Live Free with Josh Howerton - Is the Church FORCING Religion in Schools? | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

What if your biggest questions about faith, culture, and the future were all connected to something ancient—yet incredibly relevant? Join Pastors Josh Howerton, Carlos Erazo, and Tim Smith as they dive deep into the city of Corinth, uncovering its wild spiritual landscape and the surprising ways it mirrors our modern world. From the powerful symbolism of the Bema Seat to the tension between God's sovereignty and our free will, this conversation uncovers the richness of Acts 18, Paul's ministry, and the doctrine of predestination. Along the way, they explore the impact of Christian nationalism, religious liberty, and perspectives from Charlie Kirk and Texas Governor Greg Abbott—wrapped in grace, wisdom, and good humor. This one is packed with both spiritual depth and cultural insight… because yes, there is more.   👍 Like, Comment, & Subscribe for more life-changing podcasts! 🔔 Turn on notifications so you never miss an update!📝 SHOW NOTES Subscribe now to receive the show notes directly in your inbox with each new episode. These notes are filled with key insights and scripture to help you reflect and grow deeper in your faith – https://lakepointe.church/shownotes 👇 DON’T MISS OUT! Want to make a difference? Join a Serve Team and see how your unique gifts can impact others while growing in faith and community! https://lakepointe.church/serve/ Looking for an unforgettable summer experience? United Camp offers adventure, activities, and opportunities to grow closer to God with separate camps for each grade level: 7th-8th grade (May 30-June 3) and High School (June 26-30)—don’t miss out! https://lp.social/camp  Get ready for a fun-filled week at KidQuest! For kids who completed Kindergarten-2nd grade, June 10-12 will be packed with games, activities, worship, and Bible lessons to help your child create lasting memories, build friendships, and grow closer to God! Find all the details here – https://lp.social/kidquest ⛪ ABOUT LAKEPOINTE CHURCH:We believe that Lakepointe is a movement for all people to Know God, Find Freedom, Discover their Calling, and Make a Difference. With 6 DFW locations and programs for all ages, there's something for everyone.  🤝 Support this ministry and help us reach more people with the Gospel: https://lakepointe.church/give  STAY CONNECTED:🌐 Website: https://lakepointe.church/👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lpconnect/📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lpconnect 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lakepointechurch   🎧 LISTEN ON THE GO! ▶️ Live Free on Spotify / https://open.spotify.com/show/353ryGdZNlebaiqkCcy3Yc▶️ Live Free on Apple Podcasts / https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/live-free-with-josh-howerton/id1669321198

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton. We're so glad you're here. Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And this weekly podcast is all about helping you do just that. Each episode is a deep dive into the Word of God, tackling life, culture, and faith with truth and clarity so you can be equipped to live free in Christ.

Thanks for tuning in. And be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and follow us on all our social platforms to stay connected to everything happening with Live Free. Now, let's dive into today's episode. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Erasm. I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Pastor Tim Smith. I'm going to look up.

How many episodes are we at right now? That's a great question. I should definitely know this every time. This is number 25, according to Arthur and the team in the back. Hey, Arthur, well done. Episode 25, man. Shout out Arthur. Of the Live Free Podcast.

Quarter Century. Hey, by the way, I just learned this this week. Apparently, our combination of YouTube views and streams for audio, we have surpassed over 300,000 already. That's pretty awesome. So, man, thank you everybody for subscribing. Really, seriously, that's amazing. That's huge. I mean, it's been, what, six months?

Carlos, you're so famous. Yeah, that's about you. Carla, everywhere Carlos goes, the whole internet's like, I want to look at that guy. It's not me and Tim. Your Instagram page grew a little bit last year. That was because of you. You went from 30, was it 30K to like, what, half a million? You oversee it.

You're the one. Something like that. Something like that's literally for everybody. Like I wasn't messing with it up. I didn't know what I was doing. And Carlos walked in a meeting. He was like, hey, man, you should do these reels. They seem to be working.

It's quite, you know. And then the first one, I didn't. was the Christian nationalism one, which we're going to talk about in this podcast. We're going to go there. Hey, but before, shout it to the people that have downloaded the show notes

on each episode. Now almost 750 plus people. Let's go. About to hit 1,000. And thank you so much for that. So any highlights, Bible verses, any fun facts from this episode, you can have that in writing

so you can go to lake point. That church slash show notes. And also, by the way, I also learned this. 60% of people that tune in on YouTube to the live free podcast, they have not subscribed yet. So, potential there.

Pastor Tim, would you please, you know, without authority and humility of yours, let us know, tell them that we need to subscribe. Man, the powers in the show notes, man. You can follow up. That 60% is going to, like, go down to, like, 20% now after that. Just without one thing right there? That's it. It was an anointed call to action.

I felt it. Episode 25 is when it all changed. We'll look back on this moment. We'll look back on this moment. Josh, tell me what's going to? on in the church these things. Bro, okay. Two huge things.

We launched first ever Laypoint College Night. It was like, as of this recording this, it was like just a few nights ago and went amazing from what I saw. That's amazing. I was home playing Settlers

at Catan with my kids before Eliana goes to youth camp, but the pictures looked awesome. That's amazing. So LP College Nights, and then, which we obviously just mentioned,

we got 3,000 people going to student camps in the next few weeks. Wow. Insane. In fact, I'll show, pull up that picture of me and Eliana. You pull that up. So this is like, this is a, Eliana is just a smidge.

Yeah, that's the one. She's just a smidge into camp. He's pretty excited. Just a smit. If you can't tell she's Team Purple. And God changed my life at camp like three times. These student camps just like, they get better and better every year. It seems like, you know, it's just the bar is raced.

They're powerful, man. I mean, honestly, the idea of students getting away for four or five days to connect with God, man, powerful things happen. And it changes our church, by the way. It does. That's amazing. If you're like, for somebody that's a parent, if they were like, what's like, if I could only do one thing all year, they'll make the biggest difference in my kid's life, what would it be? Pastor Josh, I'd be like camp, get your kid to camp because, you know, it's however many days, five days, four days,

depends on which camp you go, of they're surrounded by Christian kids that love Jesus, following Jesus. As everybody knows, the thing will make the biggest difference in a student's life is what friends they choose. It's like they have this incredible bonding experience with thousands of kids who are like,

I want to follow Jesus. Then they have a personal encounter with the living God. We have, oh, I should have given you y'all this picture. We have, actually, I'll give it to you afterwards and we can't edit it in. With this picture that they will edit in, we can act like we're looking at it,

right now. Amazing. Wow. So what people are seeing right now is the camp that I grew up going to from the time I was a kid and then I became a camp pastor in my 20s. So for like 15 years was Jonathan Creek Camp and Conference Center. Have you been? No.

In western Kentucky. Love it. And that cross that people will see on Jonathan Creep's camp, the night that God called me to ministry when I was 13 years old, I went and prayed of that cross down by the lake. So a generous lake point member gave me the lumber for that cross. And I just, Jake Wardell shout out, had me installed that for me down by a pond close to my house. And if you can tell when you look at the picture, it's tilted slightly left on the back of my property. Because the cross at Jonathan Creek is so old, it's starting to fall over and it's tilted slightly left.

So I just, I wanted to look at it. It's just camp, just it changed your life. I was date, Jan and I dated when I was at camp. I learned to preach at camps. Anyway, all in on camp, 3,000 kids going camp, get your kid to camp. We went last year together. And one, obviously, it's so much fun. But the spiritual environment in that place is amazing.

And so, man, there's something really powerful. So absolutely agree. Dude, yeah, last thing, and we'll start talking about Corinth. When we went in there, so here's what shocked me and Carlos is, you know, it's like a youth camp. So you think like water balloons and gummy bears. And there was like hundreds of kids who, on their own wanted to come to the worship center an hour early to pray for worship that night. And you felt it.

You felt it. You were there. And it's like something's going on in this room. There's a power here. Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, there's been a growing spiritual intensity over the last four or five years in our own student groups toward that end. And I just want to reaffirm if you're a parent and you're wondering whether or not you

should, there's still time. Get your kids there. Go. It'll be great, man. Well, we got a great episode for us because you know why? There is more. There's more, baby. We're going to talk predestination.

Predestination. Let's go. Ten commandments, separation of church and state on classroom walls. That's right. It'll be fun. And then a lot of Corinth. We got a video of Charlie Kirk, is it? Maybe.

We'll see. Maybe we'll see. Okay. Yeah, we'll probably will. Okay. It'll be fun, man. So let's dive in Acts chapter 18, verse 1, 21, 11. Pastor Josh, any nuggets slash things that did not make it to the sermon?

