen, the world changed and, perhaps, we’ll never be the same again. It’s had a seismic effect on the way that we think, the way that we live our lives and the things that we carry around inside of us.

Just some examples, there’s been a massive change in the use of language. There’s been a coarsening of our language. Terms regularly used in public and in conversation that would have once never been used are changing the way that we use language. As a culture, we can’t even decide what pronouns to use for people anymore. And so, language is an important thing and that rapid change of language is confusing and threatening.

Just the whole way human sexuality is viewed has dramatically changed from its presence in advertising to the domination of erotica on the internet. The presence and role of human sexuality is dramatically different than it was 50 years ago.

Our whole conversation about gender. There was not a conversation 20 years ago. Gender was an assumption and we all understood what we meant when we talked of a man and a woman and we used gender terms; and that’s dramatically different as well.

Marriage and family. All of a sudden, you can’t use the word, “family,” and expect everybody is going to have the same mental picture that you have because now, there are a variety of definitions of what a family is.

The general sense of morality as a culture. There was a time when you could make moral assumptions that you thought everybody else carried as well, but that’s all been blown up and we’re in a very, very different place.

And again, all of this change is made even more rapid by our ability to communicate about these things, to interact with these things that advances the conversation very quickly and can make you feel like you’re an alien in your own world.

So I want to think with you, how do you live as a Christian in this world gone crazy? And I want to start by this. It’s very, very important that you understand your position as a conservative, Bible-believing Christian in the cultural setting that we’re now in.

And let me say it this way. If you would go back, maybe even 50 years, surely 75 years, the church was a center culture institution. Pastors were generally expected. The church was generally understood. There was some kind of sense in the culture of the general elements of a Christian worldview.

Now, when you’re the center of the culture, you can assume that people get you. They understand what you’re about. They understand what you think. They understand what you believe and you can assume common language. And that’s actually a very helpful, very easy place to be. It’s a very comfortable place to live where you know the people around you, they may not believe everything you, but they get you. They get your language. They get what you stand for. You are a normal part of that cultural community and that cultural functioning.

It’s very important to understand the church is not a center culture community anymore. We’re a fringe culture community. We’re on the edges of the culture now. We haven’t moved our position. The culture has massively moved, which has de-positioned us to a different place. And when you’re a fringe culture community, you are generally misunderstood. People don’t get you. They don’t get what you’re about. They don’t carry your assumptions; and what you stand for and the way that you stand for it is generally misunderstood.

Here’s an example. It seems horrific to most people out there that you would ever care about who marries who. “Just let people marry whoever they want and let them be happy. Why do you have to be such a bigot?” That’s because the rootedness of that concern is no longer understood by the culture that we live in because the culture has little understanding of the content of the Bible and, surely, almost no allegiance anymore to the basic elements of a Judeo-Christian worldview; and so, we’re misunderstood.

Fringe communities – this is important – are generally threatening because we are a threat to the general assumptions now of the culture because we don’t carry those assumptions. Assumptions about marriage, assumptions about sexuality, assumptions about gender, assumptions about morality. We are in a very, very different place and so, we are looked at as a threat, rather than a wholesome help, people who love and serve.

So you need to realize in your relationships and in your communication with your neighbors, your fellow workers that you don’t have the comfort anymore of being a center culture community. You’re a fringe culture community and that should shape the care by which you present yourself, the care by which you communicate because you’re now speaking from the fringe into a culture that doesn’t understand you and often sees you as a threat. That’s the first thing. Know your position.

Second thing, know your job description. This is really important. There are two passages of scripture that I find incredibly helpful. One is just from the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus basically disciples the basic elements of a gospel-centered worldview and their marching orders.

And, fairly, in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount is this. I love this. “Let your light so shine before men, before people that they see your good works your Father who is in heaven.” Now, what we often do, and I think there’s biblical reason for doing this, but it misunderstands this passage. The minute we hear “let your light so shine before men,” we think of the biblical connection between light and truth and we think that’s a call to be truth-tellers.

