What up, Crossing family? I am so glad you guys are here.
I want to welcome all of our different campuses, those of you
watching online and inside, and I want to wish a special welcome
to those of you who are here for the first time or the first time
in a long time. I really believe that today
could be a significant moment in your spiritual journey.
Before we jump all the way into that, though, I want to make you
aware of a couple of things. One, camp registration is open
and available today. Yeah, yeah.
So if you open up your app, go to the For You section, you'll
find all the details about that. I want to encourage you to sign
up early and safe. And coming alongside of that, we
try to make sure that we do everything we can to help every
kid who wants to go to camp be able to go to camp.
Our In Your Corner golf outing, which provides scholarship funds
for kids who are wanting to go to camp.
You can sign up for that in the app.
It is a wonderful time. Those 4G outings provide funding
for kids who want to attend but not might not be able to afford
it. And your participation will make
a difference. And for those of you who are
going, I love kids, I love Jesus, but I don't like golf.
You can just provide a camp scholarship and every single bit
helps and everything you give will go to making camp as
affordable for every single kid that wants to go.
Our goal is simple, if a kid wants to go to camp, we want to
make it happen. And for those of you who are
looking for a stretch goal, Jennifer and me, our goal this
year is to send one or pay for one kid to be able to go to
every single one of the camps. And we have 9 camps because our
church keeps growing, which is a good thing.
Which means that if you're wanting to try and send one kid
to every single camp, it would be $18190.00.
But you can give whatever you can and it will be great.
You can find more information about that in the app as well,
just go to the For You section. But in my years of ministry,
sitting across the table from hundreds of you, there is almost
always a question of faith before a step of obedience.
That is why I am so glad that you are here today, because
we've been talking about taking steps of faith.
And I want you to hear me say this.
God is not afraid of your questions, and neither are we.
In fact, I believe that God and His Word not only welcome every
question, but they have the answers to every major question
about life and about faith. Now, to give you some context,
every single one of our weekend services is going to be unique.
So we're not asking the same questions at every single
service. So if you're going, hey,
question I had didn't get answered, feel free to catch up
on the online when we post that. But to help you take your next
step, we have partnered with Doctor Sean McDowell with us
this weekend. Doctor Sean McDowell has devoted
his career to help bring truth to the next generation.
As a college professor, as a high school teacher, and as a
prolific author. He has exceptional insights into
prevailing culture, and he imparts his observations to
fellow educators, pastors, parents, and to students.
He is currently an Associate Professor of Christian
Apologetics at Biola University, which is the largest and top
ranked graduate program of its kind in the world.
As a part time high school teacher, Sean was awarded
Educator of the Year in his hometown.
He is a highly sought after speaker here and we were
incredibly grateful that he was willing to come and be with us.
He's spoken at various camps, churches, universities worldwide
and is a frequent guest on radio and television shows.
He's a best selling author and has written or Co written over
20 bucks. This guy doesn't sleep folks.
He has a Master's degree in Theology and Philosophy and APHD
in apologetics and worldview studies.
He is also the Co host of the Think Biblically podcast.
All he's done while he's been here is just sleep.
Most noteworthy, he is a dedicated husband and father.
He has been married to his high school.
Sweet Stephanie, since 2000, he lives in beautiful Southern
California, which is where we're going to be opening another one
of our campuses to get out of this place.
Crossing family, would you please put a great crossing?
Welcome together to have Sean McDowell comes on the stage.
God bless you man. Thanks my man.
So this is a cool moment for me. When I went to Bible college, I
felt like God had called me into ministry.
But I went to Bible college with a lot of questions, and there
was questions of faith that I was going to, I've got to get
this figured out because I want to make sure I get it right.
And I'm going to build not just my eternity on this, but my life
for however long God lets me breathe on this.
And so I signed up for classes that answered questions about
faith. And one of the very first books
that I got was a book called More Than a Carpenter.
And that book was written by his father and he's actually
rewritten it alongside of your dad.
So that's a little bit of my journey of faith.
So if you're a person who has questions, I want you to know I
had questions. I still have questions.
What's a little bit? Tell us a little bit about your
faith journey. Yeah, so grew up in a Christian
home, as you can imagine, with a father who's an apologist
defending the faith. In the mid 90s I went to college
and we had this new technology, maybe you've heard of it, called
the Internet. Yeah, well, I'm fishing around
at that point on learning what, like, blogs and websites are,
and I come along this site dedicated to debunking
Christianity. In fact, they took my dad's
books chapter by chapter, doctors, lawyers, historians
responding. I read this and my heart sank,
Clayton for the first time. I was like, whoa, I don't know
how to answer this. And so I went to my dad.
We're up in in the mountains of Breckenridge, Co, on vacation.
And I remember, look at my dad in the eyes.
I'm probably 19. I said, dad, I want to know it's
true, but I don't know that I'm convinced Christianity is true.