Yeah, so there was actually a ton here. And what's cool about this is Tim and I were just, we were in like literal, the ruins of Corinth a few months ago. So we're going to toss some stuff on the screen because there's a huge significance to this. So for people, you need to go listen to message. But Acts 18, Paul comes to Corinth after Athens. Incredible opposition. And there's some cool things here. A few things people need to know about Corinth. Just like in modern day America, you got conservative areas and progressive areas. It was the exact. exact same thing in ancient Rome. Corinth would have been like the progressive capital Rome. So like tons of cop, it's like a college town, a huge, like huge emphasis on an experience of diversity. Like that's if you start reading historians about first century Corinth, very diverse. So young, educated, diverse, college town equals, it was just a progressive area. So, you know, you kind of need to get in your head, my little joke of like everybody's young,

hip, drunk, single. They're waking up at the crack of noon, getting mimoses. They got my body, my choice, stickers on the backs of all their camels and making up pronouns and talking about moving to Austin. That's Corinth. A few things people need to know about Corinth that were really interesting. I should, dang, this is another one. I should have grabbed a picture of it. Corinth was known for a few things. One was bronze. So Tim and I have also been to Jerusalem and seen the Temple Mount. Yes. So the Temple Mount, when this happens in Acts 18, the most significant gate, I didn't get to this in the sermon, is called the Beautiful Gate. It was a 75-foot-tall, burnished bronze gate. So it's called Beautiful because it's brilliant visually.

It was Corinth. It was Corinth. So that thing was made right there in Corinth. It was known for that. Two sports. We're going to talk about the Bema seats here in a second. one of the most theological significant things in the entire New Testament is in Corinth. It's called the Bima seat. It gets mentioned in Revelation and every, let me just say this to every listener.

You're going to stand there. In one sense, you're going to stand there. What's crazy is it's still there. So we'll get to that here in a second. So there was this thing called the Corinthian Games. It was like a little mini Olympics that happened there. and then they would appear after the Corinthian games

before what was called the Bima seat, and the judges who judged the competitions would hand out crowns, rewards, and punishments based on their performance in the race. Now, for all of our Bible nerds, all of your little bell should be on. Oh, that sounds familiar. We'll get to that in a second.

They were known for architecture. You still hear about Corinthian columns. That's kind of cool. But the big thing that they were known for, it was, very frankly, was sexual immorality. That was the thing, Corinth was like Sex Capital Rome, if Las Vegas and Amsterdam had a baby. It was Corinth.

Go ahead and toss, can you guys toss the picture of Corinth where you can see the hill in the background up? So here's what you're looking at here, and this is huge. So the thing, the little wall in the front, that's the bea seat, right, Tim? Yes. Miss Lynette took this.

picture. That's Tim's wife. That's the Bima seat. So after the Corinthian games, the athletes would come stand there. Now, here's, let me explain this real quick. So in Acts 18, where's it talk about the pro-consul? In Acts 18, ah, I should have had this off. There you go. Beamer seat? Oh, the place is judgment?

Go to 12. Yeah, Acts 1812. It says when Gallio was pro-consul of Akea, the Jews made a united. an attack on Paul, and they brought him before the tribunal. Now, when it says that in Greek, it says that they brought him before the Bima, is the Greek word. That is what that was. The tribunal met right there at the Bima seat. It was a place of judgment. So heads up, real quick, I'm going to put this in perspective. That thing you're seeing right there, the Apostle Paul stood on top of that thing. Wow. And what happens in Acts 18 literally happened right there. Now you can barely see it, but look to the right of that picture. And Carlos,

can you see that like tiny little, it looks like a column that's the size of a seat? So that's where when somebody was being judged from the BEMA seat, they would stand, or they would sit right there and receive judgment. So Paul sat on that thing in the corner? Paul, from what I understand, Tim, fill in details here if I get this wrong. From what I understand, Paul almost certainly actually was up on top. of the BEMA platform, the BMA seat right there, if I understand it correctly. Yeah, they would, I mean, historians say they would be brought up to make their arguments. If they were asking questions, when they passed judgment is when they would be down attached to the pole.

Or attached to that, you know, piece of half broken off masonry that you see there to the right. It's pretty fascinating. So here's why this becomes like a big deal. So this actually gets into end times and final judgment. Okay. So what Paul does is he's, so he appears before this Bima seat, okay, for judgment. And again, you get judged there and they hand out rewards, punishments, and crowns. Okay.

Now check this out. When Paul writes 2 Corinthians, obviously to the people who are in the city with a bema seat, this is 2nd Corinthians 510. And he's talking about end times, what has. happens at the return of Christ to every Christian. He says, for we must all appear before, and your English Bible says the judgment seat, but in Greek it says the Bima seat. Oh, wow. And every Corinthian would have been like, that's that thing down there at the Agora, you know, where the marketplace is. And then he says, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body,

whether good or evil. He's talking about that thing, dude. Yes. I didn't know this. Yes, dude. He's talking about that. Then, so this is First Corinthians 9, 24 through 27. So all this stuff starts to make sense to you. So all the Corinthians every year, the whole empire comes to Corinth, all the Olympic games, all the athletes stand right before there, and they're giving crowns, all stuff. And so this is what Paul knows. Now, so then Paul writes to the Corinthians, First Corinthians 9, 24 through 27. He says, I wish I could have got this in the sermon, by the way. He says, do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize. Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games, he's talking about the Corinthian games. Wow. Goes into strict training.

They do it to get a crown. They gave out crowns right there at the beam of seat that will not last. We do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like somebody running aimlessly. I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow. to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I may not myself be disqualified. Isn't that amazing? Wow. Now dude, I'll give you, so this is the last one. Let me tie it to Revelation. Wow. So Paul says this. There it is. Paul says that to the Corinthians, Bima C, all the stuff. All right. Now, you go to Revelation chapter 20 and it's talking about the return of Jesus. All right, this is Revelation 20 versus 11. This is amazing. Then I saw a great

white throne and him who is seated on it, Jesus. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence. There wasn't any place for them. And I saw the dead great and small standing before the throne and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. And then you go straight to 2nd Corinthians is 5-10, for we must all appear before the judgment seat, be a seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he's done in the Bible saying is Jesus returns in times. Here's what's going to happen when you die.

First, there's a great white throne judgment. And that's where it's like, God just goes, is your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life because you trusted Jesus? All right. If yes, then you actually go to a second judgment. And that's the Beema seat judgment. That's what he's talking about, Second. That's what he's talking about, Second.

And that's where God is going to give out crowns and rewards for how Christians leverage their lives for the glory of God on this earth. And all that goes back to that, daggone, be my seat. Yeah. That'll leave anything out, Tim? I don't think you got it all. This is amazing. Amazing.

From Paul to Revelation. It's all there. Oh, my goodness. Wow. Now, wait, go back to that. Picture one more time, Trinity. So what I was getting to is, Corinthians, Corinth was known for sexual morality so that the ruins are still up there.

At the top of that mountain in the back is where the temple for Aphrodite was. And that was like a sexuality fertility goddess. And we don't need to get into this because I got into a little bit in the sermon. But there were a thousand cult prostitutes up there. And that's where essentially you would go and give your body in, you know, a sexually immoral act to one of the cult prostitutes as part of like the demonic Aphrodite worship. So what that did is that created a culture of like very rampant sexual immorality in Corinth.

So, you know, what we hit in the message is like the joke in Rome was like if somebody was shady or promiscuous, they'd be like, oh, she's a Corinthian girl. So just there it is. It's really interesting that in spite of this city being such a difficult city, like you'd think Paul would go to cities that are like, oh, they're probably really close to, you know, trusted in Jesus. No, Paul's like, let me go to this city

that's so hard to reach. And he spends there like a year and a half or something, it just speaks to Paul's heart to reach the lust. Yeah, this is one of the two places he spends the most time. Yeah, he was there 18 months. And most scholars pretty much certainly agree with that. And he shifted and moved around a little bit. And, but man, this is where, I mean,

again, he really began to open the door to the Gentiles. Because I mean, Corinth was such a promiscuous place. And huge, as you said, huge prosperity. I mean, a lot going on in Corinth, but also just a huge need for the gospel to take root. And Paul found it there. Yeah, he did. So Paul starts preaching to the Jews. And then he says at some point, did you mention this in the sermon?

I can't remember your blood is not on my hands anymore. Yeah, I mentioned it some service. What he's doing there is he's referencing the Ezekiel passage, the watchman on the wall passage. And so, okay, here's a short thing. God tells Ezekiel, I've appointed you as a watchman unto Israel. And he tells Ezekiel, hey, if there's a watch, it's like a soldier. If there's a soldier that's on the lookout and an enemy's coming and the soldier sounds a clear alarm. Hey, enemy's coming.