It’s actually a call about the manner of your life. It’s live in such a way that your life is attractive; that your life speaks the content of the gospel; that you’re known, not because you’re against gay marriage and have a different view of gender. What you’re most powerfully known for is this is a gracious, loving, kind, humble person, that your life attracts people. Wouldn’t it be great if you are a person that would be hard to get mad at because you’ve been so kind and so patient and so loving and so willing to serve, and so gracious in even the ways that you talk about the hardest of issues? We should be the most attractive community on earth. People should say, “I hate what those people believe, but I love those people. I wish I could hang with people like those people.” That’s our job description.

Peter says it in a different way. In 1 Peter, he’s writing to people who are misunderstood. He’s writing to people who are suffering and he says this. “^3:13 Now, who is there to harm you if you’re zealous for what is good? ¹⁴ But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them nor be troubled, ¹⁵ but in your hearts, honor Christ as Lord, as holy; always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asked you for the reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect, ¹⁶ having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.”

That’s an amazingly helpful passage of scripture. I love the picture of being ready to give an answer for someone who asked you the hope that’s within you. Now, think of what is being described there. You have lived in such a positive, hopeful, loving, attractive way, that the person watching you is asking inside, “What makes this guy tick? What makes him respond the way he responds? There’s something positive in this person that I’d like to know about.”

Man, I would like to be that kind of person. I would like to be a person who, generally, is misunderstood, is seen as a bit of a threat, but there’s something that’s deep inside of me that people want to get at and want to talk about.

Now, why is that important? Well, here it is. If I have two people that I need to talk to and I know that I need to share with them the hardest thing they could ever hear. And know this, the gospel is horrible, bad news before it’s good news. And if you don’t accept the bad news, the good news won’t attract you.

So I have to tell these two people this horrible, bad news. And one of them misunderstands me and is threatened by me and is threatened by me, is afraid of me. And the other one deeply believes in his heart that I love him. He’s experienced my kindness, my gentleness, my patience, my willing to sacrifice my comfort for his good.

Now, listen to the question. Which person is predisposed to listen to my message? It’s not hard to answer. It’s the person that knows I love them. That’s why the job description that’s given in Matthew 5 and 1 Peter 3 is very important for us. Your means of having a voice in this crazy culture, of breaking down the misconceptions is not first your message. It’s your life. Your life will give an opportunity to speak in this culture the message that’s so important because you have to break down those misconceptions. Break down that misunderstanding and you do that by living a life that is attractive to those around you.

The next thing I would say is stay informed. It doesn’t take a whole lot to stay informed. Know the movement of your culture. Understand those changes and then push what your cultural competency through the word of God. And I would just encourage you, get up on the internet and find some good Christian thinkers that are regularly interacting with culture.

One of those I would mention is Al Mohler. Al Mohler does a wonderful podcast everyday, where he pushes culture issues through a biblical lens. It’s wonderfully helpful and you’ll find it encouraging and informative. Be informed because this is the culture you’re called to serve. This is the culture you’re called to minister to. You’re called to be a light in this culture and you want to understand the culture that’s around you.

I think of it this way, that we're called to this two-sided hermeneutic. Hermeneutics is the science of interpretation. On one side, because I love God, I want to be an adequate interpreter of the word of God, so I can understand His true meaning. But because I am called to love people, I want to be a skilled interpreter of people, so I can understand who they are and why they function the way they function. And those two come together, I need that biblical hermeneutic and that people hermeneutic in order to have any ministry in the culture in which I live.

Now, that takes work and you need, we all need to be committed to be students, students of the world that we live in and students, even more importantly, of the word of God. Never think you have learned enough. Never think that you know enough. Read good books. There are wonderful books out there that are analyzing the shifts in our culture. I myself find them enormously helpful. There are books on what's going on in our culture and sexuality and gender, and how to properly relate to and handle social media, and how to live in this adversarial, political landscape.

There's a wonderful Christian writing going on. Read good books. Listen to good thinking leaders and then, study the word of God. Be grounded, so that, although at times you feel like alien, you're not confused. You know who you are. You know what your culture is about. You know how to understand your culture biblically and you're prepared for those moments when the attractiveness of your life has given you an opportunity now to speak into the life of somebody, and give an explanation and defense for why you stand for what you stand for.

