Live Free with Josh Howerton - Why Deconstructing Christianity is Demonic | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

Have you ever wondered why so many wrestle with doubt, or why some walk away from faith altogether? Pastors Josh Howerton, Carlos Erazo, and Tim Smith dive deep into the conversation around faith, doubt, and the cultural trend of deconstruction, addressing topics like Christian nationalism and church hurt. They celebrate an incredible Easter movement at Lakepointe Church, share firsthand stories of life change, and unpack why doubt doesn’t have to mean defeat. With honesty, wisdom, and a touch of playful banter, they explore the spiritual battle behind belief and offer practical encouragement for anyone navigating questions about their faith. 👍 Like, Comment, & Subscribe for more life-changing podcasts! 🔔 Turn on notifications so you never miss an update!   👇 DON’T MISS OUT! 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/free Life Groups are where real relationships and lasting friendships happen—are you ready to find yours? Find your Life Group today -- ⁠https://lakepointe.church/groups/ ⛪ 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://pushpay.com/g/lakepointe/   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 Zarasso, and I'm here with Pastor Josh Howardton and Pastor Tim Smith. What episode is this? Is this 17?

We need to look into that. Oh, man. How are you guys doing? Good, man. Yeah? Dude, this has been a good two weeks. It has been. I can't stop thinking about Easter.

Bro, I've never seen anything like that. I'm recovering from Easter over here. It's just stunning. I mean, so many people, so much life change. And just thrilling to see people experience Jesus. What's on your mind? Just, yeah, I want to hear more, you know, after these last couple weeks. I mean, it's, I get the best seat in the house.

Because, you know, I'm watching it happen. But I've never seen anything like that. You know, we ended up, we looked at a, we looked at some. kids yesterday. And, you know, it's almost 44,000 people in person. And with Lake Point, with our digital disciples, with online, I think we pushed towards 70. Yeah.

It was something crazy. To put that in perspective, I mean, we were looking at this yesterday. Like Easter attendance has like tripled in the last five, six years. 3,100 people indicating and giving us their information, not just read, like, somebody raise their hand, like, indicating that they made a first time decision of all Christ and giving us their information, 3,100 people. Here's, like, here's why that, like, settled on me so heavy. That's like, you just had a day of Pentecost. That's what struck me as I'm like, okay, like, Acts 2, 3,000. Yeah. And that, we just, that, so man, I don't know. It was a lot to

take in. Yeah, I'll just add, like, a couple of quick things here. So thankful to see what God did. I'm so thankful for our people bringing their one more serving so many people who come to church only at Easter or Christmas but thousands of Lake Point people chose to serve I'm very very thankful for them

then the other thing is we're on actually a text string with other pastors and churches listen I rejoice at what God's doing at Lake Point is a unique thing but can I say this? God is on the move I mean we saw I mean so many of our friends and counterparts across the nation are just seeing a great move of God.

That's right. Listen, many of you guys know, Lake Point has been involved with strategic launch network, and that's been our key relationship in planning churches over the last 40 years. We have 30 churches that we've started in the last three years. Wow. Okay. 24 of those have launched. Yeah, and these are specific cities, right?

Hard to reach cities. Hard to reach post-Christian urban centers. So, yeah. Intentionally. Intentionally. That's right. So 24 of those churches have launched. There's six pre-launch.

Of those 24 churches, altogether there was over 24,000 people in worship at Easter. Over 1,100 people in those churches made decisions for Christ. Wow. In secular, unreached cities of North America, God is moving. That's the first time I heard that data. So wait, that's just the churches in the last three years. Yes. Wow.

So, Carlos, I don't know if you, so that's just the last three years. SLN's planted more than 80 churches in its lifespan. That's crazy. I haven't heard that yet. I will say, I felt like every pastor I texted, I'm in a bunch of group texts. And it was like everybody, record attendance, record salvation, highest baptisms, high momentum. And we're going to, actually, we may have a second here. We may toss some data up here.

That's right. Like, I don't care who you are or what you believe. there is a spiritual thing happening in our nation right now. We'll definitely talk more about that. Before we do, because we just had Easter a couple weeks ago, we're celebrating something this weekend as well. I think it's really important for us to point it out. It's Baptist is a weekend.

Tell us more about it. What's going on? Well, I mean, the biblical pattern is, like if you asked Peter in the New Testament, what do I got to do to be saved? He always says the same two things, repent and be baptized. repentance and faith is what saves you.

Baptism is the visible representation of the invisible reality of your salvation. So we do the same thing at Lake Point. All right, man, like you were just saved. Check box number one for you following the Lordship of Jesus is being baptized. And, you know, we're very clear of people. If you won't follow him into water, I guarantee you won't follow him to a cross. That's it. And so that's this weekend.

And, dude, I'll be honest, Easter's amazing. There is next level because what will happen in services this week, I, you know, we'll baptize hundreds. I'm not going to say a number. We'll baptize hundreds of people. Yes. Across every campus this weekend. And when you're standing there and you're singing songs about Jesus saving people

and I just finished preaching whatever is, you know, preach. And then you're watching hundreds of people that just gave their lives of Christ get dunked. There ain't old feeling in the world like it. It's amazing to watch people go public with their faith. Yeah, it is amazing. And I do think there's these thresholds in the spiritual life. And, you know, for us in our community, people go in public with their faith and baptism is a huge threshold of them starting just to be obedient to what God call them to do. And then I always love it because you always call for people who are just sitting there. And you go all the way down to telling people we've got everything they need to baptize, you know, to be baptized. So if somebody's

thinking about it, even in your listening to this, maybe it's too late. No, it's not too late. Show up Sunday and we'll be ready for you. That's right. And thanks the word, life to 20411. And obviously, we'll be connecting with you. Man, I'm excited for today. It's going to be a great episode. I have no doubt that today's going to be an amazing episode. We'll get there. But before, man, you got a flight to catch. So we got, we got to do this. What are you up to, Josh? I do. So interesting, this has been an interesting week. We got, I got a phone call. Actually, when I was at Disney with my kids,

I got a heads up that the White House might reach out for a meeting, which is a little like, oh, oh, okay. And so it was about a week ago, was requested for a meeting with President Trump. Okay. And so, you know, it's like, you know, me in a small group, 8, 10 of other pastors. And so we're going to shoot out there.

And I did find out that President Trump, is headed to the Pope's funeral. So what I've been told is we will meet with quote unquote senior White House officials and the meeting personally President Trump will rescheduled. I do just want to say this because like for listeners, they may be like, oh man, like I actually don't love hearing that or because of personal. So, you know, I would say a couple things is one, I do not, I'm not asking everyone to have the same opinion as me.

and I'm not saying that everything, you know, everything that will ever be done is perfect. I am saying I'm seeing a lot of things come out of the administration right now that are encouraging to me, unapologetically. I'm not saying you got the same opinion as me. I am saying as a Christian, I am seeing that. But number two, Billy Graham met with every single president from Harry Truman on because the pattern of the scriptures is when, and I'm not a prophet, I'm just going to use an analogy. the pattern of the scriptures is that the role of the prophets in the nation are to be a spiritual

counsel for the king if you that's the role in the Old Testament so over and over and over you're going to have David and there you have Nathan or you're going to there's a bunch of different examples of that and so man what I think Bible believing Christians ought to do is the same thing Billy Graham did and then when a national leader asks for counsel and that's what these things are. That is the responsibility of pastor to do that. Now, what I will say is, you know, I've obviously got boundaries. I'm never going to do that in a way that compromises my ministry at Lake Point.

