Live Free with Josh Howerton - Top 5 Objections to Christianity DEBUNKED! | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: July 21, 2025

What does it really mean to have faith like a child? In this episode, Pastors Josh Howerton, Carlos Erazo, Jana Howerton, and Pamela Baltazar dive into The Chronicles of Narnia and the theme of childlike faith, anchored in Matthew 18:3. From discussing the highest recorded IQ in the world (and his public confession of Christ!) to revisiting C.S. Lewis’ vision of the gospel through Narnia, this conversation is full of laughter, theology, cultural commentary, and practical application. They also contrast childish vs. childlike faith, tackle common objections to Christianity, and unpack the historical shifts in belief, from New Atheism to Deconstruction to today’s cultural “vibe shift” back toward Christ. 👍 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! Rooted is a 10-week discipleship experience designed to help you grow closer to God, build strong community, and live out your faith—and it all starts with a simple “yes.” Click the link to learn more and sign up - https://lakepointe.church/rooted/ ⛪ 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 Erasso, and I'm here with Pastor Josh Howardton, Jana Howerton, and Pamela Baltasar. Let's talk about the After Movies that I gave away on last week's podcast. Yeah, he did.

We did. Week two of At the Movies. Guys, I can't get over this set. This is like legit. Shout up to the video team and the creative team. Am I allowed to also tease, or did you tell them while Jan and I were on vacation what's happening with the other where we were? No, I don't think I did. Go ahead. Yeah.

Part of the reason we're in here is not just because of at the movies, but because the podcast, Live Free has gone so well. Like it's exceeded every imaginable expectation that we're redoing the podcast set room thingy because this is going to be permanent. And we want it to be awesome and have room for podcast guests. There you go. So when we're back in the old room, it's not going to look like the old room. It's pretty, it's pretty sweet. By faith, if it's ready. We're going to talk about faith today.

Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey. Wow. Oh, man. Hey, man, at the movies week, too. We didn't plan on this. Rapid Fire favorite movie on a spot of all time. What would you say?

Damn. I already know mine. Oh, you got, Jenna. Go ahead. Pride and Prejudice. Yeah. And 2005 Kira Nightly version, not the 1980, something with Colin Firth. Not that one.

Okay. And just real quick out of curiosity, why is this your favorite movies? Oh, I love it. Just everything about it. I feel like it was really well done. I love the books. So I think that's important if you read the book first. You want the movie, I don't know, to have a certain feel.

And I like that. How many times do you think you've watched that? Over under 30. I would be embarrassed to say probably. Oh, definitely. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe under.

I don't know. It's going to be right there. You haven't memorized? No, but I have a lot. Bro, close. Oh, it's funny. It's been fun because Eliana is kind of into reading all of Jane Austen's books, too. Nice.

Okay, usually, when somebody asks me that question, my usual go-to is the cliche, Braveheart or Tombstone. My dark horse for that, though, is The Winston Churchill movie with Gary Oldham. Oh, interesting. That was good. I'm a huge World War II Winston Churchill guy. That movie is unbelievable. never seen it. Bro. I went to the museum in El Salvador is that like, you know, I know like America we're like, yeah, we won World War II. So like we're super into it. Is it as much of a thing?

I mean, I took I took some classes in high school, but no, really, no. We were not part of it. We're not interested. Right. That, yeah. I'm glad you all did that. That makes sense for you. I mean, it's rich history. Wait, oh, can I tell an amazing story? Okay. So Jan and I recently, I'm going to tell about that gift that guy sent me. Oh, that was. Jan and I recently, on weeks, when I'm not teaching and I'm in town, we visit all of our campuses and we pray with people in the lobbies. We were at our shoutout North Dallas campus. We're in the lobby and I see this guy talking to, he's an adult guy. He's talking to Eliana and the conversation looks really good. We walk up to him and he's talking to Eliana about West Point, which is like the greatest military academy in the United

States. So I'm like, this is really interesting. Well, this guy goes on to explain. Now, by the way, if you don't know this, I'll just give you a little American World War II history. real quick. So like, arguably the most consequential unit or fighting force for the United States in World War II was the 101st Airborne. So it's like the whole Band of Brothers movies or miniseries on it. It's all around this one fighting unit that was called 1001st Airborne. And I'm all in. Like I've read all the books and seen all the movies. Well, this guy explains to me that he graduated, I think as a battalion commander at our North Dallas campus,

he retired as a battalion commander from the 101st Airborne. So I was like geeking out, which is a big deal. Like, that's a big deal. Well, this guy, he sends our family, this little gift package, and he sent Eliana a book about the history of West Point. He was trying to recruit Eliana to West Point.

She's reading it, too. She's very into it. Literally yesterday at the pool, I look over and she's reading this book about West Point. I was more proud of her. Wow. And then this dude sent me an original World War II 101st Airborne Scream and Eagles uniform patch, like worn in combat.

Wow. In that same gift package, I totally geeked out. That's amazing. Yeah. It's amazing. I was explaining the kids like, hey, a literal war hero wore this. Yeah, yeah. It's awesome.

Hey, man. I took a video's history. and I was a fan. I loved your history. Did you tell, you said, what's the name of the movie again? Darkest Hour. The Winston Churchill movie, Darkest Hour. Mine is proud and prejudice. Oh my goodness. No, you can't. You can't see.

Thousands of times, yes. I thought you have bewitched me. Body and soul. Wait, are you serious? I love you. I love you. Yeah. It's not good. That is not the movie that I was expecting you to say it would be your favorite. It's just, I love it because it's romantic, but it's not corny.

And he's not like, you know, like dirty stuff. Like, it's like real romance. There's not dirty. There's not. Yeah, there's not. So I really, really love that. Pamela, do you know what Janice named our dog? Yes, Mr. Darcy.

Mr. Bingley. Yes, yes. That's so funny. I didn't know the connection. Favorite maybe? Man, you know this already. Everybody. Wait.

You know this already. The all-time classic from, oh, back to the future. Oh, back to the future. Really? That's it. That's going to be, it's just hard to beat. So did you see that, you saw that before you moved the States?

Or you see it in El Salvador as a kid. Did you see it in Spanish or English? In both. And VHS, by the way. So you do know about it. So I do know about VHS is. And yeah, I basically have all three trilogies memorized in English and Spanish. And I collect Back to the Future memorabilia.

Which is funny thing. My brother and I, we went to the, there's like a Dallas 40 year anniversary for Back to the Future. And all the cast showed up. So I saw them in purpose. person. Michael J. Fox. Michael J. Fox was there. Christopher Lloyd and it was amazing. We saw him. We were, we vacationed at this place in England where Christopher Lloyd was at the thing with us. Yeah. And I talked to him. What? Yes. I said yeah. I talked to him. I said hi. He said, hi. He said hello. I mean, it's one of those things. You just, you leave him alone. It's like they don't want to talk to

anybody. They, you know, so you're a best friend. We left him alone. Me and it were close. I have a wholly jealousy. We're besties. Me and Christopher Lloyd. That's amazing. Well, I saw him from far away. You could get a selfie and a signature, and I asked, you just have to pay $400 for that. Are you serious? Something like 200 for the, something like 200 for the selfie and 200 for the signature and like a three-hour line, which I did not do.

So I thought I was a fan. There's some real fans in this place. I just, you know, I'm interesting. But he apparently vacations in the countryside of England. We were in this little hotel out in the middle of nowhere in England. I love that to the country. That's amazing. And man, well, we had a really good movie this weekend.