The final thing I would say is run to the body of Christ. Life in an alien culture is a community project. You aren't hardwired to do this on your own and there'll be moments when it's terribly discouraging. It's awful to be called a bigot when you know you don't have a bigoted heart. It's awful to be mocked. It's hard to be in a workplace where you're not treated the same way as everybody else because of what you stand for. It's hard to say no when people don't understand why you're saying no.

So we need the comfort and encouragement of the body of Christ. We need its insight. We need its love. We need the training that can be found there. We need the strengthening that can be found there. Don't go it alone. If you're a parent, there are all kinds of cultural minefields that you're going to have to walk through with your children. How about talking to other people about how they're negotiating those things? Don't be afraid to admit failure. Don't be afraid to admit ignorance or weakness.

The best methodology for getting the best out of the body of Christ is humility. Don't put on a front. Don't act like things are okay. Don't post happy family Facebook, Instagram posts when your family isn't happy and you're fighting with your kids over cultural things that they don't understand and you're trying to understand. Talk to other people about how they're dealing with work and work relationships in the midst of massive cultural changes, how they're relating to the gay couple that may live next door to them. So take advantage of the body of Christ. Make sure you're regularly under good, sound, practical, heart-transforming gospel preaching.

I love Sunday mornings. I love Sunday mornings for the worship because I can be an identity amnesiac. I can forget who I am and that worship service, once again reminds, me of the glories and the security and the peace and rest and hope that's found in being a child of God. I love sitting under good preaching, and the way it directs me and convicts me and reorients me.

And be ready to confess the way that the massive change in our culture has made you more timid than you ought to be and more silent than you ought to be and maybe, more fearful than you ought to be. Be ready to be at places where you have drifted with the culture and, maybe, you have let things into your life that you would have, maybe, ten years ago, not let into your life.

Be ready to admit that maybe the hours everyday on social media overwhelm the hours of personal study, personal devotion, personal worship; then, maybe you shouldn't be enslaved to your phone. Maybe there has even been a moral drift inside of you that's a result of the powerful pull of your culture. For all these things, find the help and encouragement, the insight, the strengthening, the comfort, the training of the body of Christ.

You see, it's not an accident in the plan of God that we live where we live. Between the "already" of our conversion and the "not yet" of our home-going, God has chosen this to be our address. Don't think there's a massive mistake. This moment isn't in the way of God's plan. It's part of God's plan for you and He's placed you where He's placed you for His glory and for your good.

Be thankful that you can stand as a child of God in this moment; that you actually, by grace, know right from wrong; that you know life-altering truths; that you have been rescued by grace; and that the domination of sin over you has been broken by the cross of Jesus Christ, so you're no longer a slave to things that enslave other people; and that you are regularly being directed, transformed, protected and delivered by grace.

You don't have to be afraid, but you need to be informed, and you need to know your place. And you need to know how important it is for you to break down those misconceptions, not just by speaking the gospel, but by living a beautiful gospel life with all of its love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and self-control. Who wouldn't want to live next door to such a person. Be the neighbor that everyone in your building or everyone in your block talks about, not because you're against everything, but because of the kind of person that you are.

Be hospitable. You got a backyard? Do neighborhood barbecues. Have fun with your neighbors. Mow the grass for the elderly woman down the street. Have play dates with your neighbor's kids. Be part of the life of your community, reflecting the beautiful character of the gospel that's yours because of grace.

Don't look down on people because what you have, you didn't earn and you could have never deserved. You've been given it by grace. And reflect the love that you have received. Don't forget who you are. Don't forget what you've been given. Nobody gives grace better than a person who's deeply persuaded that he needs it himself. And let that manner of living be a platform to begin to have conversations and answer questions in a culture that so desperately needs the truth of creation-fall-redemption and the beautiful hope that can be found in the forgiving and transforming mercy of the Savior that has placed you where you are right now.

This is our moment because we have what the world needs. Understand your position. Understand your job description and live with courage and hope and joy; and watch what God will do.

Transcript

So I want to put this question of one-to-one discipleship in its big context. So on Sunday morning, in the gathered worship of the church and in preaching, we experience the formative discipline of the church that so together, we’re all formed with the same theological gospel worldview foundation. That’s getting us all on the same theological gospel tracks.