And I'm never going to do that in a way that compromises my access and time with my kids. But, you know, there's a reason I'm going to do that. And I'm kind of excited about it, man. It's a huge honor. Yeah. That's amazing. It's a huge honor. Well, man, you're going there to be a blessing to,

the people that you meet with and having those conversations. So, man, that's amazing. I'll give you one quote and then we can move on. So I read this this week because I was kind of, you know, praying through this. I want to be wise thinking through it. And I read, I think it was, it may have been Nixon pre-impeachment. One of the presidents was asked about meeting with Billy Graham. And his response was, you know, leaders, dignitaries and ambassadors from

countries, foreign countries, meet with us all the time to advocate on behalf of the country. And he said, reflecting upon my time with Dr. Graham, he was an ambassador for the kingdom of heaven. I just thought, what a profound thing to say. I love that. So I'm pro that. Let's go. Let's go.

That's awesome. All right, man. Well, I'm excited because obviously everybody can tell if you're joining on YouTube. We are in a new sermon series, honest to God, which, by the way, thank you for everybody subscribing, commenting, sharing. liking all the things. Going awesome. It's amazing.

It's interesting. One thing that we have had people say, hey, man, what was that Bible verse that was mentioned? What was that thing that was shared? And so here's what we're doing. This is something new. We're test driving starting this episode. We will actually have show notes that people can download as a PDF. And what we're doing is basically all the verses or the highlights of whatever we discuss.

That's going to be available in a PDF that people can download. So you can just go to lakepoint. that church slash free or check out the link in the description slash free that's it yeah there'll be a lower third for people on youtube uh lake point that church slash free show notes available and there's more we will also be selecting 10 winners that for people that download the show notes we want to give you free LP merch provided by pastor Tim Smith hey oh you know it's gonna be good our joel and so man we just want to help out and

we hope this is helpful let us know as well in the comment section what your thoughts are and let us know if you're going to be downloading those show notes as well. Man, let's talk about doubts. Honest to God. Let's get real honest right now. Let's go, man. Week one. What did not make it to the sermon? Let's just dive in. Okay, so for people that are listening and haven't heard the message yet, they need to go back and listen to it. What this series is, is it essentially, I'm just going to pull my, here's my cars on the table. I'm always finding new, stupid little ways to preach verse by verse through. So that's all this is. That's great. Is we're preaching verse.

by verse through five or six encounters that people have with Jesus. That's really all this series is. But what it is is people who had an issue that here's the framing that everybody struggles with, but nobody wants to talk about. And what you're going to see is that every time they got honest to God, Jesus was God. Every time they got honest with Jesus, all of a sudden, he helped deal with their issue. So that's what this series is. This one is Thomas, who gets honest to God, us with Jesus about doubt. So you don't me a rapid fire a few things that didn't make it in. There's a, by the way, a ton that didn't make it in. And we're going to talk about some of this on pod. So if people haven't done any yet, John 20, that's Jesus, risen Jesus encounter with Thomas,

who is like, unless I see the nail marks his hands and put my hand in his side, I ain't going to believe. He's like, I'm out. So it's a doubt issue. And Jesus does his thing. A couple of things that I point out that were interesting to me. This is just, this is interesting. So for one, there's an archaeological parallel with John 20. Because Jesus goes, hey, put your hand, put your fingers in my wrists, you know, that kind of thing. This, this is like in the 60s. They discovered for the first time a man's skeleton in Jerusalem that had been crucified.

They gave him a name that I can't pronounce. that confirmed archaeologically for the first time. Yep, they did crucify people in Jerusalem, and yep, the nails were driven through the wrists, not the palms. So what was interesting is you would have skeptical scholars that would sometimes say, oh, this was a later fabrication because it talks about wrists, not palms, and they were like, oh, they crucifersed their hands.

Well, then, as very frequently happens, archaeology confirms what theology was saying. And sure enough, in 1968, they find a crucified skeleton, nail piercings through the wrists, not the hands. John's account is proved as historically reliable. Wow. So that's interesting. Wow. The nerves, too.

You think that that'd be excruciatingly, like super painful. We use an interesting word there, Carlis. Excruciating. It comes to the Latin word, excruciatus, which means from the cross. And there's a, you know, medical people will know this. There's like a bunch of, there's a bundle of nerve endings right there in the wrist. That's why they did that. So that's kind of, okay.

Good, tough. A couple other things, number one is you've got, it's very interesting. Now I touched on this, the end of the message. I just think this is really cool. I really hate, I hate how people call him Doubting Thomas. It's like literally one. They define him by his worst moment. And so my little joke is, you know,

Peter cursed Jesus on the night of his crucifixion, but we don't call him profanity Peter. It's like, we don't, you know, so Thomas actually, if you go back and read the Gospels, this dude was a high faith, bold, courageous. He's the let's go die with Jesus guy. Church history tells us, there's a, I didn't have time to get into this. There's an early Christian text called Acts of Thomas. It may or may not be apocryphal, but it mentions that Thomas is the one who eventually leaves Jerusalem, the Jerusalem area, travels to India and ends up being the first one to bring the gospel to India so that now there are certain regions of India that I read about this week where there

are still tons of people with surnames or first names of Thomas because the region was saturated by these churches that Thomas helped plant. So it's like, don't define the guy. And that's it. For somebody that doubts, you will get into the spot where Satan will be like, oh, dude, you're a doubter. You'll never be used for great things because you struggle with doubt. Well, obviously not.

Yes. I think that's important. I love, by the way, I love how honest to God the Bible is, because these are the disciples. These are the leaders of, you know, the early church. This is how you know the Gospels were not made up. Like nobody would say, man, let's put this group of disciples that doubted and the doubting Thomas, and they're going to be the ones leading this new movement from scratch.

And yet the Bible is so honest. Yes. Yeah. If you were making up a historical narrative and like, we're going to make up something that would cause everybody to want to follow these guys. That's right. Yeah. So John 20 tells the Thomas doubting account. Later at the end of John 20, or it might be beginning of John 21,

it's a little paragraph that a lot of people miss where it says, hey, these miracles that were recorded in this gospel are here, but Jesus did many more things, so many things that if they were all written down, no book could contain them. So he's like, hey, I only wrote a few of these miracle signs and wonders down. And then he says,

these things were written quotes so that you might believe. I do think this is important, like for our Bible nerds to understand. So Matthew, Mark, and Luke, if you're reading close, you may go, man, why is there a bunch of stuff in the gospel of John that's not recorded in Matthew Mark and Luke? Great question. This is one of those. And our Bible nerds, I think everybody needs to know this. So Matthew, Mark, and Luke are generally referred to as the synoptic gospels. And there's a reason. for this. It comes from the Greek word synoptikos that means seen together. So the reason they call that is if you read Matthew Mark and Luke is the same events that are told from slightly different

angles. And I'll get to why that is here in a second. But then John has a totally different purpose. So here's my analogy that I like to use. It's like if you turn on, I'm a news junkie. If you turn on the news and you're going to see and you flip between CNN, NBC, and Fox. Now, they're all going to have a very different slant, but they're going to be reporting on the same events. But then you change one more channel and you go over to C-SPAN. They're reporting on completely different events because that news channel has a different purpose. It's the same thing. So Matthew Mark and Luke are like CNN, NBC, Fox, same events, different slant, you go to John and a C-SPAN.

Now I'm reporting on completely different events because I got a different purpose. So we don't have time to go super deep into this. But so here's what's interesting is just like everybody's got a one more at Lake Point. All the guys that were writing the four gospels, they're writing for different one more's in mind. So they're reverse engineering their narratives

from what my one more needs to hear. So for instance, Matthew is written to a high Jewish audience. Why does it start with a genealogy that ties people Jesus back to Abraham? Why is it, it has got more than 30 references to fulfill Jewish prophecies? Because his one more that he was trying to reach Jewish people. Mark written to Gentiles. That's why it's shorter. There's a lot of immediately, immediately, immediately.