And that's the one that you teased, sort of. Yeah. And we keep the after movies movies tight. Like it's top secret. I totally blew it. It's all right. It's all right. It was good.

Can I give you some little known facts about the Chronicles of Narnia? Before you do, I just want to invite people to share, like, subscribe, comment. By the way, we love when people comment on YouTube as well. We love when people listen in. but we love it when people comment. When people come on YouTube, we read and respond. That's right. Yeah.

And by the way, it helps the algorithm. Yes. And people, we love to hear about your life groups, which, by the way, we got pictures. We got pictures. We got pictures of people telling us about their life group with their show notes. Yeah. So we got a couple here. All right.

So this is one. Wait, no, no, no, I'm sure. So this is one, some guys sent this to me. These guys meet at a breakfast diner. Like, look how many dudes are there. This is what they're doing. There's an incredible story about one of those. This is a Mexican restaurant?

It looks like it. Okay. These guys sent me a picture. But what groups are doing is they're listening to the sermon. Then they're listening to the deeper dive Bible teaching podcast. That's this. Live free. Then they're showing up.

It's just like guys doing this. They're showing up at these diners and coffee shops. That's another one. I got sent this yesterday. People are starting to tag us in pictures on these on Instagram. Please keep doing that. And then it's just like they get in. They talk about what God showed them in the Word through the Bible teaching.

They confess sin, talk about what's going on their life. Like how do I apply the word? They encourage and pray for each other. And then they get at it. They're doing it before work, which is awesome. I love it, man. There's discussion questions in the show notes, Bible verses, whatever we discuss here, so that you can take it with your group and go even deeper.

So to download those, go to lake point at church slash show notes or find the link in the description. And today we're going to talk about Narnia. We're going to talk about the highest IQ in the world confessing Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. We will talk about this. He's an guy for, he's Asian guy. Korean. He's Korean. Korean.

I don't want to mispronounce his name, but I'm probably going to. I'm not even going to try. How do you say it? I mean, I don't speak Korean, but I believe you said, Young Hume Kim. Yeah, that's, you did better than me. Oh, well. Highest IQ in the world. We're going to talk about this in a second.

He's guys like a very outspoken believer. He's talking about this. That's going to be cool. We're going to talk about what faith and faith is. not and we're going to answer some objections to belief and Christian a lot of people have. It's going to be fun. This is good episode.

Tell me about Narnia. Okay. Let's do some little known facts. Little known facts. So my mom, shout out, her name's Julie, but I call her mom. Mom read these to me. Growing up, we've read some of them

to our kids. I've very distinct memories of mom finishing book four of the voyage of the Don Treader. Riepacheep was my favorite character. I have very, distinct memories of crying when Reapachie, quote, unquote, he doesn't die, he kind of dies, but he goes to like the afterlife and I just have, I have good memories. You remember that?

Yeah. Did I read that to you when we first got married? Well, we did, um, trying to think which one we started with, but yeah, like on our honeymoon, you, uh, you read. We started, I read to her, which, which I, I love, he has great reading voice. Thank you. So little known facts about, uh, Chronicles and Arnia. Number one, it was not planned as a series.

C.S. Lewis planned originally to only write one book and there be none. He's going to want to done. By the way... The first one, do you know? Which one do you think is the first one, Carlos? Not the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Yes, it is. What?

So here's the deal. He wrote Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe first. Then after he turned it into a series, I think he wrote Magician's Nephew Fifth, but he wrote it as a prequel to Lion the Witch in the Wardrobe, but he wrote it fifth. Interesting. I didn't know that.

So I'm all, I'm like Chronicles and Arnea nerds fight about this. I'm all in on you're supposed to read, line the wish in the wardrobe first. So that's the first one he wrote. Isn't that the first one? But why? Well, the first one written, not in the order at all. That's the first one that was written.

Yeah. He wrote Magician's nephew fifth, but he wrote it to come first in the timeline. Got it. Got it. Yeah. All right, so not planned as a series to turn into a series when it got popular.

Number two, it was inspired by a real wardrobe that I have touched. So I have been to C.S. Lewis, did you know this? Yes, yeah. I have been to C.S. Lewis's house in England. And the wardrobe that it's inspired by is right there in his bedroom. By the way, here's another little, this isn't in my notes. Here's another little known fact by C.S. Lewis.

Right above his bed hung and still hangs. a, I'm 99% sure of this correct, a depiction of the Shrout of Turin. Huh. Very interesting. Someday, we're going to do a podcast on the Shrout of Turin. For the people that don't know what that is. Oh, sorry. So the Shrout Turin is a highly debated piece of cloth

that there are at least some very credible reasons to believe is the piece of face cloth. Jesus was wearing when he was resurrected. And there's like an actual imprint of the supposedly the alleged face of the risen Christ, almost like burned into the cloth. And there are a legitimate, some, it's debatable. I'm just going to get it out of there. There are some credible, legitimate reasons that people are like, no, that thing's real. Okay.

That's coming soon in a different pot. If you want, we didn't plan to talk about this. If you want an interesting podcast to listen to after you're done listening to Live Free, Michael Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S, he did a podcast with a guy from Dallas, who we should get on this show. Okay. About the Shroud of Turn, it's got like two million views. I listened to it one night while I was like kind of nerd-in-out. It's legitimately really, right.

So anyway, C-S-Lillis, get back to this. All right, so fact number three. about Chronicles and Arnia. J. R. Tolkien, who wrote The Lord of the Rings and was C.S. Lewis's best buddy that brought him to faith. Tolkien hated the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. He hated it. He thought that the whole thing of like,

so there's like a Jesus lion and there's Santa Claus is in there? He was just like, ah, this is that way. Too easy, too easy. Well, I'm glad you didn't listen to him because we love it. We'll say Jesus, Jesus lion and the Santa Claus said it's a little, I mean, I can empathize a little bit with, it's a good story. Sounds like, you just hear that. You're like, oh, interesting.

Fact number four, Turkish delight is awful. Has anybody tasted Turkish delight? Yes, because when the last time I was reading it to the kids, I was like, okay, I'm buying some of that. And so I did. You're such a good mom. And they were not fans. It's awful, but would British people agree with that? I don't know.

Dude, British people, listen, I love, if you're British, we love you. Man, you're a taste buds. That is not my thing. I don't know. I like it. That's fair. I ate baked beans for breakfast. Well, I would, I would need that.

Wait, it's very different, though. It's not beans. I love how a fendent in Pamela works. We eat beans. I mean, we like beans. I just had beans today. For breakfast? Yes.

Not the British type. With my gorvitas. Carlos, El Salvador, beans for breakfast? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, I love how... You are the weird ones. You're like, we can do that too?

We do, man. We, like, Latin American people. We like beans. All right. But just to clarify, they're very different than British beans. Oh, yeah. They're not sweet or... You can keep going on.

Well, Turkish delight is terrible. What is it? Is it... I don't even know what it is. How would you describe it? It's almost gum... Maybe I'm... I don't know.

It's almost like a gummy... But not a gummy. I don't know. I don't know how to describe it at all. I just tasted it years ago in England. It was real bad. And then here's the last one. You know, obviously Chronicles and Arnia is filled with talking animals.