In the small group and in one on one discipleship, you have the corrective discipline of the church. Now, here’s what happens.  In the small group and in individual discipleship, you have that formative foundation, now applied in correcting ways to my individual life. We do that together with the small group. That gets a little more intimate. It’s a little more personal and correction takes place there.

But the most intimate of those is the one on one, where it’s a person with a person. This person now is getting to know me, getting to know me at heart level, seeing the gaps of my understanding of the things of God and the inconsistency of my living. In its most powerful, that one on one discipleship is able to identify the contradiction between my confessional theology and my functional theology. That’s what discipleship is about, so that I would function in the way that is consistent with what I say I actually believe. I’m learning how to live as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, you can’t argue that I need one of these in my life. That, “Man, if I’m just faithful on Sunday, I’ve got it nailed,” because each one of these contributes an element that is needed in the life of every believer. We all need that formative foundation. We all need corrective and protecting relationships. And we all need discipleship, which brings our living into more consistent commonality with our theology.

All those are God’s gifts to us. All those are necessary and all of those together are needed to contribute to a life of long-tern spiritual health and fruitfulness.

Transcript

I think the reason small groups are important is although corporate is terribly important, it doesn’t provide for me everything I need as a child of God on my pilgrimage. That journey between the “already” of my conversion and the “not yet” of my home-going, that journey is through a deeply fallen world that does not operate the way God intended. And that journey is me still struggling with the remaining presence of sin.

Here’s the function of the small group. I have come to understand and I believe that scripture  clearly teaches that my walk with God is a community project. I need hands on me and one of the clear reasons I need that is the dynamic of spiritual blindness. Sin blinds and guess who it blinds first? I have no trouble seeing the sin of  my wife, my kids and my children, but I can be surprised when mine is pointed out.

And so, as long as sin lives inside of me, there will be pockets of spiritual blindness. I would like to think that no one knows me better than I know myself, but that’s a delusion because there are inaccuracies in the way I view myself, so I need a company of people that I hang with regularly that get to know me. They get to know my strengths and weaknesses and who know the themes of my struggle, that hear things about my marriage and my parenting or whatever, where the application of the word of God, the ministry of the word of God becomes even more personal, more intimate.

I love Colossians 3:12-17. It talks about the body of Christ and it says, “¹⁵ Let the peace of Christ rule your hearts.” That’s people who are getting their identity vertically and not horizontally. “¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” That means you’re a student of the word of God. Now, listen to this. “So that you can teach and admonish one another.”

This is not written to pastors. This is written to the whole body of Christ. Teaching means, “I need people who will help me think about life biblically in places where I’m not.” Admonishment means, “I need people to help me to see myself with biblical accuracy, so change would take place.” And so, the purpose of the small group is that that more personal teaching and admonishing that is meant to be the function of the body of Christ would take place.

I have those people in my life that have been near me and have heard me and seen me operate, who can now speak with greater wisdom into me. That’s a gift. That’s a blessing. That deeper intimacy, you will not find in the larger gathering of the church. I think that gathering is terribly important and I’ve said that already, but I think you could go there and be virtually unknown. The small group is where the church is shrunk and continues to do in a more personal, intimate way the things that the church is meant to do because every one of us, for all of us, our walk with God is a community project.

Transcript

Well, I can tell you for sure, Paul Tripp loves Sunday morning. I love the anticipation of that drive to Epiphany Fellowship in the northern part of the center of Philadelphia. I love what I’m going to get there and I love it because I know I need it. I need two things that are so important, such an important part of corporate worship. I need to be taught again and again and again. I need the biblical story applied to my story, so I live with a God-story mentality.

Now, I need more than just abstract teaching. What I love about the teaching in the church is I’m taught by a pastor who is with us, who walks long-term with us, who knows us, who can speak those truths with a specificity to people that he knows and he loves. And there’s a tenderness and compassion and a passion for us to get that because he lives with us. I don’t think anything replaces pastoral preaching. Books don’t replace that. The internet doesn’t replace that. Conferences [don’t] replace that. I know I’m loved by him. He speaks out of that love. We are known to him and that pastoral preaching is a beautiful thing.