He's like, let's just cut to the chase. These people don't have any Old Testament background. That's right. There you go. Luke was written to. like Godfearers, which I don't really have a ton of time to explain what that means, or educated elites. So it was written to a dude named Theophilus, probably a high-ranking political official that was highly educated,

that respected Jewish traditions but wasn't a believer yet. So that's why Luke, written by a physician, a doctor, and he essentially goes, Hey, Theophilus, I interviewed dozens of eyewitnesses, and I need you to know it's written with an educated audience in mind. John is different. John was clearly written to a Greco-Roman culture. And so Greco-Roman culture, which is why if you go back to John 1, and let me shut out, I'm talking too long here. If you go back to John one, the gospel of John starts different. There's no genealogy.

He goes, hey, in the beginning was the word, and the word was God. the word was God. He's doing two things there. One, he's retelling Genesis 1 under the new covenant. But number two, when he says in the beginning was the word, he uses the Greek word Lagos, which like all the Greek and Roman philosophers use the word Lagos to refer to like the philosophical organizing principle of the universe. So John is going, Jesus is that. That's right. He's the organizing principle of the universe. So all that to tie that in, the reason he tells the doubt narrative in a way the other gospels don't is he's going, man, there's these educated Greek and Roman philosophers. They got to like test everything out. I got to understand it in order to believe it.

And he's going, let me convince you. That's good. Yeah, there you go. That's great, Matt. So that couple things. That's good. Man, it matters. Context matters. Who's writing, who's their writing to, or who they're writing to, that's amazing. These guys, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, but they were also strategic. Very strategic. Very, yes, that's amazing. Man, so let's go a little deeper.

Here's what I would say, the modern equivalent of, you know, obviously everybody doubts, and obviously, you know, you address this in your sermon. And it is natural, it's human, man. We are invited. God gave us reasoning for a reason. Man, we want to ask questions. We want to learn, right?

Like we, our brains are God-given capacity to reason. I think the modern equivalent today, I would say, would be deconstruction. And so I want to expand a little bit about this. And there's a difference between doubt and deconstruction. So doubting, basically, it's something happening to you. And so it's, you know, honestly, you're new to the faith and you're reading your Bible and you're like, man, what's going on here? And I heard somebody on social media said that these two things, how does that James go to get? with Paul, you know, like his faith by this or that. And so that doubts is something happening

to you. Deconstruction today, some people might define it in different ways, but deconstruction today is something that you intentionally do. It's an intentional stance against a worldview. And in this case, obviously Christianity. I want to talk about this because we were chatting with Tim before. And especially in our time today, especially like the millennial generation, there, there's like a fad. And I think, I think it's fading right now and we'll talk about this. I think the same thing. I think it's fade.

It's kind of going away, but it's still like our generation. There's still a lot of people and I'm sure most people know somebody or a family member. And again, there's a different, we're not talking about doubting, we're not talking about wrestling, we're talking about deconstructing somebody that's basically going against a worldview

or a Christian belief and most of the time, it's against a biblical worldview. They will reject intentionally scripture as the authority for their lives. And so, man, let's talk about this. Deconstructing your thoughts, Tim, You had some thoughts as well. Well, I think it's just, I mean, again, you did a great job of just polarizing the difference between doubt and deconstruction. My understanding of deconstruction, and I'm a little bit older than you guys, so it's been very interesting to see the generational trend.

So, like, again, and now the statistics are kind of bearing that out. You know, you guys know this, but like people who are in their 30s and 40s were really a, by this whole idea of deconstruction, and I ask you, would the trend toward deconstruction, would it have even happened without social media? That's an interesting question. I mean, but I want to come back to this, is like the idea of deconstruction almost always happens, and you referenced it, is when people reject the authority of Scripture. That's so pivotal to understand that when people begin to define them,

themselves or begin to try and figure out faith issues outside the authority of Scripture, it never really leads to a good place. And there's a whole generation. I'm saying to you guys 30s and 40s, that's been a paralyzing trend. Strongly agree. It is interesting, and I've got some data we may look at, because I feel like the deconstruction thing, it was almost like a brush fire. It burned real hot, real fast, and then was almost,

gone, the, you know, I'll make a differentiation that you guys were agreeing with in, in different ways, that you've got some, like people will use the umbrella term deconstruction for different things, and sometimes they're referring to different things with the same term. So there are sometimes where I'd go, oh, they're calling that deconstruction when actually they were just, that's actually, you're just maturing. So for instance, now I'll put this in the 5% category. So 5% of the things that people label deconstruction are good and 95% are bad. So let me be really clear about that.

But like when Jesus does the sermon on the mount and he's teaching people and he goes, you have heard it said, but I say unto you. Some people would go, oh, that's deconstructing. He's deconstructing their false religious beliefs that were based on misunderstandings of scripture and moving them towards Christian maturity and gospel. centrality. Some people might label that deconstruction. What I would say is stop using the term deconstruction for that. Because you're accidentally labeling a good thing as a bad thing. Here's what I always kind of go back to. Jesus said, I will build my church. So Jesus is in the

construction business. Satan is in the deconstruction business. So I will make that quick caveat. God. There's 5% of things that people will sometimes label deconstruction. This actually just theological maturity. But what I would say to the listener that's calling that deconstruction is please stop calling that deconstruction. You're actually destigmatizing something that's negative and we don't want people moving that direction. Well, you can call it what you want. I think the fact is when you look at this movement in general, like the vast majority, if not most people that say, man, I've deconstructed my faith. They don't mean I made it better.

They mean I got rid of it. And so this whole movement. And some people will say, well, some people want to take this deconstruction movement and they basically want to make the same thing as like the Reformation. Well, we're just doing what Martin Luther did. He went to the Catholic Church and said, well, we need to change this. But what Martin Luther did, he basically, here's the reformation. This is Latin, you know, because we can have fun here.

This is the original idea of the Reformation is Semper Reformanda. But the whole context is, Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda, second, verb, which means that the church is reformed. I know it's a whole, this is what it means. I'm about to explain. Your Spanish was helping you right there. Thank you.

Line right here. It means basically that the church is reformed and always being reformed according to the word of God. That's the whole phrase. And so the key wording there is according to the word of God. When you look at the deconstruction movement today, it is not a reformation according to the word of God. is more of like, let's just move forward.

Kevin the Young, he said this really interesting thing. He said the motto of the Reformation was not forward but backward, as in back to the source. But that ultimately the source of truth has to be the word of God. And so when you look at today, you know, you go on TikTok and you see all these people on social media, all these millennials on social media saying, well, I've deconstructed my faith.

And I've moved forward already. I kind of left my Christianity behind. You're not supposed to move forward. You're supposed to go back to the Word of God, which is your foundation. Oh, you go? Well, I just affirm that. You guys both know just as an illustration and time. For many years, I did college ministry.

And there was this moment, like, again, for generations where people would take a religion class. And for the first time, they were approached with all kinds of truth, about the validity of Scripture. And I like your language. You know, what I would find many, many times is I would be having conversations with young college students who were not really in the process of deconstructing.

They were actually in the process of ownership of their faith, right? Which is, I'm with you at the point where we begin to own our faith. That is a positive thing. So they weren't looking outside of Scripture. They were looking within their faith, to try and understand and own what had been handed to them but had never been challenged, right? So that's a good process.