If the people don't listen to the call, then the watchman is innocent. and their blood is on their heads because they didn't respond to the call. But if an enemy is coming and the watchman fails to issue a clear warning and call, then actually their blood is on his head because he wasn't clear about what was coming. Paul is quoting Ezekiel when he says that. And he's like, hey man, I'm innocent of your blood because I've been clear. Jesus died for you. The Lord loves you.

The cross is sufficient for you. and you will not repent of your sins. You continue to oppose the gospel. And so, man, blood's on your heads. I'm innocent. It's interesting to see Paul do that because if you start comparing like Ezekiel with Paul,

it seems like Paul had some sort of a continuation of like Ezekiel's ministry. So if you start comparing both of them, I was reading this this week. In Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel receives a vision of God's glory and then that defines his ministry. In Acts 9, Paul receives a vision of God's glory when he meets Jesus.

and that defines his ministry and mission. Both Ezekiel and Paul were called to preach to rebellious people, hard, heart of people. So Ezekiel chapter 2 says, Son of man, I'm sending you to the Israelites to a rebellious nation. They are obstinate and stubborn. In Romans 12, Paul writes of Israel all day long, I have held up my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.

This is interesting. Both Ezekiel and Paul were muted in silence for a little bit of time before launching their ministry. Ezekiel chapter 3 says, God tells Ezekiel, I will make your tongue stick to. the roof of your mouth. But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth

and you shall say to them, thus says the Lord. So Ezekiel was actually mute slash unable to speak until God opened it for ministry and then in Acts chapter nine after seeing Jesus, Paul was blinding. The Bible says he was silent for three days.

So Paul was blinded and still until God sent Ananias to lay hands on him and to launch his ministry. Both Ezekiel and Paul preached judgment and hope. Both of them suffered because of obedience to God's calling in their life and both of them assumed a watchman responsibility. And then they said, hey, your blood is not on my hands anymore. Here's the takeaway for me. Do not be disappointed when you share your faith with somebody who you love, yet insist on rejecting Jesus. That's what happened to Ezekiel and Paul.

Outcomes are not your responsibility. Obediences when sharing your faith. Bro, I've never heard Paul as the Ezekiel of the New Testament. That's amazing. It's, I mean, he quotes him. Where were you in Serber prep this week? He quotes him, man. This is wild. It's wild. It's fascinating. I'll give you a couple other little nuggets, and then we can kind of get some implications of this passage.

So this is fun. Check this out, and a lot of people miss this. So Acts 182. So it says, and he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontius, recently come from Italy with his wife, Priscilla, and this is the important part,

because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. This is a fun little side note, when historians outside of the Bible reference or confirm something in the Bible. So it says they were kicking the Jews out of Rome, all right? This is really fun. So there was a historian named Soutonius, who it was during the Emperor Claudius. We know that. And he was expelling Jews from Rome.

This is hilarious to me. It says, this is what the historian records over disputes about the name Crestis. and he spelled it in his history book, C-H-R-E-S-T-U-S. So then for a lot of years, like all these historians are like Crestes, Crestes. Nobody's name, there's not even a name even like Crestis in ancient Rome. And eventually they figured out he just misspelled Christos. So what, that he just misspelled? He didn't know.

He just, some dude. So he misspells Christos. Christos, all the disputes were about the name of Christ among the Jews, and he's recording exactly what is referenced in Acts 18, too. And I'll give you one other one. This is, I love this. So throw the Erastus stone up there on the screen. All right. So check this. This is so fun. All right. So if you go read Acts 1623, it says, or Roman 1623, it says, it's says, he's writing from Corinth when he writes Romans. He says, Arastus, the city treasurer greets you. This is awesome. And then it acts 1922 on his third missionary journey. This is his first missionary,

first or second missionary journey. He says after, is it a second? Second. He says after sending to Macedonia two of those who assisted him, Timothy and Arastus. So this Arras. So this Arras. It's stone, that stone right there, they found it just, it wasn't long ago. They found it a few years ago. So they found that in the ruins of Corinth, and here's what it says. Erastus pro, I don't know how to pronounce it, Idyle laid the pavement at his own expense. That is that dude. They found the stone inscribed with Erastus's name.

It says, Arastus, the treasurer, very well. wealthy, laid the pavement at his own expense. So it was like, he was like the school board director of Corinth. When did you say this was discovered? They just, it wasn't too long ago. It wasn't too long ago. They discovered the Erastus Stone. And that's the dude that Paul's referencing right there. Now, here's the big, like, I just want to apply this to our lives. Like, I love that stuff so much. Like, let this sink in. All this stuff really happened. Yeah. Like, that's the big thing. We call the gospel good news. Good because it goes into bad places and news, because it goes into bad places. because it really happened.

And if it really happened, then the real Jesus died for the real you, and he can really change your life. So I just, I love that stuff, dude. I love this so much. There's more stuff, there's more stuff here, but. It's so encouraging when you see all the archeological and science stuff in alignment with Scripture. It's so affirming of our faith.

And yet you read scripture and you see things that happened and then you look at our culture today and you see things that are still happening. Yes, right? And so let's talk about that. right now. Yeah, that's right, man. Man, you know, in our culture, obviously, we don't, we're not in Corinth anymore, but it seems like the spirit of Corinth is still operating. Man, what are some examples that you guys would say, you know, there's a little bit of a parallel. We saw this in

Corinth. Paul addressed this or Paul experienced this. And then you look at our culture today, man, it seems like that's still happening. Like, the gospel's being preached. People are responding. There is opposition. People will riot. There is revival. riot, revival riot. What are some other examples that come to mind that you guys will see today and say, oh, we've seen that before. Well, I think, I mean, for sure, when you think about Corinth, this Pastor Josh has already said, when people thought about Corinth in the ancient times, they thought about, honestly, they thought about prostitution. They thought about sexual promiscuous. And we live in that culture. And then clearly, that's the easiest parallel to see.

The other thing is I was reading a little bit about Corinth and just reminded myself is Corinth was a very because it was a place where there was a lot of money that changed hands. The slavery, the trade, the fact that it really became the center for Rome in so many ways in that part of what is now Greece is it was a very arrogant. Like there was a lot of class division, but people couldn't get out of their class. and so there was a lot of arrogance and a lot of bragging. And interestingly enough is, you know, when you think about what's similar, going back a little bit to Paul's writings,

a lot of people say that when Paul was writing in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, when basically Paul gives himself a description of being dependent, he calls himself, I'm just an earthen vessel. there's all these reflections inside of Paul where he's basically being humble. And his language is one of him being low. Well, a part of that was is because in Corinth culture, that's not what you did. You basically exalted yourself. You bragged about yourself.

And you made more of yourself than you really were. That might be some parallels. It sounds familiar. Might be some parallels in our culture. Sounds very familiar. Just a smidge. So a lot of people forget this. like when you read the book of first corinthians all it's doing is paul's responding to questions they sent him

it's like literally i'm it's funny i'm doing this right now like i think uh this weekend me and janer are doing a facebook i g life and literally what we do is we go hey what questions do you guys have and then we try to pastor our people by just respond to their questions so like if you're like hey how's it similar i'm just gonna i don't think this really dawns on people there is nothing new under the Like same stuff's been happening. Well, hey guys, one of the reasons we are intentional in creating this kind of podcast episodes is because we believe that discipleship happens in relationships. Having said that, what we want to do through the Live Free podcast is model what it looks

like to be in a discipleship group where we come together and open up the Word of God and honestly just grow together as followers of Jesus to live free in Christ. And so for this reason, we love that you're tuning in, but honestly, we don't just want you to be a passive listener. We want you to be an active participant. And so if you have not yet joined the group, whether in person or online, I want to challenge you to test drive one. And so to do that, just text the word group to 20411 or go to lakepoint. com slash groups because listen, you're not one podcast away, one habit away. one decision away, one book away, one sermon away.

Listen, you are one relationship away to experience freedom in Christ in community. And now, let's get back to the podcast. Paul was responding to from the church in Corinth. This is going to sound a smidge familiar. Number one, how should divisions and factions within the church be handled? Oh, there's never any fighting in churches. No, nobody talks about on social media. Never, never, never.

Number two, what should be done about sexually immoral behavior among Christians? Oh, we never. No, we never. Nothing there. Not Christians. No, Christians. Christians or among people. Number three, is it appropriate for Christians to take legal disputes into courtroom?

So, man, if a, honestly, a lot of people might not, I hope you don't realize this, but it's unfortunately not common for two Christians to have a legal. dispute and then they're like, what do we do? Like, that's, okay? What are the boundaries for sexual behavior and marriage? That's pretty common. Should Christians eat food sacrifice to idols? Now, you may be going, aha, we don't have that one now.

But really, he's going, okay, this stuff that, like, sometimes has a demonic connection. So, like, here's the modern day example of that question. Hey, should Christians do yoga? Hey, should Christians do Halloween? That's a stretch, by the way. Nice.