C.S. Lewis, and I think I agree with him, almost certainly believed that when Jesus restores the new heavens and the earth, animals will be able to talk. Wow. So here's a fun little, he was, C.S. Lewis was famous for responding by hand to every letter that was sent to him. That's amazing. That had been a lot of letters. So what people did is as many as they could find, is they found all the people he responded to,

and then they compiled his letters into little books that you can still buy. In 1960, a little boy wrote him a letter about his dog that had just died. And I love this. C.S. Lewis, the senior saint, world-renet. down theologian and apologist, Oxford professor took time to write this little boy about his dog that just died. And he wrote to this little boy that animals like dogs, he thought might join us in heaven. And then this was his quote, perhaps with even greater powers than they have now. Wow. Wow. I know. Isn't it awesome? Yeah. It was awesome. Wait, so, so did he say specifically

that they might talk? He did not specifically say that. That's what I'm assuming. based on how he depicted the Chronicles on our hand. And then he also wrote a book called The Problem of Pain that was about the Problem of Evil I read in college. And in the problem of pain, he has a whole chapter on animal pain. It's very interesting. I remember

reading it. And in that chapter, he also talks about how he thinks that some animals might be resurrected in the new earth. You might get Boomer back. And then shout up to Mr. Bingham.

Maybe this will give you greater affection for Bingley. I'm not a huge fan of Bingley. I love him. Oh, man. You're going to see him in eternity. I hope not. I hope so. Hey, I know, Mr. Bingley, that's fair.

That's fair. If in eternity, he's perfectly potty trained, that'd be great. That'd be great. Greater powers. Yeah. But anyway, in greater powers. That's right. But in the problem of pain.

Man, in the problem of pain. he also mentioned, I think, this whole concept of potentially, these are guesses that animals in the new creation having more powers. Interesting. There's your facts. Wow. That is, I don't know, I'd like to know where he got that from. Well, he's guessing. He's guessing.

Now, I will, we didn't plan on talking about this. The reason that some theologians legitimately have believed that is because of Genesis 1 and 2, and you have a talking serpent. And they're like, you know, they're like, hey, you know, maybe. Maybe. So you may hear from Mr. Bingley what he thinks about you. That would be interesting. I wonder if he'll have a British accent.

Maybe he'll eat beans for breakfast. Yeah, maybe. And, you know, people will ask us, people will ask, like, will my pet be in heaven? And, you know, there's a, you could say that there's a theological case for animals to be in heaven. Make it for me. Well, I can't remember where exactly, but there's a prophecy. I'm trying to, I just try to Google it, but there's a prophecy somewhere. Maybe somebody can help me in the comments that says something about the gazelle line with the lion.

Thanks in the book of Isaiah. There you. The lion shall lay down with the lamb. Okay. So again, there's like an apocalyptic vision of the future where like there's animals involved. Oh, there's some people. Yeah. There's totally going to be animals.

Okay. Totally. Oh, so it's a done deal. Yeah. Done deal. Yeah. The question. Because I had this with my kids.

Like, I think there's going to be animals for what we read. But, like, our pets are going to be there. Like, can they be saved? Do they have a soul to go to heaven? Definitely, they definitely can't be saved. So we weren't talking about those and talking about all the possibilities. But at the end, we concluded that we may think that our pets could be in heaven. Yeah, I just want to know if Mr. Bingley will be there.

That's all I know. With higher powers. He doesn't make it. He's a great dog. He would be a purgatory. He doesn't know what I talk about. No. No.

No. We don't believe in purgatory. We're Protestants. Oh, man. We talk about the Bible. Let's go, Matt. Hey, so there's obviously many themes in Narnia. There's so much there.

But one of the themes that you see in this movie is when Lucy believes in Narnia before anybody else believes in it. And so there's a theme there of childlike faith. And this is from Matthew chapter 18, verse 3. So I just want to, let's start there. Can you read the verse? You get the verse on you. I do not, but, you know, I memorized it a while.

Matthew 183. I got it here. Jesus says, truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Big statement.

Sounds like it's important. So let's talk about this. What does it mean to become like little children or have a child like faith? I'll start and then we can, maybe we can add in. So one, I think let's zoom out

and just talk about what faith is in general. by the way, this is like arguably the most important discussion a Christian can have because we are saved by faith. We are sanctified, which is a big fancy word that means to become holy, to be conformed in the image of Jesus. We're sanctified by faith because the Bible says anything that does not come from faith is sin. I think that's book of Hebrews. So faith is a really big deal.

So I think we need to talk about what it is, and then let's get to that specific verse. let's do a little theology nerd thing here real quick. The Protestant reformers typically have looked in the Bible and said, hey, saving faith. Because we use one word faith to refer to what the Bible actually would have many, many different categories. We have one word, and it encapsulates many different categories, not all of which are saving. So the Protestant reformers, theology nerd moment, they have always looked in the Bible and talked about, saving faith has three aspects.

The Latin words they would use are noticia, a census, and fiduciia. Spanish is a Latin-based language, isn't it? Noticia, a census fiduciia. So noticia, it just means knowledge. So this is just an awareness of facts. Obviously, you have to know something to believe in it. Now, obviously, we all understand

that does not mean that you have belief in that thing. There are tons of non-Christian people who completely reject Jesus that know facts about Jesus. So we all know. But you got to have some facts. So notitia, number one. Number two, a census, I think, by the way, these were originally identified by the early, quote-unquote, early Church Father St. Augustine. A census, it means assent or agreement. I'm aware of those facts, and I agree with those facts.

Okay. So, you know, I'm aware that Jesus was crucified. I know that Christians claim that. That's knowledge. But I agree he was crucified. That's a census is assent. But now what we all know is that just those two things, knowledge and assent. And by the way, this is going to lead to what does Jesus mean when he says you have to become like a little child?

to enter the kingdom of heaven. This is going to lead to that. It's possible to have knowledge and assent and not be saved. How do we know that? Because literally James says this. Even the demons believe and they shudder. That's why this was in my daily Bible reading literally today. Throughout the gospels,

the first people to acknowledge Jesus as Lord are demon-possessed people. they say things like, I know who you are, you're the Holy One of God. So they had knowledge and they even agreed with that knowledge. You're the one of God. But they weren't saved because they still rejected Jesus, which leads us to the third aspect of saving faith. You have saving faith when you have knowledge, noticia, assent, assensis. And the third one is fiduciia, which means trust or heartfelt agreement.

Okay. That's what, that specifically is what Jesus is referring to when he says, hey, you have to become like a little child. And what he means is, when he says that, he's not talking about gollability. Like sometimes people are like, oh, you got to be like a little kid. I just believe. I don't ask any questions. That's not what he's talking about. We'll talk about that in a second. There's a difference between childish faith and childlike faith. Okay. What he's talking about is trust or dependence. So, that's like Hudson as my little son going, I know my dad is strong enough to carry me over that thing. And he hurls himself in my arms. That's when he practices fiduciia trust. So that's what Jesus means. So three aspects of saving faith. Knowledge. I know the facts. A census, I agree that the facts are true. But number three is where you're saved. Trust. I'm laying all the way to my life on the fact that Jesus is good. He's my Lord, and I'm going to believe him and obey him. That's really good.

I think, especially in our culture, it seems like the emphasis when we use the word faith is very much so intellectual. Like, what do you believe? And it becomes at some point, but then to make it practical even for our people, if you think about it, faith isn't just rational, it's relational. And so you talk about your son. when you, what was the third one you said? Feducia trust.