To your point, that's a good process. Then there were other people, to your point, Carlos, who would hear the counterclaim of that scripture can't be trusted. And they would run on a rabbit trail that almost always left them in a broken, destitute place. That's true deconstruction. dude. What Tim just said is like one of the most important things. So like being a pastor's 16 years now, what I just want to highlight what Tim said for about listening, whenever somebody has a quote unquote doubt and then they end up walking away from their faith because of their doubt, here's what I've noticed. They never end up getting the thing they walked away

to try to get. So here's what they never walk away from their faith and end up happier, more full of peace, with a more fulfilling life, great thriving family, that's not what happens. They walk away from the faith and they end up real, real, real beat up

because now they're isolated and the enemy comes to do one thing, steal, kill, and destroy. So that's what Tim's pointing that out. They'll walk away thinking, I'm going to get X, and all they get is steal, kill, and destroy.

Well, people think as well that when you just deconstruct Christianity, it's like you just let it go and then you're like free. That's it. Now you're, now you don't have anything. No,

you actually just adopted another worldview. Yes. You actually just became a believer in something else. You became, now your religion is not Christianity. Now your religion is progressivism or secularism. And, you know,

we'll get to this point, but one of the reasons why I think today we're seeing a lot of millennials kind of changing their minds is because now they deconstructed their own version of Christianity before. Now they're deconstructing secularism. And it's,

they're finding. how it is not working. Absolutely. This is not what I thought it was going to be. We'll get there. But before we do... Wait, I want to say one more thing. So like what you just said,

hey, they walked away from Christianity and they ended up with it, they embraced the different worldview. So you didn't leave faith. You just switched faith. So what I want to point out, and we don't need to go down this rabbit trail. So in our culture, here's what's happened,

is in the absence of Christian theology, people ended up doing critical theory. Because what they have to do is you have to explain, you leave your Christian faith, you still have to explain what's wrong with the world and what's wrong with society and what's wrong with people. So in order to, nature hates a vacuum. So once you leave Christian theology, you end up doing various forms of critical theory. So here's what deconstruction is. It's when people stand in the critical theory and evaluate the Christian theology, what we want to do as people of faith who are asking questions is we want to stand in our

Christian theology and evaluate the critical theory. That's very different. deconstruction is when you stand in general, I'm generalizing, you stand in some of those critical theory concepts that are, you know, some people call them evaluative tools or helpful lenses to identify oppression, whatever it is. They'll use those lenses to quote unquote deconstruct the Christian theology. Hey, let's do the exact opposite. Let's stay in the Christian theology and then use those lenses to deconstruct the critical theory objections. Okay. So, here's why I think this matters a lot is because one, maybe somebody's

joining right now and maybe they are thinking, man, I feel like I have deconstructed or I am deconstructing or I have just all these things that I feel like they're leading me away from my faith, if that's you, this is for you. But also just people, you know, we have friends, family members who perhaps have gone through this and so we want to help people

understand what's going on. And so let me let's go through five major reasons why people in general deconstruct or faith. I'm going to list some of these and I'd love to to hear from you guys, like as to, how do you respond to each one? So here's, by the way, this is Pastor John Mark Homer, mentioned this, and there's also a book that I read called

The Deconstruction of Christianity by Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett. Oh, I love. Great book, highly recommended. They dive really deep into this. So five major reasons why people deconstruct their faith. Here's the first one, people that have experienced some sort of church hurt or that they have had a bad experience or a wounding with a Christian family of origin.

This usually happens in a conservative background. So somebody, for example, grew up in a Christian home and their parents, maybe they were very involved in church, but they end up also being abusive at home or hypocritical. Usually when somebody has an experience like that, they end up pursuing a path where they deconstruct their faith. This is one example. Another example would be, man, somebody had some,

you know, relationships in the church and somebody got hurt, you felt betrayed, or somebody's shame, shamed you for doing this or that. And so now the response is a rejection of Christianity or the church as a whole. And they would say, man, I'm deconstructing my faith. Any response to somebody going through that or any other other thoughts? The first thing I'd say is like I'd use an analogy. So if you walk into the YMCA this tomorrow morning and you see some dude in Jordan ones. And he's wearing, you know, Bear Jordan, one. and that dude is terrible.

I mean, like, missing bunnies, can't make a jumper, you know, dribbling off his leg. Hey, man, just because somebody played real bad and had Jordans on, does that mean Michael Jordan is terrible? So what I'm pointing out is just because somebody says they're a Christian and does it real terrible, that doesn't mean that Christ is terrible. So honestly, the biggest thing I'd say is like, man, just to understand, Christians are not Christianity. You need to decide do I believe in Christ and Christianity.

And yes, there are going to be some people that claim to be Christians that do terrible things because people are sinners. So I think what I'd say is one-liner. Christians are not Christianity. That's right. That's right. Yeah, I mean, and I've heard you say this before, don't let what somebody did against you rob you from Jesus, rob you from what Jesus did for you. That's right. So first reason, you know, people experience church hurt or, you know, bad experience with Christian family origin.

Second reason, poor teaching. So somebody that maybe grew up in a church where there was maybe poor teaching, they got to a point where now they think they're rejecting Christianity. No, you're actually rejecting a pretty bad, you know, quote-unquote Christian teaching. And so let me give you an example. So somebody would say, well, I don't believe in a God that will force me to love him or else he'll send me to hell. that's not the Bible doesn't say the God will force you to love him that's a that's a that's an incomplete version or a poor teaching of what the Bible actually says another example would be somebody that says man I grew up in a church that told me that if the reason

that my family member did not experience healing is because I did not have enough faith and I'm hurt and so there's hurt there the the whole purity movement of the 90s you know a lot of millennials now have said man I was told that because I slept with my girlfriend I'm dirty, I'm unworthy, again, equating sexual purity with value and worth before God. These are all poor biblical versions of what the Bible actually says. And so they grew up and then they realized, man, I want to reject this. And they reject Christianity as a whole. Any response?

Yeah, I would address that. I mean, again, and I think what you're saying is there's, men, there's a real reality here when people hit a point where they're doubting, right? and thoughtful questions demand thoughtful answers. That's good. So if any time that we respond to half-baked or half-truth or theologically inaccurate, you know, when we communicate something that basically says that we're not taking someone's questions serious, then almost always, if we don't have a good

answer in those moments, those bad answers almost always shut down. someone's growth. And there's, there's, I'm saying there's a genuine responsibility for pastors, for teachers, for church leaders, when people approach a challenge to their faith or a doubt, way before it becomes deconstruction. This is the bumper, I mean, again, I want to just attack this a little bit. This is this whole bumper sticker mentality that we try to bowl down to be all encompassing of Christianity. That's not, helpful. Like there are moments when people are asking sincere questions that require someone to go to the Word of God or to go to a pastor who has a theologically full answer. And I think, Carlos,

honestly, I think a little bit of what I've seen in the generation that has been, you know, just absolutely pillaged by deconstruction is that the church gave Glib answers. and just didn't listen to, you know, maybe the journey that's happening underneath in such a way that they could actually step into an answer, which again, when I say an answer, I think you guys know, I mean, my reference is the Word of God in a place where they can encounter the person of Jesus in such a way that that doubt all of a sudden becomes a growth mark instead of a pothole that leaves them destitute. That's right. You know, this is why, this one, that's why doctrine matters. Yep. That's why, like, good theology and doctrine actually matters. Tim Keller has this little quote where he would say to people, you know, you said somebody deconstructed because they're gone, man, I could never believe in a God that doesn't

heal you because you didn't have enough faith. My response to that that is, well, me either. Right. Tim Keller's got this little phrase that he'll say, describe the God you don't believe, describe the God you've rejected. Maybe I don't believe that God either. So I think just understand that. And this is, by the way,

this is an example of what Jesus is doing in the sermon of the Mount where he goes, you have heard it said, but I say unto you. So you have heard it said, the reason you weren't healed is because you don't have faith. But I say unto you. And like you said, Semper Referendum,

I'm going back to the scriptures. And let me correct my false beliefs. I'm deconstructing false beliefs to get back to true biblical beliefs. That's why I think Bible literacy matters too. Right? Like, hey, go read your Bible. Like, don't settle for a, honestly, just a TikTok video on something about the Bible or just a podcast. Like, go now, go grab your Bible, go read it.