Nice. Nice. You're going, sorry. I didn't even read that way. You know, like in the lobby, like, you know, hey, this is a, like, somebody asked me this question. I won't even say the campus to avoid embarrassing them. Somebody had given them one of those little healing crystals for a birthday. And they were super innocent.

They were like, should I wear that? that's this same question. Hey, this thing might have a demonic connection. They're asking that. What's the proper conduct for women in church leadership and worship? That's a question people ask. How should the Lord's Supper be conducted? What about the spiritual gifts people have?

They kind of freak people out. How should we use those? Are those real? When's the resurrection going to happen? They're asking the same questions. So nothing new under the sun, man. That's wild. I know we did a sermon series on Corinthians.

First Corinthians. It was one of my favorite ones we've ever done. We need to bring up the second part or something. That's amazing. Yeah, it's one of my favorite once we're done.

Here's the last one. What do we call that series? That's a good question. We should know this. Oh. You know what we did? That's hilarious. I know we had some options.

I remember the options. No, dude. I think we called it There is More. And then I liked the series title so much we reused it. Oh, okay. That was There is more?

I don't know. I'm pretty sure. I remember. we consider some options. I'm sure you're right. We considered Christians gone wild. Something like that. There was a few things.

Anyways, yeah. Okay, somebody in the comments will find it. They'll know. Okay. Here's the last one. I find interesting. So you see Paul in this context. Oh, following Jesus in a jacked up church. There you go.

There you go. There you go. That's good. Keep going. Paul is here following Jesus in preaching Jesus to a jacked up church in court. Yeah, that's true. But he's here preaching the gospel, and there's all these gods, right? And so, like, these people believe in all these gods.

And so they claim to be tolerant and inclusive because they believe in so many gods. And yet here comes Paul preaching Jesus. And they're like, nope, not you. Yeah, that's exactly. You know, and so, again, it's just like in our culture today, you know, every, there's an air of like, you should be inclusive. You should be okay with everybody believing whatever they want. But until somebody comes in and they want to share the Bible, nope, we're not going to be tolerant of that. Somebody comes preaching Jesus.

And so there seems to be in our culture. And we're going to talk about that today, actually. You want to talk about just go there? You want to talk about predestination? What are you going to talk about? I'm talking about the Ten Commandments in the schools. Oh, you want to go there? You want to save that?

You want to save that? Let's do the predestination. That's right. Okay. By the way, teaser. Yeah, by the way, teaser. We're going to talk about Texas putting 10 commandments on classroom walls. What should Christians think about it?

By the way, so this is an interesting little tidbit. the Christians in first century Rome, they were persecuted because the Romans thought they were atheists. Because everybody else was like, oh yeah, you worship your God and you worship yours and I worship mine. Christians were the first people to come along and be like, hey dude, like, no other gods exist. Yeah. And so it's like they literally thought, so when they're walking into the temple of Aphrodite, Christians were like, that's just a rock. Like nothing. And so they mistook them for atheists.

Yeah. I can see how they can get offended. They believe in all these gods. Here comes the Christians. They're like, nope. Yeah. That's not real. This is exactly right.

Huh. Exactly right. So you talked about predestination, Josh. This is what a lot of the sermon ended up terminating on. I mean, obviously this is a very, in some space, it's a very controversial thing. You know, people debate predestination. And you addressed, man, some people might be asking, well, if predestination is a thing and God chooses people, you know, should we just not evangelize? And so obviously you addressed that. So let me say a few things on this. And, you know, Tim can pray help me here. But so the reason we did this is if you read Acts 18 carefully. So Paul starts preaching, nobody's getting saved, or very few people are getting saved. Then I listened to this in the sermon. This is on the back end.

of Paul experiencing some extremely heavy persecution. Like he's been beaten with it in an inch of his life. He just came from somewhere where he was like left for dead. So lots of that. So when the opposition comes, here's what I'm assuming is Paul started getting like maybe almost like a trauma response. Like, oh, here it comes. So in the gracious tenderness of the Lord Jesus Christ, he appears to him in a vision. I'm going to read what he says to Paul.

Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you. And no one will attack you to harm you. For I have many in this city who are my people. Now, what Bible scholars have pointed out is like, hey man, what does he mean? I have many in this city who are my people. Nobody's saved yet. What they're pointing out is that this is a little thread that ties in to what's called the doctrine of predestination.

Now, like you said, Carlos, as soon as you say that, like, you know, it's just, it kind of wigs people out. So let me say a few things on this, and then let's answer common questions I didn't have time to get to in the message about this. All right. So a few things. Let me just say this. Number one, every Christian believes in predestination.

Here's why I say that, because, like, that's literally just a Bible word. It's like, that's a word in the Bible. I'll read a few here. Romans 8.28, Romans 829 and 30. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Ephesians 1.5. He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.

I'll just do one more. Ephesians 1.11, in him we have obtained an inheritance having been. here's that word again, predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according the counsel as will. Here's a big idea, dude. It's going to take a pair of scissors to get out of the Bible. So every Christian believes in this now. And those are, by the way, those are huge truths of scripture. Like you, we just read him obviously, but if you just really stop and chew on what that actually means, the God, the creator of the universe chose you to be adopted into sonship. And, you know, you are a son and a daughter. That's wild. That'll change.

your life, literally. Yes. Anyways. Well, we're going to get to that in a second. If you are believe, if you're wrestling with this issue in a way and it's discouraging you instead of encouraging you, you're doing it wrong. It's literally always using the Bible as a massive encouragement. So we'll get to that in a second.

A couple of mistakes that people can make on this because I was the guy that, you know, Bible College would stay awake arguing and debating with people all the time. I did that too. How do I say it? Well, Carlos literally went to Calvin College. Yeah. Shout out to Calvin University. That's right. So I learned some reformed Calvinist's theology. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. I'm your guy. We can maybe debate like, Armenian, Calvin. Okay. All right. So let me talk about that. There you go. Let me know that. So here's honestly what gets people tripped up is they're like, well, if you believe in predestination, then you believe that nobody's got free will. And, you know, so divine sovereignty or human responsibility. And the question is,

how do you reconcile divine sovereignty and human responsibility? And there's the famous Charles Spurgeon quote, I don't reconcile friends. This is what theologians, it's a technical term. Theologians call it an antimony. It comes from two Greek where it's anti, which means against enamas,

which means law or principle. It's saying that these are two principles that appear to be against each other, but they're actually not. So they call it an antimity, an antimony. So basically, we should get this, if God is the size of the Pacific Ocean and our minds are the size of a Coke can,

we should expect some things that don't fit. And so if you're trying to figure out how does it all reconcile? For me, I'm like, I don't know. And honestly, I don't really care. I'm just like, what's the Bible say? And I'll believe everything it says, even if I can't make it make sense to me.

So what you've got to watch out for is the two errors, let me tell you about on this. The two errors are if what some people will do is they lean all the way in to the predestination sovereignty passages. And then they try to like explain away all the human responsibility and, you know, free will is a term that I like, I would qualify. But they'll explain all those away. And they kind of end up in this spot. It's called like determinism where it's like we're just robots and nobody.

And that's just not biblical. On the other hand, there's some people who like, they lean into all the human responsibility free will passages. and then they try to explain away all the sovereignty predestination passages and very frankly we got two very prominent like actual heresies

one is called Pelagianism and the other one is called open theism. Both of those are still very much a thing and you end up there if you start explaining away and what they end up believing is like basically God doesn't even know

what's going to happen in the future he's like playing chess and he just knows he's going to win but he didn't know what you're going to do and you're going to do so he just plays chess and I'm like well that's crazy. I wrote my Bible in that.

There's a joke. Why did the Armenian cross the road? Because he chose to. God had nothing to do with it. That's why. It was a really bad joke. Go ahead. It was a stretch.

It was a stretch. It was a stretch. It was a pretty bad. It was a stretch. Kind of made your point. So anyway. All right. So this was, I'm going to tell two quick stories.

And then you guys fill in some gaps. All right. So, all right. So if you want to reconcile it, here's the best way. And this was in the message. it's important enough. I want to get it in here too. Here's how I think Christians to think about it. So if you're going, okay, on the one hand, you got Ephesians, for he chose us in him before the foundations of the earth. Full stop, that's in the Bible. On the other hand, you have the book of

revelation that's like, whosoever will may come. So how do I do that? There's a famous story that essentially goes, here's what's like, if you were to walk up to the gate of heaven, on the outside of the gate, you would see inscribed on the top of the door, whosoever will may come. And then you make a choice to enter into the gate. And as you walk through, you look back over your shoulder and on the inside of the gate inscribed at the top of the door is chosen before the foundations of the earth. Both are true because they're both in the Bible and we got to be okay with that. Now last thing I'll say, and then we can talk about all the logical or philosophical problems people have with it, and then you guys, you fill any gaps here.