When you trust somebody, when your son trusts his father, there's a relational component to your faith. And so for us, as we talk about having faith in Christ, there's a relational component where he is involved in every aspect of your life. And not just what you do on Sundays or what you're doing in your time alone with God, but in your relationships, in your marriage, with your kids, in your job, what everything that you do, there's an ongoing relationship where Jesus influences every single part of it. Yeah. And that's part of your faith. That's right. This is so important.

Let me give one last analogy because this is like it's that important. I want to make sure people get this. So now knowledge, assent, and trust. All right. So we got a staircase in our house and Hudson likes to jump off things. So like the first time he did this, Hudson's at the top of the stairs. And I, yell down to Hudson, hey buddy, jump to me. And he's like, no way, you know. So I tell him, hey, bud, I can definitely catch you. Now he's heard that fact. So he has knowledge. Dad says he can catch me. Okay. Then there comes a moment. I don't know when it happens. When I, like, let's say I ask, hey, buddy, do you believe that I can, do you think I can catch you? He says yes. Okay. Now we have a sense.

But you can have a little kid that has knowledge and assent, but he's still not going to jump because he didn't, in his heart of hearts at a relational level, he doesn't trust it. But the moment that Hudson believes it, trusts it, and then he jumps to me, he hurls himself towards me into my arms. That's the moment that he's exercising fiducius, faith, trust. It's the same thing for a Christian. When somebody becomes a Christian, when you first hear, he. hear the facts of Jesus was the son of God, died for your sins, raised on a third day.

You got that when you're like, yep, I believe those things are true. That's when you have assent, but that doesn't mean you're saved. It's the moment that you're like, know what, man, I'm going to bend my knee to the Lordship of Jesus. I'm going to give my life to him, his way, not my way. I believe somehow in some way the cross counted for me and you hurl yourself at him and, you know, you start obeying him. That's saving faith is taking place. There it is. knowledge of sand trust. Thoughts, faith, what do y'all think?

Well, that's very deep, and I was going to say something more like practical, but like, as a mom, like I think about my kids and how they trust us and how they believe everything we say, and they're not gullible. They have a bunch of questions and they would, like, why? And why do you say that? I mean, it's not that. There's certain, like, how do you say, naivety? Yes, naivete. Like, in the sense of, like, there's no prejudice. There's no, like, malice. There's no like, you know, they really, because they trust you, they believe what you're saying to them and they're not, they don't like all the cynicism or like prejudices or like all of this like, you know, cloud or judgment because they're so innocent. So I think to your point when you

come to Jesus, you have to let go of your cynicism, of your like maybe, you know, prejudice you have against Christians or whatever. And in that point I'm surrendered, when you become like a child and say, I'm going to trust in God with my life. There has to come to that point, I believe. Yeah, that's good. That's exactly right. Well, it's interesting because I think when it comes to this conversation, you know, like nobody thinks, today I've got to be childlike.

Like, just that's not. Nobody thinks that unless you listen to Jesus and say, man, Jesus helped me be childlike. But a lot of people actually act childish. That's actually a thing for some people. And so where's the difference? So how do you know if somebody is being childish versus childlike? Yeah, man. So I'd say there's two things here.

Number one, that's really important because the Bible consistently commands us to mature in the faith. To grow up into the fullness of maturity is what the Bible says. So we don't want to be childish. Okay. So I think what I would say is the difference between childish faith and childlike faith is actually Pamela, I think, nailed this. Christians who... And the hammers, I'm like...

The Hispanic hammer, that's the melody man. The... Literally nailed it. Yeah. Nailed it. Oh, there it is. Okay. Too much.

Yeah. There are more inquisitive, curious, maybe more intellectual Christians that they'll hear a verse like that. And it actually really bothers them. They're like, man, so you're actually just asking me to like just believe everything and never ask any questions? no, I'm not. That's childish faith. That's childish, okay? So here's some distinctions. A childish faith shuts the brain down. Don't ask any questions, just believe. A child like faith ramps the brain up.

Depend on him and now seek some understanding. A childish faith says, I believe, so I just, I'll never ask any questions. A child like faith says, I believe, so I'm going to go find some answers. The motto of a childish faith is kind of like the Santa Claus's Just Believe. You know, it's the movie The Santa Claus, Just Believe. The motto of a child like faith, this is another early church father, St. Anselm, he described it as faith seeking understanding. That's actually a really important phrase, faith seeking understanding. So when I as a Christian, I see something in the world or, you know, we'll talk about this later, in science, or whatever you want to say. And it's like, huh, I don't know how to square that with.

with my faith, okay? A childish faith goes, well, I'm not supposed to ask any questions and just, da-da-da-da. A child-like faith goes, no, I trust my father. And I know that the word is true. And now I'm going to go find out how.

And even if I might not understand everything, I'm still going to trust my heavenly father. Or honestly, even, not going too far, like when you read the Bible and you read something like, you're like, huh, like, what do you do with this verse? Or what do you with this text? Or what did Paul mean by that thing? I think there's a sense in which, man, you have a, you know, responsibility to say,

Lord, let me, let me seek to understand this versus, I think what a lot of people will do today. They'll just kind of brush it off and be like, well, I don't, I don't know, but whatever. I don't really, really care. No, you, we're called to seek understanding so that we can, because ultimately it's not just about receiving answers, it's about knowing who God is. That's right, Carlos. This is, Pamela, this nails exactly what you said earlier. So one of my favorite, I went through a period right after it was like the second year of our marriage.

true. Yeah. I mean, it was like, year one or two. Yeah. Like dark night of the soul, like deep doubt. Like, and it ended up being one of the best things that happened to me on the back end. We can talk about that different podcasts, but it was like, I mean, it was a big

enough deal. Janice still remembering exactly when it was. It was a big deal. I read this book called the Francis Schaefer trilogy. Strongly recommend it if you're like a more, I'm not a super intellectual guy, but I was reading stuff like that a lot. every now and then still do.

French Schaefer was like a Christian philosopher, artist, cultural analyst in the 70s during the Jesus movement. Anyway, so here's what, I'm going to read this quote because it's so good. He said, but someone will say, didn't Jesus say that to be saved, you have to be as a little child? And he was talking about how it's good for Christians to ask questions. And then he says, of course he did. But did you ever see a little child who didn't ask questions? people who use this argument must never have listened to a little child or been one. My four children, this is him, gave me a harder time with their endless flow of questions than

university people ever have. What Jesus was talking about is that the little child, when he has an adequate answer, he accepts the answer. He has the simplicity of not having a built-in grid whereby, regardless of the validity of the answer, he continues to reject it. Wow. That's great. That's fantastic.

That's fantastic. And I'll add a quick caveat to something Schaefer said, you are not going to understand everything about God. So I say this all the time, is that if God is the size of the Pacific Ocean and our minds are the size of a Coke can, we ought to expect there to be some things that don't fit. So we should expect that. John Calvin, we're doing a lot of dead church fathers.

this week. At the end of John Calvin's life, and John Kelvin was absolutely brilliant man and theologian, somebody asked him what his favorite Bible verse was, and it was a verse from Deuteronomy, the secret things belong to the Lord. He's like, dude, I've been writing about Jesus for a long time. Here's what I figured out. I'm not going to understand it all. I could be wrong, but somebody can fact check me if this is wrong. That's fine. But I believe John Calvin, when, I don't think he ever preached on the book of Revelation. And when people ask him why, he said, I don't understand it. I love it so much, dude. It's John Calvin. That's good. I love it. I actually love it. So, yeah, feel free to fact check it. Anybody's like,

is that true? Check it out. I do know. I'll give you a little more. We're doing a bunch of the theologians. Probably the greatest theologian of our lifetime. I think a lot of people would agree his name's, he's gone to be with the Lord now a few years ago, J.I. Packer. A lot of people would go like, that's the greatest theologian of our generation. It was hilarious. I was preaching on, there's a verse in Hebrews that says like, hey, let us move on from the elementary things of faith that Christ died for our sins. And I was like, I don't know what that means. That didn't make any sense to me.