I found this this week. It's interesting. So, you know, a historian David Benmington, they basically described what the evangelical movement really is. And he said, hey, there's four basically major emphasis. Number one, evangelicals were historically focused on the Bible as a source for essential truth. Number two, the cross is the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Number three, personal conversion as necessary for salvation. Number four, activism primarily expressed through preaching the gospel. But in 2022, there was a study by life research done where it showed that 43% of U.S. evangelicals

believe, quote, Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. Fifty-six percent of these evangelicals believe God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. And 38% believe religious belief is a matter of personal opinion. It is not about a objective truth. These are all evangelicals in 2022, according to this study. And so again, when this is your foundation, when this is what your belief is, and you're not really sure what the Bible, the source of what you believe actually says, of course, any incomplete or poor teaching will sway you. And then you think that's Christianity. And you think you're rejecting unorthodox, authentic thing. Actually, you're rejecting something the Bible also rejects.

Amen. Yeah. All right. So that's the third one. Actually, second one. Number three, the reason why some people deconstruct their faith is because they want to sin without guilt. That's a fact, dude. I don't care what you say. That's actually a fact. If you pay attention to, especially a lot of these, either, again, these are public stories and other stories. Again, it is not in common for people that have left the faith, that have quote unquote, deconstructed their faith that at the same time, they want to basically say,

man, I want to, actually, I want to date this person or actually, you know, they end up ending their marriage or having an affair. There's a, you know, I'm not going to say the name, but there's this really famous pastor known in the purity movement. Again, I think pastor for all these years, he was like the face of, you know, living a life of discipleship to Jesus and relationships and marriage. He basically said, man, I'm not a Christian anymore. And by the way, I'm also divorcing my wife. Yeah. It was like in the same time. And so that happens.

Okay. So here's why, like, the Bible names this. This is Romans 1. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. What he's doing right there is he's just explaining, it doesn't matter if you're a Jew or a Gentile. Everyone is going to be accountable to God for their sin. That's all that means.

Watch this. Who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth. So what he's describing, the Bible is describing what you're saying, is that what will happen is people will have an emotional pre-commitment to a sin that they want to commit, and then they will sometimes subconsciously, sometimes consciously, start reverse engineering their beliefs from what will give me permission to do this thing that I really want to do. So I don't mean to overquote him, but Keller has another thing, Reese. I remember in a sermon one time, he said, he said, when a college student comes to my office and tells me, me that he's re-examining his faith. My first question is, who are you sleeping with? And, dude,

I'll just tell you, like, the frequency with which someone wanders into sexual sin first and then decides they need to reevaluate their faith is too high to be a coincidence. Why? Romans 1. Because unrighteousness commitments in our heart will cause us to suppress the truth to seek a, you know, a rationality for what we're doing. It's a, I mean, what you guys just laid out is so helpful. I've heard that the trend in this toward rebellion is skepticism, cynicism, but cynicism is always, always an excuse to get to rebellion. So I would just say if anyone's listening to this and you're, you know,

you're anywhere on the journey, stop. Like Romans 1 is a word. That's right. Just stop and just check your own heart. If there's rebellion there, man, there's time today to turn to Jesus because he'll receive you. Amen. And I just say that because, again, nobody starts these journeys. Maybe a lot of people do.

It's like, man, I'm just rejecting to get to rebellion. But a lot of people start these journeys and men all of a sudden wind up in a place where they have just basically given themselves permission to live a Romans 1 life. And man, so if you're there today, just turn. I just want to say just turn. Reason number four, the reason why a lot of people deconstruct their faith is because of just an overwhelming social pressure to, quote, fit in. Right. So this is, you know, maybe you have a family, maybe your whole family believes a certain way.

You're the only Christian. And you just, man, you feel awkward every time. And you just want to kind of, you know, not make it awkward anymore. Or just fit in with your family. That might be a reason or maybe at work, there's a lot of pressure for you to affirm this or wave the flag or, you know, use your pronouns or something, or not say one thing or don't share with people what you actually believe. That's another reason why people will deconvert. Yeah, man. I mean, that goes back to what we say all the time is whoever walks to the wise becomes wise and a companion to fool suffers harm.

You will always, it's the old axiom. It's always true. My kids hear this constantly. you are always becoming the average of your five closest friends. And so, you know, I have noticed this. People almost always drift from the community of faith before they drift from the faith. It's like that is a very persistent thing. Let me give you another Bible verse.

Hebrews 312. Listen closely because without the context of what you're addressing here, the verse might not make sense. But if you remember what you just said, it's like, oh, it's addressing that. Hebrews 312. 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. See to it, brothers and sisters. None of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. And then watch this. Instead, encourage one another daily. So what he's pointing out the reality. No, no, you need some people. Build a relational structure around you in your life.

that throws fuel on the fire of your faith, not a fire extinguisher on the fire of your faith. You're going to need sometimes to borrow faith and that's it. Yes, it's true. It's weird to see somebody surrounded by godly people that are encouraging each other

in church, serving together, in a small group, and then one person decides to deconstruct. That's just not... It doesn't happen. Yeah. You guys know Bonhoeffer's great quote on this is sin demands to have a man by himself. Wow. So alone is where we're always picked off.

You know? So it's like this is, I mean, again, I don't know if we're going there with this. This is the power of community, to your point. Fatigue, a friend of mine always says, man, fatigue makes a failure of everyone's faith. And what he's saying is, man, you cannot run this race by your. yourself, the people who have you have around you and the voices that you allow in your head are going to determine your long-term legacy. So it goes to your point about, you know, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. But come on, man, Bonhofer,

send a man to always have a man by himself. Wow. So I'll let me, I know we need to move on. So I like, I sleep bed. So I'll wake up at like between like two and three in the morning most days. And I read, I usually read some form of military history. By the way, I'm reading a great book right now called Sword and Sematar on the Muslim Conquest and the Crusades. It's really good. Anyway, dude, on this, like I went through a kick like two or three years ago where I just read a bunch of like Navy SEAL books. I like these.

And what's, dude, it's so interesting. These dudes will do the most stinking insane things if they're with other seals. So it's like, you know, if you get one guy by himself and you're like, hey man, why don't you like wander over there and you'll probably die? and they may capture you and torture you and do that, like, typically it's not going to happen. But like you read these stories and it's like a group of six, you know, the teams are small. They're like, you know, six, eight guys.

If there's like two or three other guys that are like, yeah, man, we're going to go behind enemy lines and we're going to walk into Osama bin Laden's house and we'll probably die and they'll probably torture us, but it's going to be awesome. You know, it's like there's a thing where it's like the courage inspired. more courage is the same thing with faith. It's like if I'm surrounded by a band of brothers, this bring in just heap and fuel on that thing, you start getting this thing and you were like, ah, let's do something great for the glory of God. And it's just, it fuels you.