One thing you got to watch out for that I would say is the Bible consistently warns against divisive people or people who spend all their time arguing about what are called, the New Testament calls disputable matters. And it's like, the Bible's like, you want to know how somebody's an immature Christian, they divide the church over secondary doctrines, and they're always fighting over disputable matters. That's an immature Christian. So here's the example, and I love this. This is a true story. It happened in Nashville.

So R.C. Sprole, who was a big predestination Calvinism guy. He was speaking at a church in Nashville, and somebody asked him the question, Dr. Sprole, do you believe that you'll see Billy Graham in heaven? Because Billy Graham fell on the other side of the thing and emphasized human responsibility. and free will. They're like, R.C., do you believe you'll see Billy Graham in heaven? And as the legend goes, true story, R.C. Sproles said, no. And just let it sit.

And, like, everybody gasps. And then after waiting, like, three seconds, he says, because when we get to heaven, Dr. Graham shall be so near the throne of Jesus and I shall be so far, I'll never even get a glimpse of him. Wow. Wow. Amazing. And his point was, hey, man, like, we may disagree on,

how to skin that cat. But what we agree on is Jesus Christ is the Lord of Heaven and Earth. And that man, even though I think he might be wrong about that doctrine, is a more mature Christian than me, and mature Christians should unify around the gospel. Wow. That's beautifully sad. Wow.

Now, you guys want, what gaps you got to fill in? Then we can hit these. I mean, I know you may take it a little bit more theological, just like more devotional and pastoral with the tensions. It's in, you know, we started in this passage in Acts in 189. You know, you talked about Paul's vision. The tension that you just talked about is in that, it's actually in that verse. Because the first thing that God says to Paul is he says, do not be afraid.

And again, what scholars talk about in regard to, like, God's speaking a word to Paul. And what he's saying is, is, hey, my sovereignty holds you. And what I always want to say to people who need to hear, you know, is God a determinative God is like, man, it's the sovereignty of God that makes things safe. It's the sovereignty of God that holds things together. It's the sovereignty of God that gets us through in the night when there's a crisis, when there's a death, when there's something so painful that we don't even know how to articulate it. That's what God is speaking to Paul, the apostle right here. he's saying, don't be afraid because I hold it. No matter what you do, I hold it.

And then he turns to him and says, hey, get up and go on speaking. So it's get to work. You're going to say, go to sleep like a Calvinist. Rest and the fact that I'm sovereign and then get up and go on speaking like it all depends upon you. The tension's there. Dude, I've never noticed that. Yeah. It's right there.

It's like, hey, yeah, sleep like a Calvinist, work like Armenian. We all have fun. That's it. Well, I think, you know, some people think, oh, well, you know, if everybody's predestined and I don't need to really do it much because it's going to happen anyways. Well, it should do the opposite. Like, it should make you bolt. Yes.

Like, if you're somebody who's going to share your faith, and honestly, you're just not sure how to do it or you're afraid. I don't know how people are going to respond. God's basically saying, hey, I got it. You do what you need to do. I got the rest. And it should, like, strengthen you. And it should give you confidence that when you share the message, there's a supernatural

involvement where it's not going to be you, it's going to be God working through you. Amen. That's it, man. The money sentence for me is the reality of predestination doesn't mean we don't need to go. It means we know we'll succeed when we get there. Wow. That's that's what you've got to have in your heart. And so like, we'll get there in a second. Like, man, when people hear about this doctrine and they're like, wait, so you're saying that in some sense, God chooses before the foundation of the earth, then they go, like, what about my brother? What about my lost son?

What about my... And here's what I would say is, you know, number one, this is an encouragement. Again, it doesn't mean we don't need to go. It means that we know we're going to succeed when we get there. The other thing I would say, here's how I do this.

I'm not, this is how I do this. What I always say is, I don't think that person would be on your heart unless heaven put them there. Yeah. So, dude, if there's somebody that your heart is broken to see no Jesus,

here's how I do that math in my head. Heaven put that in your heart because that name was probably picked before the foundation of the earth. And so, man, you go with confidence because heaven broke it for you. So that's how I do it. That's good, man.

Let me, let's help some people here. I know some people might start processing this and for a lot of them, maybe this is kind of like the first time they're actually like processing what you just said. If somebody were to ask, man, what if I'm not chosen? Oh man, like what if God doesn't choose me? What would you guys say?

Yeah, I'd say a few things. So first of all, I'm going to say what the Bible says. This is John 644. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. Implication. You would not have come to the father unless he drew you. So there is literally no one. So here's what a lot of people do.

What about somebody who, man, they prayed to prayer and they came to Jesus, but, oh, man, they weren't picked. That person doesn't exist. You would not have come to the father. unless the spirit drew you. And so the fact that you're even asked in the question, Tim Keller used to say, a fear of God's absence is a sign of God's presence.

You wouldn't even be worried about it unless the spirit was awakening to you, awakening you to your need for Jesus. So whenever somebody asked me that question, I'm like, bro, you're good. Honestly, that's what I'm like, you're good, man. That was so good. Say it one more time so that people can like chew on the Tim Keller quote. A fear of his absence is a sign. of his presence. So if somebody's sitting at home like, man, what if I'm not chosen? What, what if God

hasn't drawn near to heaven? Like, you wouldn't even have that desire or holy fear unless the spirit had broken off the blindness that the God of this world had put on your spirit to awaken you to your need for Christ. You wouldn't care. So the fact that you care is a sign that the Lord has put a seal on you. It's great. That's going to. It's going to. It's, Would you encourage a lot of people? Anything? Or we get it? I think we got it.

Let me give you another one. And somebody, this is a little more philosophical. Man, is it unfair for God to choose some and not choose other people? Yes. Great. Okay. Let me say it. Let me say yes, but not, but in the exact opposite way you think.

That's what I'm going to say. I'm going to say yes, but in the exact opposite way you think. So, so here's first of, All. Tim Keller does this thing. Or sorry, C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis in his book, the great, I think it's the great divorce, by the way. Highly recommend. It's C.S. Lewis's book on hell, and it's amazing. It's going to go into show notes, by the way. So there you go into show notes. He says, he points out, hell is a door that's locked from the inside. His point is that basically when you die, everyone just continues on whatever trajectory, they were already on. So he's going, man, if you spent your whole life going, I hate God, I hate God's commands, I don't want to have anything to do with God, God's not going to force you to come to heaven where everything is holiness and his presence

is everything. You didn't even want that. So you, you know, the New Testament describes hell as eternity separated from the presence of God. Well, your earthly life said, that's what you wanted. So God went, that will be done. Yeah. That's great, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what Lewis says. Now, so you're asking a question, is God unfair? Yeah. He picked some, but, you know, what about the rest of everybody should be?

Everybody should go in. It is unfair. It's unfair in the exact opposite way you think it is. So the only place where everything is fair is hell. Hell is the place where everybody gets exactly what they deserve. That's all God did. By the way, this is another pot episode. We should do this at some point.

The Bible makes clear that just as there are different levels, of rewards in heaven, there are different levels of punishments in hell. Interesting. So that's a whole different pot episode. But hell's where everything's fair. Bro, whatever you did, you get exactly, exactly recompense for whatever you did. The only place where everything is unfair is heaven. A bunch of sinners get what Jesus earned through his perfect life.

So it is unfair, but the unfair part is not that anybody goes to hell. what's unfair is that anybody goes to heaven. Yeah. So, you know, I would just reverse the question. The question is not, why doesn't God save everybody? If you really understand the grace of God and what justice would be, the real question isn't, why doesn't God save everybody? The question is, man, why does God save anybody?

Yeah. Because it's not fair, man. I'm getting grace and it's not fair. Why would God save me? It's not fair, and yet he does. But he does. He does. Mercy, mercy.

What is great. Anybody add anything there? I'm going to add something to. I'm gonna, you're good. This is really good. We want to keep doing that. Here's a couple things to add to what you just said, you know, for people that said, man, but what about free will? You know, because it seems like some people just want to say, well, I chose God.