I need corporate worship. I need to be reminded of the truths of the gospel in that worship. But I need something else. I need to hear my brothers and sisters sing the gospel into my ears. I need my dull heart awakened by their voices again. There are times in corporate singing where tears will fill my eyes because I hear my brothers and sisters singing those truths that are my life. Truths that I can be distracted by and forget I’m like everybody else. I drag into Sunday morning service, all the cares and frustrations and trials of life. I have an easily distracted and forgetful heart. I can be identity-amnesiac.

It’s a beautiful thing to hear brothers and sisters sing truth into my ears and to watch my heart get awakened once again. You need corporate worship. You need pastoral preaching. You need corporate singing. You need that and those are things you’ll never get by yourself. Those are elements of what God has designed his church. You should be there on Sunday morning and you should be there again and again and again. You need it and so do I.

Transcript

Well, I want to discuss with you what in our culture has become an important topic and a point of question for many, many believers. And I don’t know how else to set this up other than saying the question says, “Okay, how do I relate to my gay neighbor? How do I relate to this person who’s living this lifestyle that I believe the scripture is very clear in saying it’s outside of the boundaries of God’s plan for human beings? It’s wrong. How do I have a neighborly kind of relationship with these people that are now living next door to me?” And I want to start with the negative before I talk about he positive because I think there are mistakes that we make that need to be addressed.

First, I would say it this way. It’s wrong to treat anyone with prejudice because of a single sin. Now, think with me. Who could live under that standard? If you took the thing that I struggle with the most and I want you to understand, Paul Tripp is not yet sin-free. Paul Tripp is still susceptible to temptation. I still have areas of weakness that are struggles for me more than other areas. Know this, we all sin, but we all don’t sin the same. We don’t all have the same struggles.

How horrible would it be for me if because of that one single area of my sin, you discounted me completely. You shunned me. You were horribly awkward and uncomfortable around me. You didn’t know how to talk. You didn’t know what to say. You didn’t treat me with the common sort of normal cultural things you do with everybody else.

How weird and hurtful and threatening would that be? But that’s often what happens to us with this issue. We have a level of prejudice. We have a level of awkwardness that is just wrong. I think it’s wrong also to sort of name a person by their area of sin and sort of walk away. “Well, he’s a homosexual,” and that sort of is a summary document of everything about that person. No, we don’t say, “He’s a greed,” and walk away. Or, “He’s a glutton,” and that’s a summary definition of everything in that person’s life. But we tend to give ourselves the liberty to do this in this particular area.

There’s a second thing and this is going to take a longer discussion. And I want to take you to places where, maybe, you’ll be uncomfortable. Maybe you’ll come to understand things that you haven’t yet understood. It’s wrong to view any human being as a single sin on two legs because human beings are dramatically more complicated than that.

God, in the glory of His created majesty, created complicated, multi-faceted, multi-dimensional human beings. It’s hard ever to properly capture the dynamics of a single human being in a single sentence because we’re more layered than that. We’re more multi-faceted than that. Think of spiritual growth. It’s possible to be mature in one area and immature in another because of the multi-faceted nature of the way God’s created us.

And so, even spiritual growth isn’t a single thing. It’s a variety of things. And so, I may have really grown to be a generous person, but I’m really impatient. That means I’ve matured in one area and I’m still quite immature in another area. So you have to understand that complicated nature of human beings, but in order to understand how to relate to this gay neighbor, you have to understand the theology of common grace.

Now, common grace means that everyday, God pours out His grace on all of humanity. The sun shines on us all. The rain nourishes our earth. Plants grow. Animals feed us. Culture enhances us. All of that is the goodness of God. It’s God’s providing and restraining grace.

Take traffic, for example. If you took just what’s in the heart of most human beings (“I’m the center of my world and all I care is what I want and I couldn’t give a rip about the person next to me. And I want to get to where I want to get to as fast as I can get to.”), you would think the most dangerous thing you could ever participate in is ever getting in a car; you’d have to be a complete idiot. But everyday, self-centered people are restrained by God’s common grace.

And so, what that means [is] that God’s common grace is nqot just His exercising a corporate restraint and provision because He’s a God of mercy, and He loves us, and He wants our life to be able to work, and He wants us to enjoy things that we never earned or never deserved just because He is good; so I get to see the lily and I get to hear the music. But His common grace is individual. That grace allows people, who don’t love Him and aren’t serving Him, to do good things, to create good things, to be kind, to be gentle, to be respectful, to care about important things.