It's interesting because Tim, you asked to, to continue to what you were saying, Josh, you asked, hey, would this whole deconstruction movement happen if we did not have social media? And I think, obviously, everybody that knows me knows, man, I am a fan of leveraging social media for the glory of God and for the kingdom of God. But I also think in this season of like, you know, 20, 10 and on, a lot of people isolated themselves from their community and church. And then they went to social

media and then they created a Facebook group and they found, quote unquote, other people that agreed with them. That's right. And all of a sudden it's like, man, I don't need my church anymore because I have an illusion of community only through my Facebook group or the people that I don't even know but they happen to agree with me and let's all deconstruct and that's right, yeah, you're an atheist too,

that's right, yeah, this is all fake. And so it's interesting because I think that contributed. I think people thought, man, I'm gonna get away from my community in church here with people that know me, that care for me that have known me for all these years and I'm gonna just go dive deeper in social media and a lot of people,

again, all these quote unquote communities on TikTok now, the ex-vangelical community, the, you know, deconstructionist, you know, all the things. And then these are isolated people. Yep, that's right. Delphite the devil into dark. Darkness is his domain. There you go.

Jopi Martin quote. Speaking of the devil, this is the fifth major reason why people deconstruct our faith. There's a spiritual demonic influence behind this reconstruction. This is one thousand percent of thing. So I didn't get to it in every service. So let me tell the story here. Name omitted to protect the innocent. So this is just the thing, man.

Satan's coming after your faith. Like he'll destroy your family. He'll destroy your finances. That's fine. What he wants is your faith. He was trying to destroy your faith. So he's a guy that I'm close to that I love that was having a season of severe depression,

very severe depression. He was meeting with a very good Bible-believing counselor. And I didn't even know, I never heard of this before. This counselor, gave him a checklist that was essential like, hey, we just check these things. I like to do a quick scan.

And one of them, y'all are going to think, this is crazy, but just wait, how the story plays out. One of the things that it checked was, have you, the questions was, have you had an unhealthy fascination with or preoccupation with aliens and UFOs?

It was like 100 questions, and this was one of them. Wow. And the guy was like, well, man, actually, come to think of it, like for the last three years, I've just been super focused on this.

I'm watching all the docs and I'm like I'm in, you know, Reddit threads, that kind of thing. And so he checked it. And this guy, and you guys may have heard me talk about this before, this guy came and I've never spoken to this counselor. But I actually share a belief with this counselor that a lot of that is demonic activity. The Bible calls Satan and the Prince of the Powers of the Air. And so this counselor explained to him, hey man, I think there's a possibility. the sum of that is demonic activity. And I'm going to ask you to cut that part off of your life for the next few months.

And this guy did that. Stop. And he said within weeks, depression lifts. And he's like, I've never had a reversion. And he was, and so anyway, what that goes to say is that, man, sometimes we're open in doors and windows to very real demonic forces that want to steal, kill, and destroy what? your faith. So I would just say absolutely 100%. Well, some people think deconstruction's a new thing. I mean, deconstruction is as old as Genesis 3. Right. Like you look at, I mean, if you look at the,

like Satan was the first deconstructor. When you read Genesis 3 and you, you see Satan asking, did God really say, if you think about what's happening in that's one sentence, he's already, this is what Satan's doing. He's already deconstructing the idea in that one sentence. He's saying, man, I'm deconstructing the idea that God is loving. He's basically saying,

oh, he's withholding something from you. He's deconstructing the idea that God is truthful. You know, he didn't really mean that you're going to die. That's not a real thing. He's deconstructing the idea that God is sufficient.

You need that because whatever you have with God is not enough. And so, and again, obviously, you see this in scripture all throughout. Jesus says in John 8 that when Satan lies, he speaks his own languages, he's the father of lies. And so the battlefield happens, the spiritual demonic battlefield is in the realm of ideas and thoughts and what's true and what's

false. And so absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, if there is, if you have an enemy that's trying to take you away from the source of truth from scripture and for you to buy into a different ideology that is false, then there's definitely demonic influence behind it. It's the power of the crisis. I'll just say that. Just to add that to what you just said, Carlos, isn't it true that so many people that we know that have, for whatever reason, walked away from their faith? You know, it happened because of a crisis. And, you know, I always think about what David said. David said, you know, I would have despaired if I had not believed that I would see the goodness of God in the land of the living.

But like every crisis, and so when you bring even Genesis 3, you know, to the table, there's a crisis there of belief. Like, who are you going to choose to believe? Every crisis has the potential to either be a faith deepening experience for a believer or to be a tool in the hand of an enemy who wants to destroy your life. And so again, if you're in this conversation in regard to doubt or deconstruction and you're in a crisis right now, I'm just saying pay attention. That's right. Because like a lot of the pivotal moments in my life and probably in your life has been when I came to a crisis moment and I had to make my faith I had to choose, and it was hard, and it was foggy, and it was dark, but you leaned toward

what you believe God to have revealed himself to be. And people who get in crisis and go the other way, it just does it. The enemy is always there to snatch, you know, to kill, to destroy. So, man, this whole idea of us being in a spiritual fight is very real. And crisis moments are moments that we better be paying attention. I just want to say that. That's good, Tim. A lot of the times it seems like, you know, when you see people that have shared their story of deconstruction, you will find that there's a lot of hurt.

Yes. There's a lot of bitterness. There's a lot of, there's an anger. There's honestly hate as well. And some people have said that deconstruction, it sometimes feels like a divorce. Because it doesn't just change your belief about Jesus. It actually changes your relationship with Jesus because you've rejected not just something that you believe, but. person. And so I guess my question would be for somebody asking, man, I have a family member or

somebody that I love dearly, what do I do? How do I pray for them? Like, you know, do I keep inviting them to church? You know, like, just what would you guys say? The book of Jude at the end of the book of Jude, it says, it's a little verse that's easy to miss. Have mercy on those who doubt. Yeah. have mercy on those who doubt. So this is a category confusion I think some Christians will make. The first half of Jude is him being very aggressive and rebuking false teachers that are deconstructing other people's faith.

The end of Jude, he goes, but hey, make sure you don't confuse people who are doubting with the other people who are trying to deconstruct everybody else's faith. Have mercy on the doubter. so make sure that you're not in like high rebuke mode towards the doubter that's for the false teacher that's trying to get everybody else to doubt their faith you want to have mercy on that person so honestly man here's what I do on that one is I just want to get real close to that person love them a whole lot honestly if I'm being real honest wait for their life to fall apart

so that I'm the person they come running to when their life falls apart Yeah, I wouldn't, I'll say this is like, man, people need to be listened to, loved, and then just what Pastor Josh just said, you know, is like, man, enter into people's questions with them and have the word of God on your lips. And I think one of the things is, I think you guys probably have heard, there's a guy named, he has an amazing quote on this, his name is Kevin Brown. Kevin Brown is the president of Asbury. And as you guys know, a couple of years ago, there was in 2023, there was a 16-day outpouring at Asbury that's just been a remarkable revival. And Kevin Brown said that when asked about how this generation, this younger generation, is a little bit different in regard to their hunger for authenticity and the pivotal moments of their faith, he said he paraphrased a British, Anglican priests called Allison Milbank. And Milbank says, in these moments, what this generation needs to see is they need us to perform our argument. So, I mean, people aren't looking for

a bumper sticker or the six reasons why we should do this. They want an embodiment of the countercultural revolution that Jesus is calling us to. So if you have somebody who's close to you, I just want to come back to this, is if you have somebody who's close to you, who's doubting and maybe moving toward trying to tear apart their faith is like, man, perform your argument, live your life to the fullest in Jesus. Because people need to see actual people who are living that way. And I think, I think, man, this generation, they elevate and they prioritize authenticity. And so I think the more authentic and the more real and the less combative we are when people get into those moments.

I'm just telling you, man, I think this generation is going to respond to that. Here's an acronym that's been helpful for me that essentially summarized what Tim says. Jan and I use this with people that are one morse, whatever situation they're from. Is the acronym

bless? Begin with prayer. Listen. Eat. That's just like fellowship, love, you know, relationship. So begin with prayer, listen, eat, serve. Man, how can I add value to your life? I'm not trying to convince you anything.