And there's a sense in which, you know, when it comes to free will, like, you had free will and you chose to rebel against God. That's what happened. And because you chose to reject God, God in his grace still pursued you and saved you. And so this is kind of part of the good news of predestination. And back to the thing about the love. one. What about somebody that, you know, if somebody that I love that I'm praying for them, what if they're not chosen? I would say, here's what I think predestination is a good, a good thing. Because ultimately, if you're praying for somebody that does not know Jesus yet, that

you love dearly, and you ultimately are expecting for their stubborn heart to have the last say on whether they're going to choose God or not, man, that's a, that's a very difficult spot for them to be in because their heart is stubborn. They don't want, they're rejecting God. And so if God can't really do much about it because ultimately it's up to them. It's like, ah, but if God is sovereign, and if he chooses, guess what, even the hardest heart, he can, like, he can save. It's good news. It's amazing news. And again, what we're not saying, we're not saying evangelism doesn't matter. We're not saying people in no way have a free will. We're not saying some like hard Calvinists and hard determinists go there. That's not we're saying. That's not we're saying. But this is interesting

on what you just said, so this also didn't make any of the sermon. What a lot of theologians, because Paul, more than any other New Testament author, talks about this concept of predestination, a lot of theologians think the reason he wrote so much about it is because he experienced it more than anybody else. So your example of, hey, man, actually, if you don't believe, if you think that God just like, hey, I'm never going to mess with your will, I'm just going to leave it up to you. Well, then your hard-hearted, you know, lost brother or lost, daughter is in a bad spot. Holy Spirit is a gentleman. Honestly, I'm in a bad spot. I'm in a bad spot. We all want to stray. That's right.

Holy Spirit is gentlemen. Well, like, sometimes the Holy Spirit's a SWAT team member. Because, remember, the Apostle Paul hates Jesus, is killing Christians, literally is blaspheming Christ. And Jesus literally appears in his resurrected form, knocks him off his horse, grabs him by the scruff of his neck, and is like, I'm saving you. You're mine. You're mine. Sorry, bro. I'm real sorry. So a lot of people think he wrote about it so much because he experienced it so deeply. That's good, man. Did you, do you want to do the, I do want to hit the, does this mean I don't have a free will? Or did you already do that? I did, but if you got any more.

So this is another, like, this is what I like about this podcast is we can do stuff. You have free will to tell me. Yeah, you know. Exert your will, bud. You are free. This is what I like this. Because we live free here. I'm getting out. Oh, I'll just stop now. This is the kind of stuff and can't make it into a sermon.

So this is like a little, this is a theology nerd moment. So this originally started with his church father of St. Augustine who articulated this first. And then this has been carried out throughout church history. But theologians point out

that when it comes to the freedom of the will, it's called the freedom of the will. By the way, Jonathan Edwards' first great awakening in America, some people think the greatest theologian that America has ever produced. He just wrote it. His book was called The Bondage of the Will.

You know, so you can read that. I read about half of it in college. But theologians have pointed out that when it comes to mankind and free will, there have been four states that mankind have been in, and I'm going to read them to you. They're all in the Latin and all translated. Mankind started in a state of Pase non-Picare. What that means is able not to sin.

So God created Adam. and Eve with a legitimately unrestrained totally free will. They had no sin nature that was influencing them towards rebellion. It was just a neutral, totally free will. So they were passe non-Pakari, able not to sin. When mankind fell and we inherited both original sin, that's the theological term, and a sin nature, Romans 7, then now how all of us were born is in the state of non-pase non-Pacari, not able not to sin. Romans 3 for all of sin and falling short of the glory of God. When God judges people before the flood,

he says, man, all their thoughts were holy evil all the time. So like from the time you're born, all your thoughts are like bent towards sin. So non-Pasay, non-Pakari, not able not to sin. When we get saved, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of us, regenerates us. The doctrine of regeneration makes us a new person. then you are restored to the condition of Pase non-Picaree Purgratium.

What that means is able not to sin by grace. We are all, we have the ability now to like, I can choose not to sin by the power of the Holy Spirit, the grace of God. That's the Christian. And then when Jesus returns and fully eradicates all sin, sorrow, death from the world, we go back in glory to non-Pase, non-Picare, not able to sin.

Wow, yeah, wow. So four states of mankind. Wow. And by the way, to clarify, you're not saying, Josh, that right now somebody can live a life sinless, is what you're saying. No, there are people who, I do not believe that. There are people who, this is, that's a little side. John Wesley believed that. It was called the, he wrote a whole book on it.

I called read part of it in high school. It was called the Doctrine of Christian Perfection. This is a whole little side note. What are they called? They still have a conference every year in like Scotland. I can't remember the names. But it's called the Doctrine of Christian Perfection. And there are some people who are, I think wrongly, believe that a Christian has the ability to never sin again.

I'm like, bro, you don't know me. I know me. I need grace. They vote it. Hey, we can never sin anymore. We're probably, yeah. I don't know. Okay.

Man, that's really good. Let me do the last thing. Okay. I'll just do the last thing. For the person that's a little skeptical, I'm like, ah, I don't know, man. I think there has literally never been a Christian that doesn't believe in predestination in some form. One, because it's a Bible word. But here's what I would say is I go, hey, man, do you believe that God has a great plan for your life?

Or do you believe the guy has a plan for your life? Literally everybody's like, yeah, I think in some sense, God has a plan for my life. Right. Well, great, man. Do you believe that God has a plan or a destiny for your life? Do you think that he's figuring it? Do you think he already knows what it is? Or do you think he's figuring it out along the way

and just making it up as he goes? I think he's probably got it planned out. Oh, good. So you believe that he pre has it already figured out and that you have a destiny. Okay, well, then I think we're on the same page. Welcome to the team. Welcome to the Bible team.

That's awesome, man. All right, well, man, I want to talk about this thing, this news article that came out recently. Okay, yeah. think it's interesting. So, Tim, we were talking about this before. This is an NBC news article. We actually will probably show it. This is what it says. Attorney, let us know if you got that article. It says Texas bill to require 10 commandments in public schools moves closer to governor's desk. And so that's what we're seeing right now. There's a video. You go direct to the video?

Yeah, do the video. Is this for NBC? This is, yeah, it's like a 30 second clip. Yeah, it's quick. All right, now to Texas. We're a bill that will require the Ten Commandments to be posted in every public school classroom in the state is one step closer now to becoming law. The Texas House passed the bill on Sunday after adding an amendment requiring the state rather than school districts pay to defend any legal challenges. The legislation now goes back to the Texas Senate for final approval before heading to Governor Greg Abbott's desk. He's expected to sign it. Louisiana and Arkansas have recently passed similar laws. So somebody's listening to this. They're Christian and they're asking, man, what?

Should I, like, is this a good thing? Like, I thought, you know, because I hear on social media, some people are saying it's not a good thing. Like, should I be cheering? Should I be voting for this? Is this like government imposing their beliefs on people? Like, help us make sense about this. Oh, you may start. Hey, can I just say this before you even go?

Is that just for like context, we didn't get it on that clip is that our country basically operated 204 years. that the Ten Commandments was up in public places. I don't know if you guys know that or not, but it was in 1980, when the Supreme Court basically changed that you couldn't have the Ten Commandments up in school or public places. I didn't know that.

Yeah, 1980. So, you know, 45 years ago, we lived 204 years where in our country, the Ten Commandments was prominently displayed in almost every public place, including schools. Just want to throw that out there just for a little history.

Good to know. I got some more history. Most people, honestly, most people, especially my generation, no clue. Yeah. It's like a new thing. Oh, here are people coming

and they want to put in the Ten Commandments. Yeah. So we should unequivocally be celebrating this because we're Christians. So like, let me. I had a feeling you were going to say that. Yeah, I wanted to do.

You were going there. The reason, so let me just talk with. The reason that I want to talk about this is because Christians get blitzed with this kind of stuff constantly. And they don't know how to think about it. And so then they have friends toss Adam out, like, well, what about separation of church and state? Or are you trying to force your religion on people who don't

share it? Or like, hey, man, what about religious liberty? Like, you know, that kind of stuff. What we want to do is how I think about it is air war, ground war. Ground war is what we spent the first 40 minutes of this pod doing. Ground war is we make disciples. That's the first role of the church. Air war is what we're doing right now. And it's more how do we apply the scriptures and Christian thinking to cultural issues. We want to do both. So right now, we already did some ground war. Let's do some air war.

Let me say, yeah, we should be celebrating. We should unequivocally be celebrated. It's good news then. We're Christian people. Let me say a few things on this. One, to Tim's point, we operated for, you said, 204 years. Yeah. Yeah, 204 years on this.

Number two, for people who don't think, they're like, oh, man, this is new. They're trying to do this for the first time. throw up that picture of the that I sent you all from Nope nope not that one Throw up the picture of the Where is it?

The top left The one up there Moses Okay this guy So this right here I was in D.C. a couple times recently This is at the It's on the East Freeze It's called the East Freeze

of the United States Supreme Court building Guess who that dude is Right there in the middle On the top of the United States Supreme Court building Looks like he's got two... Two tablets. I'm thinking is that Moses? I'm going to go of Moses.

That's... Good guess. That's Moses. That's Moses. Who are the other guys? There are like two other historical lawgivers, I can't remember, but Moses is in the middle for a reason. He looks like he's in charge.

He's in charge. Okay, so I want to point this out. Number two, what some people say is like, oh, man, you know, Christians, you're just, you just want Christ to permeate our culture without permeating our hearts. I'm like, no, I don't. I want them to permeate both. I want both. And actually, they mutually reinforce.