And so I went and Googled it to see what J.I. Packer said about it. And somebody asked him about an interview, and the greatest theologian of our generation said, I got no idea what that means. It was like genuinely very comforting. This 90-year-old towering theologian was like, I got no idea what that means, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And very accurate, too. You know, it's been said, the more you know, the more you realize you don't know.

Yeah. And so smart people saying, I don't know. I was going to say there's wisdom and saying, I don't know, rather than giving an answer, you really don't. Yeah. Understand. That's right. 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 Lake Point. to that church 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. So we're talking about faith.

Some people would say, well, I thought faith, you're talking about faith seeking understanding. I thought faith and reason were opposites. You know, especially today when it comes to, we'll talk about this person, Korean IQ, highest IQ in the world. A lot of people think that if you're, if you have faith, that you're not. not supposed to think things through reasonably, or people that are really smart, they're too smart to have faith. I've heard other people say, Bill Maher, he meets with smart people, and then he'll say

things like, I don't understand how you can be so smart and still believe the Bible, like things like that. So, and C.S. Louis, actually, would be somebody that he used to have, he used to be an atheist. Is that right? Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah, until I think he was 31. And so today, many reject Christianity based on Lerner, based on Lerner. false ideas like that, oh, faith and reason, they're not, you know, compatible.

Let's, I want to rapid fire some of the most common objections today that people intellectually have when it comes to faith. And then we can just kind of, because we have faith, because we have a trust in Jesus, we can, we can debunk them. Hey, you want to go ahead and let's, let's show that thing from the Korean guy. Yeah, let's do that. All right, so this is what we're talking about. And then we'll get to this in a second.

So there it is. So this, this went like mega viral. And Carlos, pronounce his name against. Yeah. Young Hun Kim. Okay, so if you got it wrong, then you're in trouble. There you go. Do we, that feel right?

Oh, yeah, that's great. I don't know. All right, good. So this way, he just tweeted as the, I love like how, he's tweet is hysterical. As the world's highest IQ record holder, I believe that Jesus Christ is God, the way, and the truth, and the life.

You're right. I love the way he introduces himself. By the way, If people were wondering who I am, this is who I am. So you know. Now, by the way, that's true. We look this to fact check this. This guy actually is tested at a two, his IQ test at 276.

Let me put that in perspective. Albert Einstein's report at IQ was 180. And Elon Musk is 165. Jeez. So this guy tested at 276. That was retweeted about 50,000. thousand people and 22 million. Are they still saying retweeted?

It's not Twitter anymore. Yeah. I think you retweet it. Re-Xed. Re-Xed. It was viewed by 22 million people. And then he's been on like a terror. I almost played some of his stuff,

but he's been talking about why he's a Bible-believing Christian. There's like a three-minute video for like that he posted about, here's exactly why I believe that Jesus is the son of God. It's really interesting, man. Yeah, it is. It is. It seems to me like, and you know, there's a reason why he kind of went viral too. Like it just feels like a lot more people today with bigger platforms are kind of coming out for like a better term just saying, hey, I actually, this whole Christianity thing.

There's something here. It's vibe shift. It makes me think of like if you think of, if you go back 25 years, some of some people would say that there's been like movements along all these years. And so and these movements kind of build on each other. And so if you think about it in the 2000s, the new atheist movement was like a thing. Like everybody, it was cool now to be an atheist. Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. Like when I was in college, that was like the thing and it's totally dead now.

It's funny because, you know, at the time people were asking, this was after 9-11, by the way. So I think this kind of sparked a little something. People were asking like, hey, does God really exist? Is religion actually good for people? And science versus religion kind of, you know. And so that happened. But then after that came in the 2010s, the progressive Christianity movement started to gain traction. And so basically this is Christians going like, well, you know, did God really say, is the Bible really inerrant, you know?

Deconstruction movement. So that happened in critical theory. So 2010 is progressive Christianity. This is like Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, all these people. And then in 2020, so 10-ish years later, this is where like the deconstruction ex-vangelical movement was a thing. Some people believe that it was a follow-up of the progressive Christianity. And this is, again, this is like this is not Christians anymore saying, yeah, well, let's ask some questions. This is more Christians saying, I'm not a Christian anymore.

Christianity is toxic. Church is bad. And it's interesting because even with Gen Z coming up in this season, Gen Z is statistically the least religious generation in U.S. history. So you look at the statistics right now, at least churches, then there's more nuns, least belief in God. But now we're seeing like the highest IQ saying this, like Joe Rogans are saying that. Like people, there's like a, there seems to be like something starting. And it reminds me of this quote, Tim Keller said, Christianity like its founder does not go from strength to strength to strength. It goes from death to resurrection.

It just seems like that's kind of what we're at the beginning of seeing at this moment. Oh, man, I'm having a brain lapse. what was the British guy? He wrote Orthodoxy. Oh, G.K. Chesterton. G.K. Chesterton has this insane quote where he's like, at least five times in history, people have believed that Christianity had gone to the dogs,

but it was always the dog that died. And it did. And I think he followed up. The next sentence was, for we worship a Lord who went into the grave and came out again or something like that. But that first sentence is at least five times in history, people have thought that Christianity had gone to the dogs, but it was always the dog that died as fire.

So here's my theory on this. So first of all, it is, there's a, I'm sure you've seen it. For the first time, I think in like 60 years, the number of nuns, people who don't claim any religious affiliation, has declined in the last two years. And for the first time like the last 60 years, years, the number of people who are claiming faith in Christ is going up as a percentage. So vibe shift. Tide is turning. The tide is turning. That's my favorite thing right now. I love that.

That's exciting, man. Well, because the tide is turning, let's help, by the grace of God, help some people that maybe might have some intellectual obstacles. You know, maybe, but there's still this one thing. They might say, I'm still wrestling with this. You want to rapid fire some of these? objections and clarifying some of us. Let's do it, man. You guys ready? You got to help me. I'm ready.

You got to help us. All right. Jenna, somebody would say, hey, Jenna. Yeah. I just, maybe, I think I might be into Christianity, but I'm still just, just, just God seems angry and he just, it just wants to punish people. That's what I hear the Bible says that. Help me, help me, help me with this.

Yeah, I think, I think you kind of need to wrestle with the fact that, you know, God is, he's holy and he's just. He's also loving and he's merciful. So God, you know, his justice, it means that he has to deal with evil, right? And there is a lot of evil in the world. Otherwise, he wouldn't be good. So we also, we need to evaluate things in light of what does the word say? And so Psalm 103 says, the Lord is merciful and gracious, so to anger and abounding and steadfast love. Second Peter 3.9, God's patient. He's not wishing that any should perish. He doesn't want that for you. He wants goodness with you. He wants you to be with him. But he wants all. all to reach repentance. And then, like, John 316, I know we hear this a lot, but it's so, so important, for God so loved the world, he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. So I think you have to settle the fact that God's love for you, it was settled on the cross. He wants you to come to repentance. He is, his wrath was settled there.