Now, if you're a Christian, how would you respond if one of your
kids or grandkids said that to you?
My dad looked at me. He goes, son, I think that's
great. And I said, did you hear
anything? I just said he goes, you can't
live on my faith. You've got to seek after truth.
And if you seek after truth, I'm confident you'll fall Jesus
because Jesus is the truth and I love you no matter what.
And so God can take our questions.
Jesus said love God with your heart and with your soul and
with your mind. God says to Isaiah, come, let us
reason together. And Christianity can take
questions because it's actually true.
Come on. So let's get into it right now.
There is a bunch of people who will say a whole bunch of things
about the origin of the universe, the existence of
mankind. And so I want to kind of frame
up the question this way. Is creation a product of God or
a result of random chance? And let's kind of look at it
through the lens of of intelligent design and the
complex creation alludes to, well, you know what alludes to.
Yeah. So this question matters because
the Bible starts with, in the beginning, God.
Created. Before we learn God is holy or
loving and just, the first thing we're told is that God is a
creator. This is a purposeful universe
and you are not an accident. Well, how do we know this is
true? Well, you can look at a rate,
you can look at the beginning of the universe pointing towards
the beginner. We can look at the fine tune of
the laws of physics. But let's narrow down into the
micro, into what was discovered in 1953, DNA.
Now, if you've you've seen pictures of DNA, it's like a
ladder that's kind of twisted and on the base of it are
letters that are a part of the genetic code.
Now let me put in context how incredible DNA is in the average
adult human body, which by the way, is me, not you.
Just for the record, I'm. I'm the, I'm the plus.
Size version. That was a compliment.
I always wanted to be 6/6. So the average general human
body. I'm 59150.
I'm probably about as average as you'll find.
There's 30 trillion cells. Now the DNA each cell, if you
took it out, would be about 6 feet in length.
That means the DNA in the average adult human body would
go from here to the sun and back about 200 * 200 times.
Now, how much information? According to one estimate, the
DNA in one cell in your body has an equipment of 8000 books, 8000
books. Now, when this was discovered,
it raises an interesting question.
Where did this come from? What accounts for this
information? Now, whenever we see information
and trace it to its source, we find an information giver.
If your shirt has information, there's a maker of the shirt.
If you get a text and it's legible, it comes from a texter,
A blog from Blogger, a book from an author.
In fact, if we walk outside and in the clouds, that says drink
Coke and I'm from Southern California.
So I say, what is that? None of you would say, oh, that
happens here naturally when a storm is coming down from Iowa.
You wouldn't say that. We know that information traces
to a mind when we look inside DNA, and we see more
sophisticated information than the most complex things humans
can create. I don't have enough faith to
believe that happened by accident.
I think the best explanation is that points beyond itself to a
mind. So in some information points
towards an information giver. DNA, I would argue, is like a
fingerprint of the divine for those with eyes to see and ears
to hear. Man, that is so good because
what we get pushed a lot of times is random chance and we
get all, you know, time is God in the atheistic worldview.
And for us to realize that everything about you screams
because you said, oh, let's actually we got time punch into
this. You talked about it being a
language, and that means that there is a God who's
communicating. So there's a God who is
revealing himself to us. Next one.
OK, we'll do this one. Let's do it.
All right, Doctor Sean, I agree. God exists, but I'm not a big
fan of him because if he is all powerful and he can do all these
good things, why doesn't he stop all the suffering in the world?
Friends, this is the big question.
It's a question atheists ask from the outside.
And if you're a follower of Jesus, you've asked this
question too. Habakkuk says, God, why do I see
violence and you don't stop it? So first thing I would say is if
you suffer, I am so sorry and my heart is broken for you.
A Christian response in Romans 12/15 says be happy with those
who are happy, be sad with those who are sad.
If you're suffering, I mourn with you and I hurt with you.
Second, realize God is big enough for your pain and your
suffering and for you to express your emotions to him.
So Psalms, there's 150 chapters and they're Psalms.
One of the most common psalms is what we call a complaint Psalm.
People going to God like David saying, God, you've abandoned
me, God, where are you? God, what happened now?
The Psalms are rooted in hopefulness, but if you're
hurting or see somebody hurting, it's not sinful to take that
emotions to God. God can take it.
He's there to be our comforter. Third thing I would say is let
me share a story that might, might help.
In the 1800s, there was a priest by the name of Father Damien and
he went to be a priest to care for lepers on the island of
Molokai in the Hawaiian chain. He showed up and he would pray
for them, he would preach to them, he would counsel them.
He just loved them. After 12 years, something
radically changed. He stood in front of him and he
said 2 words that changed everything.
This priest stood in front of the leper colony, opened up his
robe, showed the first signs of leprosy and said, we lepers,
Father Damien had become a leper.