When you have a bunch of people who have Christ-saturated hearts, it results in a Christ-saturated nation. And when you have a nation whose customs, laws, institutions are shaped broadly by Christian things, it helps shape the heart of, shape the hearts of the hearts of the people. the populace. So those are unequivocally good things. Now, I'm going to throw a clip up here. I do not think people realize the degree to which our nation was founded on explicitly Christian thinking, like explicitly Christian thinking. Now, we're going to talk about religious liberty and separation, church, and state, and how Christians should think about that here

in a second. But I just want to drive home how thoroughly our nation was founded. it on explicitly Christian thinking, because again, like our generation and down does not know this. So now this may trigger, depending on your background, this may be a little triggering because people got different opinions about Charlie Kirk. All I'm going to say is we're going to play a short Charlie Kirk clip here. All I'm going to say is everything that he says right here is true. Whether you like the guy or not, what he's saying right here is true. So play this clip because he just very succinctly like lays this out. Play play. Our country was solid. common law because the declaration only refers to God four times in the Constitution.

It doesn't refer to God at all. And it only articulates the structure of government. So first of all, remember that we were a collection of states and colonies, and you need to read the state constitutions before anything else. 13 on 13 required a declaration of faith. In almost every single one of the original state constitutions, they had, I profess Lord and Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Secondly, 55-56 of the original signers of the Declaration were Bible believing church attending Christians. You ask about common law. Let's go to three principles of common law.

Presumption of medicines. Due process and jury of your peers. All three are biblical principles. So, and all wrapped into the ultimate biblical principle that you shall not favor justice if you are richer or poor, which is in Leviticus 19, which is the idea of blind justice, which is incorporated also in the New Testament ideal, neither slave nor Greek nor Jew, you are all one in Jesus Christ, which is the idea of human equality. These are all biblical ideas. But more importantly than that, They say that God was only mentioned four times in the Declaration of Independence. Well, that's a big deal. John Adams, seamlessly said the Constitution was only written for a moral and religious people.

It was wholly inadequate for the people of any other. The body politic of America was so Christian that our form and structure of government was built for the people that believed in Christ our Lord. One of the reasons we're living through a constitutional crisis is that we no longer have a Christian nation, but we have a Christian form of government, and they're incompatible. So you cannot have liberty if you do not have a Christian population. Yeah. Isn't that insane?

Wow. Interesting. I do not think people realize, like, whether you like it or not, whether you agree or not. That's just a fact. Yeah. That's how our nation was founded. So, man, a few things I want to point out is that one, what people are struggling with is like, hey, man, you're trying to force some kind of like religion or, you know, moral code on people who don't share it. And you're not supposed to do that.

Okay. Well, here's what I would say. question is not whether the question is which the question is not whether uh this nation will be guided by a set of moral principles the question is which set of moral principles will this nation be guided by so what people are struggling with is you guys are going to put the ten commandments up on classroom walls okay great man if you struggle with that let me show you what they were putting up on classroom walls so go to that picture of the classroom up there that's what they were putting up on classroom walls. Now, let me just point this out. The same people who struggle with the Ten Commandments

getting put up on classroom walls, a lot of them love that getting put on classroom walls. The point is, the question is not whether a nation will be guided by a moral code. The question is, which moral code will guide the nation? So as Christians, we're going, how about we do the one that doesn't incite the judgment of God and the destruction of societies and families? That's all we're doing. Now, the question then becomes, hey, dude, but what about separation, church, and state? Okay, a few things on this. Number one, the phrase, the separation of church and state is nowhere in our founding documents. It's not in the Constitution. It's not in the Bill of Rights. It's nowhere. That statement comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to

the Danbury Baptist Association. I think it was in 1860s. No, no, no, no, it wouldn't have been late 1700s when it would have been. And essentially what he's doing is he's saying, number one, he's, when the founders were talking about the establishment clause or not favoring one, quote, unquote, religion over another one, what they were talking, I actually read it this week because for this podcast. What they were talking about is, remember, they were coming out of England that had established a state church. And then other denominations had experienced persecution because their Christian denomination was not aligned with the denomination of the state church. So if you go read the American founders, they keep saying like, what they're saying is one Christian sect. That's the phrase they use should not be favored above another one. They weren't talking about like, oh man, we should just treat Christianity and Islam as equal.

They were talking about not favoring one Christian denomination over another Christian denomination. That's what they were talking about, which is why they felt very comfortable building the nation off of explicitly Christian. principles. The other thing that needs to be pointed out is the separation of church and state it does not mean a separation of politics and religion. That's impossible. People say, man, you can't legislate morality. Hey guys, morality is the only thing that ever gets legislated. Every law, it's called standpoint epistemology. Every law is legislating some moral viewpoint. So if you make a law about theft being wrong, that's coming from some moral viewpoint. Okay.

So a separation of church and state does not mean the separation of politics and religion. That's impossible. And it definitely doesn't mean a separation of righteousness and state. That would be evil. The separated church and state was talking about a separation of governments. It was saying, hey, man, let's not do what England did. That's what we, you know, seceded from. That's like our whole thing.

Let's not do what England did. and establish a state church where the same dude that leads the government is also the leader of the, of the institution of the church. So let's not make the president the same dude as the pope. So it's talking about a separation of governments. And oh, by the way, the purpose of separation of church and state was not to keep the church from influencing the state. The whole purpose was to keep the state from imposing on the church. So I'll just boil all this down. Yep, that's awesome. We should be applauding it unequivocally

because we want to raise a generation of people who know and have the emotional instincts that are calibrated from true morality for the good of society and so that their hearts can be led to Jesus. That's good, man. Other thoughts? Here's why I think a lot of,

especially younger people in my generation and below, we don't realize this, But a lot of the things that we believe today that most people actually agree on literally came from the Bible. Right? And so, like, we missed that fact. And so, like, I mean, we named so many examples. So, like, civil rights happened because Christians held on to Genesis 1. So human rights, without Genesis 1 saying that everybody's made in the image of God, we don't have human rights. There are no human rights without the Bible. Like, literally, the Bible. Christians literally came up with human rights. I mean, abolition, right? I mean, Christians like William Wilberforce in the UK and Frederick Douglass.

the U.S. I mean. I want to pause there. This, dude, I didn't know where you're bringing this up. So here's a fun little fact. I think it's, I did some research on this for a sermon a few years ago. I think it was the first seven. Seven out of seven of the first nations to abolish slavery were explicitly predominantly Christian nations.

Like the whole concept of abolition of slavery, that's our thing. Nobody else came up with that. Keep going. Like literally, like, you know, some people say, oh, the Bible doesn't necessarily, well, if you read like the major theme in the Old Testament is got. literally freeing slaves from the bondage in Egypt. And in New Testament, Galatians 328, says there is neither Jew or Greek, neither slave nor free, for you are all one in Christ.

I mean, if you go back in history here in the U.S., even, historically speaking, hospitals, education. It's a Christian thing. Glenn Scrivener has a book called The Air We Brief. Killer book. I read it because you recommended to me like two years ago. How we all, he says this, this is the subtitle of the book, The Air We Breathe, how we all came to believe in freedom, kindness, progress, and equality.

Those are things that don't just like naturally come up in civilizations. They come from Judeo-Christian values, come from Scripture, comes from the power of the Word of God, blessing cities, nations, peoples. Look at that word and said, let's do what that says. Let's obey it. And then blessings come. This is literally Proverbs 14, verse 34. Righteousness exalts a nation.

James chapter 1 verse 25, whoever looks intently into the perfect law of God and continues in it, they will be blessed in what they do. And so again, the same people that today oppose the Bible are the same that benefit from a society that has been deeply, deeply shaped by the Bible. That's right. That's true. The other thing I would point out is nobody else came up with religious liberty. That's another. There are no, that is a Christian ideal. Like we are, we are not a religion of imposition. That's Islam. We are a religion of invitation. So you do not, like, heads up, like, just go do your research. You do not go to predominantly Muslim nations and find religious liberty. That's not a thing. That's a Christian thing. In fact, overlay a map of wherever

there's the most religious liberty in the world, and then overlay a map of where there's most Christians in the world. It's the same map. So it's all this stuff, it's the blessings of, of of Team Jesus. That's great, man. Yeah, I just come back all the way, back around to the whole ten commandments. It's like whoever opposes that, like just the simplicity of what you laid out is fascinating to me when you look at our history. But like if you just look at our culture, it's like, do you not think we need a moral code in schools?