How can I just make your life better? And then last, share. So begin with prayer, listen, eat, serve, share, bless. And share means. That's the spot where it's like, and we've seen this happen. If you do those first ones, begin a prayer, listen, eat, serve, eventually there's going to be a spot where they ask you a spiritual question or, hey, why do you guys do this in your life? And you be ready. That's your moment.

share your story about, share your Jesus story. That's awesome, man. Very quickly, what if somebody says, oh man, I am wrestling with some doubts, some serious doubts. Let me give some tips here and then you guys chime in. First of all, I've had two seasons of what I would call extremely acute doubt, extremely acute. So these are helpful things for me.

I'm going to go really fast instead of deep diving for that person. Number one, I would say don't be surprised. Some people just, they freak out that they're freaking out. Honestly, don't be surprised. It's really remarkable the number of people that doubt in the Bible. You've got John. Everywhere. When Jesus in Matthew 28, the risen Jesus is standing there, gives the right commission, ascends into heaven.

And then it goes, they worshipped him, but some doubt it. I'm like, you doubted the guy that just supermaned into the air? It's like, you know, there's a lot of Jude, heaven or something to doubt. So don't be surprised. faith is not having all your questions answered. That's right. It's just going, hey, Jesus rose from the dead, and I got some stuff to figure out.

I'm going to keep following him and asking questions along the way. Number two, I've found this very helpful. When you start to doubt, get specific. What Satan works, you know, God is not a God of confusion. Satan works in confusion. What has happened to me two times is I'll have this general vague sense of like, man, maybe this isn't real. and but when I sit down with a journal and go, okay, why specifically am I feeling that way?

I'll get specificity and write down like specifically. Well, here's the specific thing that I, and then as soon as I write it down, I'm like, well, that's really stupid. And for some reason, I don't know why. That has really, get specific is what I'd say. Number three, we've already hit it. This is why life groups is important. And this is why, like, however many, this is why 25,000 people should be enrooted when we launch it in August.

Don't fight the devil in the dark. If you fight the devil in the dark, you're always going to lose because the darkness is his domain. That's why Hebrew says the way you fight an unbelieving heart is to be encouraged by other Christians around you. So just constantly, make sure you're surrounding yourself the right people. Number four, this is really big. I talked about this a little in the message, so I'll be quick here. stand in your faith and examine your doubts. Don't stand in your doubts and examine your faith.

This is very, very important. There's a huge difference between I have faith and I'm asking questions and trying to figure some stuff out. And no, I'm standing in my doubt and I'm questioning my faith. So the old, the old, it was, I think it was the, I think it was also the Protestant reformers. They had a phrase, faith seeking understanding. dude it's okay that i don't know there's some stuff i don't know if if if god is the size of the pacific ocean our minds are the size of a coke can we should expect there to be some things that don't fit yeah you're going to have some questions that's right but be hey dude i have faith in

jesus i'm i'm trying to figure it all out that's okay so that uh to what tim said i think is very important if you're in an emotional if you're in an emotionally compressed season of your life watch out you're not thinking straight. So what I would say is don't make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. One of the two acute seasons of doubt I had was during the anxiety and depression

2019. And somebody just had to tell me, a godly biblical counselor just had to tell me like, hey, Josh, like honestly, your brain is broken right now. You're not thinking straight about nearly any area of your life. So why would you make like your whole faith decision

when you're, you guys remember that old movie? What was the Bill Murray movie where he's the, he's the, Bill Murray, Richard, Dryfitt. What about Bob? You remember what about Bob, Tim? I didn't see it. You didn't see what about Bob? I thought you were going to.

Different generation right there. I thought you were going to Groundhog Day. I thought about it. Well, dang, you haven't seen it. Okay. There's one spot where he's terrified of sailing. So they tie him, they literally tie him to the master. of a boat. And you can see him as like his hands are behind. He's tied to it. And he, and he,

the boat is moving. And he's going, I'm sailing. I'm sailing. Sometimes you just like, dude, I'm just going to tie myself to Jesus and I don't think it or feel it. But I'm going, I'm sailing. Don't make a permanent decision based on temporary emotion. We already hit this scan for the demonic. And then last one, differentiate between false teachers and doubters. Those are different things. That's great, man. Just to add echo to what, you know, to add color here, what you said, because we haven't had enough Tim Keller quotes today. Here's another one. He said, to stay away from Christianity because part of the Bible is offensive assumes

if there is a God, he wouldn't have any views that upset you. I would also remix that to stay away from Christianity because part of it, because there are some things that you still don't understand, assumes that if there is a God, that you will always understand everything and that when you read the Bible, all your questions will be answered. That's just not, like, again, you said it. It's not really. Man, there's a humility in knowing.

And actually, this is why we have something called faith. Yes. I don't know. I'm naturally similar to you. Maybe I'm naturally like somebody that just asks a lot of questions. Like when I read something in scripture and I'm like, wait a minute, what's going on here? So I'll be asking everybody and, you know, all the people around me. I'll research.

I'll read a couple books. And there's some things that I'm just like, I don't, I still don't know about this. And this is called a hard text. but hey I am not God. God is. What I do know is I have a good father, good savior. I can trust in knowing that I'm not omniscient, but God is. That's a great word.

Let me on that point. So John Calvin, Protestant reformer wrote the institution of Christian religion. A lot of people would say he's like one of the most thoughtful, intelligent theologians in history. At the end of his life, somebody asked him what his favorite Bible verse was, and he quoted the verse from Deuteronomy that says, of the secret things belong to the Lord. Wow.

He just, this brilliant man, he's like, the longer I walk with Jesus, the more I figured out, I ain't going to figure everything out. Yeah. Artberg had a great quote in that same line. He says, I put all my hope in a third day God, but I live in a second day world. So it's like, you know, between the crucifixion and a resurrection, that's where we live.

We live in a second day world and do there is just some things we just don't know the answer to. Yeah. That's amazing. Man, we're rapid here, but I want to make sure we have two more things. Talking about Christian nationalism, you had some thoughts. You had some thoughts. Wait, wait, dang it. Do we have that picture? Do we have the picture of the two White Houses? Because I do think, I do think this is connected. Trinney's like, I don't know. If not, I got out of my phone. You get on your phone? Are you sending it to her?

Yes. You send it to her and I'll send it to her and we'll see you gets there first. because you have to know it. Let's see who wins. Okay, you probably win. I will say while you're talking, there are a lot of things, you send it to her and I'll talk.

There are a lot of things that are like, hey man, the secret things belong to the Lord. I will say to encourage anybody, like there are answers, for your questions. Yeah, that's right. I have just figured out

the longer I walk with Jesus, and I'm like you, I'm a very inquisitive person. You know, I like to read, study, no. you got a question, there are thoughtful, intellectually and emotionally satisfying answers

for your questions. You follow the truth long enough you're going to get to Jesus. If you read the Bible ever and you're like, huh, I have a question about this. You're probably not the first person in history to ask a question.

You know, like that YouTube video where somebody's like, I figured it out, this one question. Hey, you're probably not the first person to raise that. While you're doing that, I'm going to give some recommendations and then we're going to talk about this Christian nationalism.

So here are my favorite books for people with doubts or questions. Okay. Strong recommend Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, who a friend of Lake Point has spoken at Lake Point. We were texting a couple weeks ago. I love, we need to get him on the podcast. So Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, extremely good. Reason for God by Keller is very good. Amazing. It's very, very good. Dude, here's one that not many people have read.