His anger was settled there. And so for all who come to trust him, he is waiting for you with open arms. And so that doesn't sound like an angry God to me. If God was only an angry guy that just wants to punish people, the question would be why hasn't he done it yet? We would all be dead by now. Like there has to, he has to love us. So he, you know, there has to be a love component for that. If not, we would all be dead by now. You know why he has that? Because what Jenna said, and you quoted Psalms, this is actually the most quoted Bible verse in the Bible, by the Bible. So this is Exodus 346. The reason he hasn't is because Exodus 346 says God, God is slow to anger and he is rich in mercy. And so the most quoted Bible verse in the Bible

by the Bible is the fact of God, who God is. He is slow to anger and rich in mercy. Yeah, let me say a couple things on that. Because this is a big one. So first of all, when somebody says, oh man, God, God's just angry and he just wants to punish people. You know, one, I just want to point out, you would not want to worship a God that did not punish evil. Like, I'll give, and I'm going to be intentionally vague because sometimes evil is gross. The wickedness is just too much. Like I read a news story this week that's going viral about two dudes in Britain that, by the way, you know, it was the same-sex couple that adopted a kid. kid and then essayed the kid until, you know, the kid died. Well, it's like literally viral.

What everyone is saying is death penalty, death penalty, death penalty, death penalty, and guess what? They're right. Like if a judge heard that case and at the end of the case was like, you know what, man, forgiveness. You're good, man. Like, no one would say, what a wonderful judge. Yeah, yeah, wow. Like, there is some. type of evil. I don't care who you are, that when you hear it, something inside of you goes, that deserves wrath. And if someone won't pour out wrath on that, then actually that God would not be worth worshipping. So what I want to point out is, and let me just gently say this, man, is that people are usually fine with sinners being punished until it's them. And it's that

possibility. So we just, what we really need to wrestle with is, hey, all of us agree that wrath on some sins is a good thing. What we need to figure out is like, okay, well, you know, where, where's the line? That's what you're really wrestling with. That's fair. So what I, last thing I'd say on this, it was phrase, God is angry and just wants to punish people. I only have a problem with one word in that sentence, and it's the word just. It's simply not true that God just wants to punish people. You're like, oh, God sends people to hell. In one sense, what I want to say is, oh, actually, that's not my God. My God did everything in his power to keep you from going to hell.

My God loved you so much that he came and died for you that he literally climbed up on a cross and said, if you're going to go to hell, you're going to have to step over my dead body to get there. So I just think you need to rephrase it. And the fact, going back to 2nd Peter 3.9, like he, he, he, He's waiting. He could, I mean, Jesus could come back now. And he wants more to come to him. So he wants all to come to reach repentance.

That's great. Here's another one. The Bible is outdated. It's a, man, it's a book written a long time ago. And it's actually anti-science as well because, you know, talking snakes and all kind of not what we know. So, you know, it's a little phrase like, you make a good, like, you make a, Carlos, you make a good, like, cynical, progressive Christian.

apostate. It's not what I believe. I'm obviously, you know, echoing what people are out there. So what we like to say at Lake Point, and this is not original to me, is that the Bible's not an old book. It's a timeless book. And so it's always timely, you know. So, you know, what I would say is, I would gently say, actually, what's outdated

is the idea that the Bible is anti-science. That has become an outdated idea. So will you guys toss up that Wall Street Journal article real quick? This went viral a few years ago. Wall Street Journal, science increasingly makes the case for God. Subtitle, The Odds of Life Existing on Another Planet, Grow Ever Longer, Intelligent Design, Anyone? This is one like mega viral. And here's what people, this is really interesting, because this has changed in our lifetimes. When I was in middle school in the 90s, in the late 1900s, that's kind of

like what people thought. It's like, oh man, like science in the Bible are at odds. And you got to choose. And honestly, as some of scientific consensus has progressed, the opposite is now happening. Where instead of this whole like God of the gaps, oh, just where you can't explain how it happened, you just kind of insert God in the gap. Now it's the opposite, whereas actually scientific discovery are pushing people to go, well, that seems like that implies the existence of something. I'm going to give a couple quick examples. And then, like, Let's move on and I get bogged down here. Okay, number one, in the early 90s, the scientific consensus was that the universe was eternal.

Matter had always existed, which obviously was at odds with the belief that in the beginning, God created the heavens thereof. Then in, I think it was like the late 90s, early 2000s, I think it was physicists. They just figured out like, oh, that's like not a thing. And now the scientific consensus is Big Bang. hey, at some point, this whole thing exploded into existence. Yeah. Okay, so then like, you gotta go, well, where'd that come from? Yeah, they say Big Bang, we say Big Gun.

Yeah, that's right. You say Big Bang, we say Big God. That's right. So that's number one. Number one. Okay, number two, back when Darwin did the whole origin of species and everything, you know, just, dude, back then, they literally thought that, like, cells were just like globs. okay well then like we get in discover a DNA in the double helix and oops here's what we just figured out is that like literally underneath all of organic existence is a literal sophisticated language called DNA like there's a language just stop and think there's a language underneath who you are and every organic being okay okay well where that come from who wrote that Who wrote that language? Okay.

The big one is fine-tuning. I didn't have time to pull quotes. The argument for the existence of God that shakes. Christopher Hitchens, famous atheist, he's got an unbelievable quote where like, actually it was on video, where he literally, people think Christians are the only ones who doubt,

bro, atheists doubt. And there's this haunting moment where Hitchens is in this limo, I think he's in a limo. And he's literally gone like, dude, that fine-tuning thing keeps me up at night. And if you don't know what that is, here's the quick summary of the argument from fine-tuning.

So all the universe is fundamental, the constants of physics like gravitational force and, you know, the force of proton bonds and magnetism, all that stuff. The universe is constants, they are exquisitely balanced, like perfectly fine-tuned, so that any of them was even the slightest bit different. Life would be totally impossible,

and the universe would be completely sterile. Like if everything was not exactly to the millionth of a little, you know, turn of a dial, like it was. So the example is it'd be the chance of hitting a cosmic bullseye, from a trillion light years away. That's how fine-tuned the thing is. So obviously that leads people to go, well, it sure seems like somebody dialed this thing in

and made it so that it could sustain life. And then the last one, I'll just toss this up here. I love this. Throw up that atheist logic meme. So it's like this crazy sandcastle. So this is what's hilarious. this was in an atheist Reddit thread called our Reddit slash FacePalm.

And in the atheist Reddit thread, this dude that was an atheist tossed this in here and was like, can somebody help me debunk this? I know it's wrong. I just don't know how. And it's this amazing sandcastle. Then it says atheist logic. This sandcastle came up by chance after millions of years of erosion. And it's like, this.

atheist is literally like, help me figure this out because I don't know. But the other argument is, and then, oh, throw up the picture of the cell. That's a picture of the inside of one cell in your body. Like, bro, that's more complex. It looks like a city. It looks like a human city that somebody built. That's one cell in your body. So it's just the complexity of creation.

Design implies designer. So anyway, this is a really long bogged down answer to the Bible is outdated and anti-science. And I would say, actually, man, what's outdated is the idea that the Bible is anti-science. It's that thing. Science increasingly makes the case for God. And that's what's leading to some of this chain vibe shift. Wow. It's always funny to me, like, you know, when somebody comes up with a scientific discovery, like, okay, this scientific study discovered that happy people are healthier or whatever.