I mean, I just ask that question. It's like just if you look at see what's happening in schools today and families today, is like putting the Ten Commandments back up. You know, what is that going to change? I don't know. I mean, practically, we don't know. But what we do know is, we're saying, hey, there is a standard

in regard to just basic morality that's been missed in our country for 30 years. So, man, thank God that somebody's doing it. As if this upcoming generation who's going through anxiety, depression, distraction, suicide rates as if we didn't need more of God's truth, more of that guidance. And so, man, that's it.

We got time for, we got like five more minutes. You're good with that. Like a little something. I want to make it practical. I want to, full circle. You know, so Paul, because you mentioned Paul was a tent maker in this verse as well. I mean, I just want to make it really practicals because we're all about evangelism. Man, Paul leverage his tent making skills to basically,

man, if this helps to, you know, this is not just a paycheck, this is a platform. This is for me to share the gospel. And so, man, for the people that are joining right now that are like, oh, well, you know, if I'm in my job, how can I be, or what can I learn from Paul as I share my faith with other people? What would you guys say? Man, I tell you, I jump in to just remind people, this is a great A.W. Toes your quote, he says, let every man abide in the calling where he is called. and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular. It is why he does it. And so for the tentmaker, I just come back around just to say there's a thing in regard to,

I mean, one, in regard to where we work and how we live every day, I would say to the person who's out there, man, see your work as a calling. I think one of the things that happens when we see our work as a calling, I think you guys would agree with me. Both excellence and integrity begin to bleed through. And every employer wants a Christian who has both excellence and integrity. There's a spirit in which when you see yourself as someone who has a calling, no matter where you are, that when you serve others, you're not just serving others,

but the spirit of Jesus is in you serving others. And then last but not least, man, I just challenge people always who ask me, man, is like, man, I'd really love to work at a church one day so I could do something valuable. And I always push back to say, hey, man, see your work as an act of worship where you are. Because there are people that are in the workplace with you who need to see the way you do your work as worship because you're speaking to the one who created us all. So I just, man, I encourage people all the time in this. It's like, man, see where you are planted as a worthwhile mission field.

And it's not what you do. It's why you do it that makes the most difference. Amen. Yeah. Amen. Amen. So side note, this also did make another sermon. It says tent maker.

The, it's the Greek, he's actually a leather worker. That's what that, the Greek word literally just means leather. worker. So I thought that was funny. Also, a little fun facts to know and tell on your Bible trivia is kind of the same thing is how a lot of English Bibles translated that Joseph was a carpenter and he wasn't. He was a stone mason. That's what the word literally mean. It's kind of the same thing. So on this sermon on the mount, let your light so shine before men that they should see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. The most important thing that somebody will do at their workplace is just be the best dude there, be the best lady there.

Like the kindest, most humble. I don't do office gossip. I just love and serve everybody I can. Man, it's just a presence of goodness wherever you are. Man, you're the, how can I pray for you? And here's the gift card when you're sick. You're that guy. The other thing I would say just to give some, why don't I finish giving some like actual

examples from Lake Point members? Oh, that'd be great. Let me do that. So when Jesus does the Great Commission, go therefore make disciples of all nations. The Greek verb translated go is in a tense that means, a verb tense that means as you are going. So you say, wherever you go,

as you're going there, as you're going to L3, you know, wherever it is, as you go, make disciples wherever you go. I'm just going for the dude that's going, huh, I wonder what that looks like. I'm going to give some actual examples from like, members. All right. Shout out Mark Andrews, amazing laypoint guy, owns a great business in town. He does stuff like if employees want to go on mission trips, he will fund it sometimes.

And their time off to go on a mission trip does not count as vacation. He's like, man, I just, I just want you to. Wow. So think about that. He's eaten the bill two times over on the time and the dollars in some sense on certain mission trips. there's a high-level executive oversees about a third of one of the largest, an enormous company. When he coaches his team members for personal development, he's like, hey, man, what I want you to do is every day. I want you to grow personally and as a leader, and then he just tells him, here's what I do. I read the Bible for 10 minutes every day, and then I read a leadership book for 10 minutes every day.

It's just a small way, like somebody they respect a successful leader. You got a guy named Gus Antos, great laypoint dude. One, I literally had a plumber in my house this week from Gus's company. Shout out Milestone. We were not paid for this advertisement. This guy had no idea I knew Gus. And I was just like, hey, man, how's it working there? He's like, this is the best company I've ever worked at.

Wow. He was like, man, they just, they love you. They care about your family. then he said this, they care about your family and your soul. So it's just he's running his business where his employees feel like, they care about who I am. We got a million of them. I'll just give example,

like I don't even got to do names to be inappropriate. But just guys who God has gifted to build wealth and then given them the wisdom to know how to allocate it to Max Kingdom Advance, we could not do what we do if there were not dudes that were like, heavy hitters and they're like, I'm leveraging what God has built me to do. And I just tell these guys all the time, like, some pastors will make people guilty for like, you know, making a lot of money. I'm like, nope, I want you to max send it. God gave you that gift, full send. I need you to crush it for the kingdom of God. And then leverage the gifts he gives you

for the advance of his kingdom. That's literally in the Bible, right? Like people that, you know, their own business, like, hey, here's for the mission. Here's for. Wealthy, successful business owners funded both Jesus and Paul's ministry. Both of them. Both of them. A couple others. We got a CrossFit box owner at Lake Point. I went to this CrossFit box for a while. And they're Christians.

And they don't force, they don't make it awkward, but they tell everybody, hey, man, we care about three things, your mind, your body, and your soul. And they just keep over, like, in their CrossFit box, they keep on a table. It's a bunch of little Christian devotions that they love. And they're like, hey, man, if you ever need help with your soul, that's free.

That's our gift to you. I love that. It's awesome, dude. That's amazing. I'll give a couple other ones. We got lawyers and doctors in our church who they always are meeting with people at the worst moments in their life that are vulnerable ones. And they'll just, here's how they do it because I wrote it down when they told me about this. We got a lawyer in our church who he just says, hey, ma'am, you don't have to say yes to this, but I'm a person of faith.

Would you mind if I prayed for you? And he said, I've literally never had somebody say no. Wow. And it just means the world to people, dude. You got, we got shout out, we got guys like Michael Whitrock. Yeah. You know, he works at a high level guy at DirecTV. He's just a faithful dude and he's public.

Like I watched him on Memorial Day. He's like, I think, C-O-O of DirecTV. And he's just like publicly going, hey man, you know, I'm a person of faith. I think there's two people who died for you, American soldiers and Jesus Christ. Wow. I hope you consider both of them. Wow. You know, it's just like people just being faithful teachers who, when they're in the

classroom and these students are going through hard times, they'll do, hey, man, I want you know I'm praying for you this week. Little things like that. I'll do one last one, Gary Tipton, a guy in our church, he's, I think, president, president or owner, maybe both, I don't know. Is that it? Prisoner. He is.

He has. He has. Yeah. And, dude, he's just a Christian guy. And he's like, man, I'm going to figure out a way. sometimes these churches that are growing, banks don't know what to do with them, and they've got to figure out ways to build buildings so the kingdom can advance. So he literally was just like, I'm going to figure it out.

I'm going to figure out how to do a successful, safe, it's still good for the company, lending program that helps churches. So, man, there's a million ways. So I just say, man, no matter who you are, you get out there and figure it out by the leadership of the spirit is going to be awesome. Were you going to say something? No, I just think, again, this church is blessed by all, a lot of people who live that.

And I just, I feel for the person who's sitting out there who maybe is doing something day to day, and they're not sure that what they're doing, where they're doing, that it matters. And again, I just want to encourage them to look up and look around. And as you said, man, let your light shine in such a way that people can see the God who created you. And if you'll start opening up your mind and heart for not just the way that you're working, but just to allow God to help you see the people around you as a mission, feel. I think you'd be surprised at how much meaning might actually come to what you're doing. Amen. So I just encourage people. That's good, Tim. Because you, that's a word for our people,

whether they're joining on YouTube or listening on audio. Matthew chapter 5 verse 14. It says, you are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand. And it gives light to everyone in the house. in the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. Pastor Tim, can you pray for us? Yeah, I'd love to. Lord, we bless you and thank you that you are the light that shines. And Lord, I just ask today that wherever you find us today, whether we're listening to this in our car or in our group, that God, you would just help us to shine our light.

Thank you, Lord, for just the testimony today of Paul that in his fear you just reminded him that you're in control. And then you told him to go to work. And so, Lord, I pray today just in the way that only you can, would you love the people who are listening to this in such a way that they know that you have the outcomes of their life? And then, Lord, release them by grace to serve you in a way that would be profound and meaningful. We bless you and thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thanks for tuning in to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton.

We pray today's episode helped you take a step forward in life, culture, and faith as you live free in Christ. If it encouraged you, be sure to rate, review, and share the podcast, and don't forget to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. Join us for Lake Point Church online every weekend and find more resources at lakepoint.church slash live free. We'll see you next time.