I read it three years ago, and it's one of the most convincing books I've ever read. It's a tiny little book, like this long 100 pages, called Can We Trust the Gospels by Peter J. Williams? Dude. Like, if someone can read that book, let me rephrase that. You cannot. You cannot read that book and think that the Gospels were fabricated accounts. it is impossible. So I'll just tell you, like, that's a little 80-pageer.

You read it and you're like, ain't no way. When you're done, you're like, there ain't no way. There ain't no way this was not written by eyewitnesses. Wow. There is no way that this was made up. Ain't no way. Peter J. Williams, that one. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis is extremely good.

I will say it's tougher to read. I agree. And then the last one I'll say is this is more when I was in my life, I was a philosophy minor for a little while. If you're a little more philosophical, this one's a little up there a little bit. Francis Schaefer wrote a book called The God Who Is There in the 70s that is extremely good for people who are a little more philosophical.

And if you want even more, there's a book, it's just called The Francis Schaefer Trilogy. The God Who is There, He is There, and He is Not Silent, and something else. and those are extremely. So those are my tops. Any ones that I missed that you all have? Man, my wife gave me one because you know she's a reader. She says like the best thing out there on doubt is knowing Christ by Alistair McGrath.

There's a chapter in that book called Knowing Christ in Doubt. Pivotal. My wife's given double thumbs up. Well, dang. The sequel. Before preaching the sermon. The sequel to Tim Keller, the reason for God, is called, making sense of God. I'm sure you read that. Dude, I'll be honest. I tried and I couldn't.

Really? It didn't grab me. I read it and when I finished reading, I thought a better title for this book would have been the roast of secularism. Oh, seriously. Well, now I want to read it. But maybe it's like a little headier. Yeah, yeah. What the heck's that supposed to mean? I was in a season. Honestly, honestly, I think I read this when like I was like doubting myself. So I was like just the devouring some of these books. But anyways, we we quoted him color a lot today. We got the picture right here. Okay. Here's why I'm going with this. I forgot. Wait, don't put that up yet. Is that up yet? It's not.

Okay, don't put it up yet. So I tossed this out on Instagram and it was, had a lot of response. So I just want to comment on it real quick. So here's my theory. I think that especially watching how overt some of the statements from, from the White House, were at Easter. I mean, it was like, dude, it was like stuff like Jesus is Lord. He is risen. Like, I mean, it was like overtly Christian language. You're like, is this my church's social media page or the White House? I'm not sure. I was like, this is amazing. Praise the Lord. But what I did, I started seeing the reaction. And I think Christians are going to hear this a lot in the next few years. The accusation of Christian nationalism like a scare label.

that's Christian nationalism. And there's a lot of assumptions underneath that label. And I just want to, I thought it was a good time to point something out. So here's my point. If you're a Christian, whenever you hear the phrase Christian nationalism, here's how you should think 99% of the time. So I just toss that picture up real quick. So here's the, there's a little trick that'll get played on you

that you don't know is getting played on you if you're a Christian. Is it up Trinity? So that's fired. So this is what I pose on IG. So you'll see on the left, that's the, White House last year with the trans flag. And then the one on the right is from the White House this year. Now all you can probably see if you're on YouTube is where it says Happy Easter, but at the top it quotes a Bible verse. I can't see it right here. It quotes a Bible verse. And then down there,

Trinity, can you read that? What's the say at the bottom there? Matthew 20 what? 286. What's the verse say? He is not here. He has risen just as he. Okay. So that's the White House this year. Now, here's my point that I think Christians, you'll get a trick played on you and you don't know the trick is getting played on you. When a government official posts the thing on the right, people will be like, Christian nationalism, bad, scary, evil. Here's my point. Look at the picture on the left with a trans. The choice is not whether the government is going to, center some moral and religious beliefs. That's not the choice whether the government is going to center some moral and religious faith assumptions. The choice is which set of moral and religious faith assumptions the government is going to center and treat as true. So what will happen is Christians will advocate for their beliefs in culture in the public square and people like Christian nationalism, you shouldn't do that. Well, what everybody was doing before you did

that is advocate for pagan nationalism. So this is the point. On the left, what you're seeing is a form of pagan nationalism, where you take pagan, godless, you know, anti-Christ ideas that are religious and moral faith assumptions and advocate for them from the federal government level. The right is where somebody just does the exact same thing with Christianity. So here's the point. Nature hates a vacuum. it is literally impossible for any society to be morally neutral, religiously neutral. People call it the myth of neutrality. So really my point was on IG was, here's your choice. It's not whether or not somebody's going to do Christian nationalism.

That's not the choice. The choice is, do you want to do pagan nationalism or do you want to live in a nation that treats Christianity and Christian ethics as something that are true? that was just a little slide of hand that happens to people. You're going to hear that more and more in the next few years. You need to be aware of it, et cetera, et cetera. That's good, man. You got anything else? Yeah. So somebody might be asking right now, oh, so is it okay for a Christian to look at that and be like, yay, celebration. That's good. We're Christians. Yeah. You better. That's right. And what I would say is, what I would say is Christians, dude, Christians need to learn to celebrate wins or you're not going to get any. That's how, that's how, that's how, democracy functions. And I do think that Christians have gotten a little gaslighted by the surrounding culture into like, you ought to actually be embarrassed whenever your stuff gets away. Shouldn't it be about others? And you know, you're just trying to seek power. Impose your religion on other people. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And my point is you're just trying to impose your morality on other people.

Well, the picture on the left is people imposing their morality on other people too. In fact, right now, I didn't plan to talk about this. I was listening to clips. Literally right now, while we're recording this podcast, there is a, the Supreme Court of the United States is hearing arguments in a case from Maryland. Why are we talking about? How do we get on this? They're hearing arguments in a case from Maryland where the Maryland public government school system is teaching pretty aggressively, gender marriage and sexuality like transgender ideology. It's all the stuff you'll hear about books in the school where it's like, dude, I was listened to it yesterday. like literally in books for fourth graders that they're that they were assigning in class this is going to sound gross like if you're a parent listening in a car with your kids you may want to pause for the next 30 seconds or come back to this later but like in this book for fourth graders in this

class that was assigned one of the little assignments is reading about a scavenger hunt where the kid is looking for like leather that the drag queen is wearing like bondage type stuff in the book for fourth graders about a drag queen. And the case in Maryland was the government school system was telling Christian parents and Muslim parents, by the way, no, you're not allowed to opt your kid out of our sexuality teaching. So I'm sorry, I have very little compassion at all for people who are like, you're not allowed to impose your morality on other people. all laws and all legislation are based on some morality. Morality is the only thing that gets legislated.

So what a Christian should be doing is we want to do the morality that doesn't invite the judgment of God, destroy society, and deconstruct families. That's right. That's gone, man. Well said. That's right. Amen.

You got time for a video or do we need to head out? I need to go catch a while. Okay, there you go, man. So let's land there. I figured. I favorite. Want to double check. By the way, to that place we just saw. There you go. There you go. Head to the White House. Amen.

This would be fun. Pastor Josh, would you pray for us. I would love to. Father, right now, first of all, we just praise you for being a God who saves that love sinners. You are a God who has mercy on those who doubt. So thank you for saving people in mass at Easter. Lord, I pray for anybody right now that's listening that is walking not through the valley of the shadow of death. They're walking through the valley of the shadow of doubt. And God, I pray that I pray that that you would be near to that person, that you would surround them with your peace and your presence,

that you would send other Christians into their life to encourage them all the more as they see the day approaching. And Lord, I'm praying courage into their soul right now and steal into their spine, that they would choose in the midst of questions to stand firm, put one foot in front of the other, and just go,

I don't understand everything, but I know that guy was raised from the dead and so I'm going to follow him. So Jesus, carry him through that moment and bring them all the way home. I pray your love over them and in them in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

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