Yeah, the Bible already told us that. Yeah, that's right. Emotional intelligence, like, it's people that are capable to self-restrain. Yeah, God already spoke on, you know, self-control. Like, you know, all these things, they come up, like big discoveries or big advances. Yeah, God already spoke to that. So that proves that just how timeless, like, the Bible is. That's right.

What about the people will say to, I don't, oh, Jesus is just one belief. I'm glad it works for you, but that's just one of many paths to God. Yeah, what I always, here's, here's why I do in airplane conversations. Like, because that's a, that's a common one. Man, I just, I think all religions are past to God. My response to that is always to say, hey, man, really gently, you don't believe that. So we're in Texas. When we were growing up, Jim Jones started a religion over in Waco.

And that little religion for Jim Jones, part of it was like, you know, everybody, all the women being willing to sleep with the Jim Jones. And, you know, you just really sick and twisted stuff, you know, for enlightenment and that kind of thing. I'm always like, what I'll usually do is I'll describe some like really sick and twisted religion. Like, hey man, so like the Mayans like would take babies and carve their hearts out of them and then in front of everybody and then cheer it on with like a screaming baby having its heart ripped out while it's alive. and then sacrifice that to their quote-unquote God, and that was like part of how they achieved, you know, quote-unquote salvation for their civilization.

Do you think that that's an equally valid path to God? Like literally nobody believes that. So we're all, I think what I'm really pointing out is like, dude, everyone believes they have some standard by which they judge spiritual truths or claims that are true and not true. You have that. Everybody has that. The question is, how do we know?

What's the right standard? And what I would say is look for the one where the guy rose from the dead. And there's only one of those. It's only one. Here's one more because we're going to keep going here. I know. I'm bogging you down. No, you're good.

You're good. Here's honestly, this is probably one of the biggest one today in like, you know, pop younger culture. Man, I'm okay with religion or spirituality. I just don't trust institutional life. religion. You guys wanted? Like I'm okay with the Bible. Jesus is cool.

I'm dominating here. I'm just, I just don't like institutionalized religion because it's all about like, you know, power and scandals and, yeah. Well, I can see how people can be aseptic about it because there has been terrible things happening in churches. But like Jesus spoke about the church. He said he founded it.

He is going to build it up. but he's going to come back. He spoke about the church, a body of believers. He didn't talk about individuals only. So, like, I think it's a false belief that you don't have to belong to a church because if you come to the faith, you have to belong to the body of Christ. So you cannot be on your own. Jesus spoke about it.

I don't see where the confusion is. So, yeah. Yeah, to that, I mean, I would just say, man, at the center of Christianity is a man dying for people's sin and saying, Father, forgive them for they don't know what they do. So anything that when somebody sees a church or something online and it contradicts whatever, you know, that man on the cross, there's something off there. And again, Christians are not perfect. We are by definition broken and we follow somebody who is.

And then to your point, Pamela, Christianity is church. You cannot be a Christian without being a part of a body of believers. And in the Bible, Jesus actually calls out hypocrisy. So anytime you see something that you're like, oh, that's probably off. Yeah, Jesus calls out hypocrisy. In the Old Testament, the prophets called out hypocrisy as well. Again, it's like, hey, Israel, like, that's not consistent of you.

You know, and so the Bible actually confronts that hypocrisy and that broken is and more than probably the Internet does. And so, again, if you're like, well, you know, I just don't, at the end of the day, church is made by people. People are broken and come join. There's room. The failures of people, it doesn't disprove everything Christ said. And so I think keeping that in mind.

That's good time. Yeah. You know, here's what will happen. First of all, when somebody says that, usually I always want to be like, hey, dude, do you have a story? Like, I bet you've been impacted by that, haven't you? Because a lot of times somebody does, which you're really not dealing with an intellectual problem. You're dealing with an emotional pain. Totally.

So it's like, you know, what I've found is connect before you correct. that's a little pastoral thing. So usually what I want to do is, dude, tell me about a time where you've seen that. And that way, they get a chance to, hey, let me get that out

and get the emotion out. And you've got to get the emotion out of the way before you can deal with the logic of the thing. Then, dude, let's do, let's talk about the logic of the thing. Hey, I want to acknowledge,

you are right. In every institution, people usually talk about churches. I would just say, hey, man, let's just zoom out real quick. There is no institution in the entire world that has not had terrible things

done in it, through it, and in its name. So the problem is not an institution issue. The problem is a sin issue that sinful people make up and lead institutions at times, that kind of thing. I always want to point out a little phrase I'll say is, the abuse of a thing does not negate the use of a thing. Just because somebody did a bad thing while they were part of this thing, this institution, that doesn't negate the entire deal. And then I also just gently want to say, man, if you are that against institutions, I'm sure you don't eat at restaurants, you don't go to doctors, you don't cheer for NFL or college teams, and you would never get a college degree. Because all of those, you're dealing with institutions, you know.

What I want to point out is what you really hate is not institutions or organization. That's not what you really hate. What you really hate, I'm hearing from you, is you hate things like abuse, deception, exploitation. Well, guess what? Jesus hates those things too. that's good last one christianity is oppressive to women i feel like one of you guys should i am a woman i don't feel like that i agree i mean because we really when we look at jesus and his ministry he really he elevated women where no one prior had ever done that and so he spoke

to them he taught them and all in public for everyone else to see um they were first to witness his resurrection um and they were considered like valid testimonies. You know, people believed them and Jesus honored them. And, you know, like, Christianity, like, it teaches, like, men and women are equal. And so that's something very different from other world religions. And so, so yeah, Jesus just, he did elevate women in a way that, you know, others prior never did. Yeah, I was good to say that. Like, it's actually liberating, is vindicating. Is that the word? Like, he vindicated women, he empowered women.

He put them in the right place. Like, I just, I mean, not only Jesus, but you can see that since God, the creation, like the equal value, the equal love for men and women. So, like, I just don't see it. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, so, man, there's a few things I would say here. So first of all, what's funny is the argument for Christianity in the Roman Empire was the exact opposite of this. the reason that an enormous number of people flock to Christianity

was because they saw the exact opposite. Dude, this, these people, they care for and value women unlike anybody else. Now, here in a second, I'm going to talk about what makes this unique in our culture because our culture wants to erase any gender distinctions. And any acknowledgement of a gender distinction in our culture, people automatically label as you're saying that they're different in value. And that's not true. So the Bible talks about equal and value different in function. And people get hung up on that. We'll talk about that here in a second. So I just want to point this out. So in the Roman Empire,

Jana alluded to this. Women were literally legally property of their husbands. Men, now remember that when I read the verse, I'm going to read here in a second. obviously men were not property of their wives, but women were legal property of their husbands. Men could divorce women for infidelity. They could be charged with crimes, actually. But women could not divorce men for their infidelity. It was just assumed, like dudes in the Roman Empire had mistresses. Now, remember that's the culture that Paul is writing into when he writes this in 1st Corinthians 7.

okay now concerning the matters about which you wrote it is good for a man now this is we're going to talk about sex but that's just what paul's doing first corinian seven we're big boys and girls this is the bible it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman so he's he's he's answering an objection the corinthians we're giving him said just let's go to verse two actually we're going to go to verse three for the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the wife to her husband. Now listen to this. Remember, when Paul's writing this, women were the property of their husbands. Men were not obviously the property of their wives, but Paul says this, for the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And all the Roman

men would have been like, yes, we've always believed that. And then Paul says this, but likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. And everybody would have been like, are you crazy? What? We've never heard anything like this before. And then he goes on and talks about all this stuff. And it was just like nobody had ever heard that a husband and a wife should be valued equally in their relationship to each other. I'll point out a couple other things here.