One of the sweetest, kindest, gentlest, most loving men that Luella and I know is a gay man. We love being around him. He’s always encouraging. He’s always interested in our life. He always asks us how things are going. He’s welcoming and hospitable. He’s kind. He’s a guy who, if he saw you shivering, would take off his jacket and hand it to you.

Now, for me to recognize that is not to endorse his lifestyle, but it just means I quit being prejudiced because I recognized that this man can’t be defined by a single thing. Don’t treat your gay neighbor as if his gayness robs him of the rest of his humanity and you don’t need to treat him like you would treat any other human being. That’s not the nature of sin and denies the common grace of God that allows us to live in a human community and not be constantly under threat. Why does God’s grace restrain? Because He loves us. Today, God’s mercy will rain on all of us because none of us could sustain His judgment. And that’s everybody. Everybody is object of God’s mercy.

Third thing I would say is we need to stop asking the law to do what only grace will accomplish. There is a role for God’s law. We should not be law-haters. We should be law-lovers, but we need to understand the function of God’s law. God’s law does a beautiful job of exposing sin. Paul says, “If it were not for the law, I would not know wrong.” God’s law is a wonderful guide for your everyday life.

When Israel came out of captivity, they had not a clue how to live. And so, God brought them to the base of Mount Sinai and He gave His people His law. That giving of he law was itself a grace. These were already people He had chosen. These are already people He had redeemed. He was now telling those people how to live.

But here’s what you need to understand. The law has no power whatsoever to rescue or transform a person’s heart. It’s only the grace of God that can do that and so, you want to lead, in your relationship with your neighbor, with the gospel. You want to hear the law, not thrown as a grenade from a distance in an act of judgment and condemnation, walking away. You want the law always to be wrapped in the context of the transforming power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ because what needs to happen inside of that heart of that person will never happen by the function of the law. It will only happen by the operation of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I am going to say what I said before in another podcast. Lead with love. Be known, not as a judge, but as a loving friend, as someone who is ready to serve, ready to give, ready to help, ready to care. Make your relationship with that gay person attractive. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this person knew what you stood for, but was comfortable in your presence because of the way you responded to them, loved hanging around with you, knew your moral convictions, but knows that you won’t judge them and walk away and shun them from that point on? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our churches were places where gay people could come and hear the gospel, and we would love them?

Now, here’s what you need to understand. Love and truth are not in opposition. They’re not opposing forces. You don’t have to compromise truth in order to love someone who needs truth. If you look at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is actually love and truth that kiss on the cross. God would not compromise what is right and true in order to bring us into relationship with Him. That’s why Jesus needed to die.

And so, you don’t have to be afraid that living a life of love is compromising truth. In fact, the biblical methodology is “speaking the truth in love”. It’s truth speaking in the context of a wholesome, loving relationship. And so, these are two things that God has given us that are meant to work in cooperation with one another.

I’ve headed at this, but I want to say more about it. Be helpful and hospitable with all of your neighbors, but particularly, with everyone who you would tend to be prejudiced against and they would tend to be threatened by you. Look for ways to serve. Look for ways to be generous. Be generous with your time. Be generous with your money. Be generous with the skills that you have in your life. Be generous.

Listen. The Bible is a generosity story captured by the words, “For God so loved the world that He [You know the next word? He] gave…” He gave the most important gift that could ever be given, the most precious gift that He could ever give. It’s really the gift of Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. So be a giving, serving person. Be hospitable. You want to break down threat. You want to open up opportunities. Invite people into your house with their feet under your table, eating food you have lovingly prepared. It is disarming.

There was, several years ago, a debate that took place at the University of Pennsylvania between a man who represented what was then called the Urban Family Council. It was put together to protect the sanctity of the family. The debate was with the leader of ACT UP. ACT UP was the most politically aggressive of the gay rights group. And the moderator of the debate asked this question, first of the man who represented the Urban Family Council.

“If your daughter came home one night and said, “Dad, I have to talk to you. I’m a lesbian. I’m no longer going to hide this. I’m going to live that lesbian lifestyle. I’m going to do it without shame. And I don’t know what I think about what you believe, but I’m not going to honor your moral convictions.”