Since the 1970s in America, we've been in what people called the sexual revolution. Church historians have pointed out this is the second sexual revolution in history. there was a sexual revolution in the first century that the Christians led. So this is, I don't want to get too bogged down here, but this is really interesting. The Christian sexual revolution in the first century, both sexual revolutions were trying to deal with the fact that there were unequal weights and measures, a double standard between men's sexualities and women's sexualities. and women's sexualities. So both sexual revolutions were trying to deal with that fact.

Like men get applauded when they're sexually promiscuous and women get shamed. They were kind of trying to deal with that thing. Women are supposed to be chased and men are supposed to be like, you know, out there. But the two sexual revolutions tried to solve the problem in exact opposite ways.

The Christians came along and said, you know what we need to do? Jesus restricts the men just like the women have been restricted. No sex outside of men. marriage. You belong to her. You do not belong to any other woman. So the Christians restricted the men like the women. The 21st century sexual revolution that started in the 1970s did the exact opposite, and they were like, we're going to, quote, unquote, liberate the women so that they can be as

sexually promiscuous as the men. They tried to solve the inequality in the opposite way. And oh, by the way, it's been absolutely devastating. Guess who? For women. So we guys tossed those you can, there's like three graphs here. I just want to toss all these up. We can do them one by one. We'll do this really fast. Like literally every study shows the same thing. Guess which women are the happiest women in America?

It's the ones who obey the Bible's teaching on sex, marriage, gender. So here's what I'm trying to show is when somebody says, man, Christianity is oppressive to women, Well, actually what the study show is that when women lean into God's design, that they're happier. Okay? So you're going to see this. Here's one study. Married moms are more likely to report high happiness levels. This is like the exact opposite of what you read in like every New York Times article. But you can just see it right there. Look at the very top. Married women with kids, the highest percentage of themselves. identify as very happy and the lowest percentage of them identify as not too happy.

Go to another one. You can go to whichever one you want. You see the exact same thing right here, different study, women's happiness by marital status and children. And there it is. You can just see it right? Oh, wait, wait, stay there for a second. Stay there for a second. Make it, yeah. Can you, there you go. Yeah. But married women with children, you can see it's the second bar from the left. those are the happiest women in America, 39.5% going very happy. And then the smallest percentage of that category are like, ah, not too happy, only 12.9%.

And then you can go to one other one and you'll just see it right here. Married mothers are the happiest. You see it again. It's right there. But you're going to see the same thing. What I should have done is I've got some graphs that show as far as disobedience to the Bible's sexual ethic. it's the exact opposite.

It's like, man, it's the women who are doing this sexual revolution, just hook up, shack up, break up, those are the women that are the least happy. So anyway, all this to say, I'm talking way too long, all this to say, man, you're telling me that Christianity is oppressive to women, but what all the studies show is that when women lean into the ethics that are in that book, that they're the happiest ones. That's good. And I know this isn't the context.

of God's design towards sex and toward family and the women's role in a family. But that's not saying that for women that are listening, that for some reason haven't been able to have children or haven't been able to get married. I've just, you know, the disclaimer is that Jesus and God just gave value to women and, you know, vindicated them. But we're talking about the design of the women's role in like a family and all of that, just to clarify that context. That's really important, Melah.

That's good. Yeah, obviously, for any way. listeners if you were like, I can't believe you're saying that. Like, hey, Jan and I literally infertility and, you know, it's like, we get it. We totally get it. What I'm pointing out is kind of the narrative of, this is like the New York Times, it's kind of like the sex in the city narrative, like, oh, you know how you're going to be really happy as a woman? Hate men, stay single, travel, hate kids, do the girl boss thing, definitely never. Like, you know, you read a Bible verse about wives submitting to husbands, lose your mind.

Like, I'm just pointing out that narrative is like the exact opposite of what that data says produces happiness. Yeah, just point that out. But definitely want to go over that with a verbal highlighter. What Pamela just said is very important and truth. Yeah. Well, we're talking about faith today. And I love that because honestly, I could say for me, the way you grow your faith, the way you solidify your faith, the way you build each other up is doing this basically what we're doing right now.

And again, the reason that we are here actually is not just because one, yes, we enjoy hanging out with each other for sure. But we also just want to model what it looks like for faith to grow in community. We actually have Rootidt it coming up. Dude, this is a big deal. We're launching. You want to tell us about it? Yeah, man.

Here in a few weeks, you'll hear about more. Rooted is like it's going to become like the discipleship mechanism for like point, 10 week discipleship experience. I'll be honest, man, it's a high bar. It's like, hey, man, I want to be at church. It's like, hey, man, we're going to call you to something that is actually. actually following Jesus and is actually going to change your life and family. Yes.

So, yeah, rooted coming up, we've got, I think, over a thousand leg pointers that went through it early to become leaders. It's going to be awesome. Launch us here in about four to six weeks. It's a big deal. So if you're going, man, how do I grow on my faith? How do I fight sin and temptation? There's your spot.

10 weeks discipleship experience where you meet in a group and you learn and practice these seven rhythms from Acts chapter two. This is daily devotion. This is literally everything we're talking about growing our faith. Daily devotion, prayer, repentance, generosity, community, and more. And so for people that are interested, maybe they're not part of a group yet. We'd love to tell you more about it. It takes the word rooted to 20411.

And we'll send you an interest form as well. And then again, fall session kicks off on September 9th. And so it would be great. It would be fun, man. I'm sure we'll be hearing story after story. Man, yeah. Any other thoughts on faith? C.S. Louis, Narnia.

growing in the faith, strengthening in the faith. I mean, I got a lot of people. But I mean, to your point of rooted and all that, I mean, if you want to grow in your faith, you need to be in a community. Sometimes people, like, struggle with doubt or struggle with sin or like any, if you're by yourself, it's going to be way harder. You need to rely on other people. Like, the Bible speak about how we can carry each other's burdens.

So how can we have, you know, all that accountability with each other? So, like, I would encourage people to just seek that community to be connected so they can grow with their faith, definitely. Jan and I are going to, we're going to lead. We just, we led a rooted group with the elders to Lake Point. It was unbelievable to help lead that thing. I was actually in the rooted group with Jenna. Yeah. Oh, you've done two.

Yes. Yeah, I have. I did one with the campus pastor's wife. Yeah. Yeah. It was amazing. Yeah. Yeah, we had, it was the best time.

Yeah. It's amazing. Well, thank you guys. On to week three of at the movies. Let's go, man. We'll see you for week three. You want to spoil you and say how. No, we're going to.

Not spoiling. Not spoil it. And so, Jenna, would you pray for us? I would love to. Oh, Father, thank you so much that you are just the founder of our faith and that you don't just start there, but you just continue to work in our hearts and our lives to grow us to become more like Christ. Thank you for never leaving.

us alone, always walking each path and each part of life with us. And I just pray, Father, that you will just give us hearts that just want to know you deeper, to go deeper with you, to just have a strengthened relationship with you, just a daily time with you, Father. So I just pray that you will solidify our faith and grow our faith and help us to become more like Christ. In Jesus name, we pray. 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.