The moderator said, “What would you do?” The leader of the Urban Family council said, “I would get up. I would walk across the room. I would throw my arms around mg daughter and say, ‘I love you. You’re welcomed in our home because you are out daughter. There’s nothing that you could ever do that would make me love you less. I will love you to the day I die. I love you. You’re my daughter.’” He turned to the leader of ACT UP and he said, “Do you have a response?” And he pointed over to the guy he was debating with and he says, “I wish that man was my father.”

That’s the gospel. That’s the manner of life that we were called to live. Now, that man was in a debate. He had made the truth that he believed clear. But in that example, he pictured the power of gospel love and disarmed this aggressive man who was arguing for another lifestyle. Now, did that man make a radical change in his life? Not that moment, but those two men were going to have a conversation because walls have fallen down in this moment of love.

Well, a couple of other things. Always speak truth as someone who needs it. Don’t stand above anybody. You have been rescued by truth. You are being rescued by truth. You will be rescued by truth. Moral arrogance is horribly unattractive. Humble awareness of how you’ve been rescued by truth is way more attractive. Always speak with the knowledge that you need everything you’re saying. Don’t look down on people. Don’t speak down at people. Don’t act as if you’re a grace graduate, when you are in desperate need of grace.

Remember that no matter how long you walk with Jesus, if you did it for a thousand years, you would need grace the next day as much as you needed it the first day that you believed. And what that does is your awareness, your admission of your need of grace softens and tenderizes your heart towarda people who need grace. It’s self-righteousness that enables me to be prejudiced and condemning.

It’s only when you think you’re a law-keeper that you use the law to condemn other people. And it’s when you understand that you can’t even keep your own standards, let alone God’s standards, that you want the same grace that you received to be received by others in your life.

That just reminds you that you, too, are a rebel rescued by grace. You don’t like to be told what to do. You don’t like to be told how to do it. You don’t like to be told that you’re wrong. You don’t like it when people disagree with you. You don’t like it when people question the way you live. You still have a bit of a rebel heart in you and you should understand the person that looks at the call of God and just thinks, “It’s crazy. I don’t want to do this.”

There are times in the life of every believer, where you fall into thinking that you’re smarter than God. If you’re a husband and you’re yelling at your wife, and you think that’s going to be okay, you’re thinking at that moment that you’re smarter than God. And what God says is not okay and won’t turn out okay, you’re convinced will be okay.

If you’re yanking your child down the hallway and slamming him into a chair in an act of socially acceptable Christian violence; and you think that child will still respect you and love you, when everything that the Bible says is that is crushing to the heart of that child, you’re a rebel and you think that you’re smarter than God.

If you’re looking at websites you shouldn’t look at and you’re a Christian; and you think that won’t pollute you and won’t enslave you, you’re a rebel and you’re thinking you’re smarter than God, and you know better, and you can control this thing, and it will turn out better.

There are moments where we share identity, more identity, we would think, with people that we would condemn and be prejudiced against because we still are not free of the rebel spirit within us. How about remembering that you’re a rebel, rescued and restrained, not by your righteousness, but by the power of a Redeemer and move out toward people who are living in ways that you know are wrong with that kind of humility? Humble people are just way more attractive. Humble people are less threatening. Humble people make good neighbors. Humble people say hard things in humble ways, giving them a chance to be understood. And know that the sin that grips your neighbor is not the one that you struggle with, but you still struggle.

Maybe impatience is wreaking havoc on your marriage. Maybe greed is eating up your budget. Maybe long-held anger is harming relationships. Live as a person who needs grace with people who need grace. And don’t ever write a person off because of a single sin in their life. Know that people are more complicated than that. Know that God’s grace allows people to be contradictions, where this person is embracing something that’s bad, but they do good and kind things that just, again, preaches the presence of God and His mercy and His grace.

And know the power of love. It is the most powerful force of transformation in the universe. And be generous with your time, your money, your skill. And know the power of hospitality. Bring people into your life, whose lifestyle you would reject. Cook for them. Entertain them. And again, as you do that, you give room for God to do in those relationships what He alone can do. Know your limits. You have no power to change anyone. Lasting change in a person’s heart is always the work of grace. Live as an instrument of that grace and watch that grace operate.