No, Nesh, a few questions. Did they know that he cared for
them before he got leprosy? Of course, What changed on that
day? He was no longer an outsider.
He was somebody who stepped into their suffering, experienced it
first hand and literally laid down his life for them.
Next question, who is Jesus? More like Father Damien before
he got leprosy or after. And you know the answer, don't
you? In Christianity, God didn't just
send a prophet. He didn't just speak in
creation. And you're right, it's a
language. He didn't doesn't just speak in
dreams or send a holy book. As important and powerful as the
Bible is, it is only in Christianity that says God steps
into our suffering and experiences and knows it.
That's why Hebrews 2 and Hebrews 4 say we have a high priest who
understands. So if you're suffering because
your family's betrayed you, you can't say Jesus, you don't
understand. He's like, yeah, I was betrayed
by my family and one of my disciples.
If you're physically suffering, you can't say Jesus, you don't
understand. He's kind of like, you know, I
was crucified. I get it so many ways.
When we ask where is God in our suffering, the answer is it's
only in Christianity that says God is right there suffering
with us now. He doesn't leave us there.
God promises to redeem our suffering for good and to
conquer it one day. That's why one of the most
powerful teachings in the Bible is Jesus, who's God in human
flesh. He's God in human flesh.
John chapter 1 experiences the weight and suffering and
temptation that we do stands before Pilate and Pilates.
Like what am I going to do with you?
Because I have power over life and death, and Jesus says you
have no power over me. I lay down my life and I pick it
up again. That's where our hope comes
from, the resurrection of Jesus. Sin has already been defeated.
Our suffering is going to end and God is going to redeem it
for good. Knowing and believing that truth
doesn't mean we escape suffering, but it means God is
with us and gives us a hope amidst our suffering.
That is so good and I want to, I want you guys to like take that
all the way in because he's saying that God brings purpose
out of your pain. Amen.
So functionally, God does sometimes through a miraculous
intervention, bring suffering to an end.
Some of you have been around and you've experienced that every
time God brings purpose out of the pain.
And the perfect example of that is Jesus on the cross.
The other part is part of the reason why God allows suffering
in this world is because we're sinners who have free choice.
If you wanted to stop the suffering in your house, you'd
kick out all of the teenagers that live in your house, right?
But because you're a loving parent, you tolerate a certain
amount of suffering in your home because you love them and you
want to guide them out of the situation and the circumstances
that they're in. All right, let's do, let's do
this one. We live in a world of relative
truth. We live in a world of my truth.
We are against exclusivity, but Jesus makes an exclusive claim.
He says that the only way to the Father is through him.
Isn't that too exclusive for Jesus to say that he's the only
way to get to God, the only way to get to heaven?
OK so First off every belief system is exclusive.
If you claim that A is true, it means you think B through Z is
not true. Islam is exclusivistic, Judaism
is exclusivistic, Buddhism is exclusivistic.
You say, well what about Hinduism?
I was talking with the Hindu and he said, oh, I think
Christianity is true, your belief system is true.
I said, OK, wait a minute, you bring Christianity within
Hinduism and my beliefs fit within yours.
So you don't actually think Jesus is the eternal, only God,
the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and salvation is by faith alone.
So really, Hinduism is exclusivistic.
Now, if I were to stand up here and say, yeah, Jesus is the only
way, take my word for it, you'd rightly be like, yeah, why
should I trust you? Sure, you got a little bit of
education, but we're talking about pretty important things
here. Who claimed to be the way, the
truth and the life and that no one gets the Father but by him
it's Jesus. So the question is, is this too
exclusivistic? Why should I listen to him?
One of the things that makes Jesus unique amongst religious
leaders is he didn't just say here's how you get to truth.
He didn't say here's how you experience salvation.
He didn't say here's how you find God.
He said I am the way, the truth and the life.
No one gets the Father but by me and then he backed it up.
He was the virgin born, miracle working, sinless risen Savior.
That guy has a right to claim every other religious leader is
still in the grave. Jesus is the only one who said
ahead of time. Again, we see this in John 2.
We see it in John 10. I lay down my life and I take it
up again. We see in the beginning of Acts
that it was prophesied the Messiah would suffer.
Psalm 1610 tells us distinctly death does not have power over
His chosen one. Jesus claims to be God and He
backs it up in a way no other religious figure did.
I'm going with that guy. Come on.
Definitely going with that guy. Yeah, the the answer to that is
Jesus is the only one who and then you start filling in the
blank. Why does Jesus make the
exclusive claim that he's the only one or only way to get to
the Father? It's because he's the only one
who can make those exclusive claims.
He's the only one who was before the foundations of the world.
He's the only one who spoke the universe into existence.
He's the only one who holds it all together, as it says in
Colossians. He's the only one who came and
lived a sinless life. He's the only one who died on
behalf of our sin. He's the only one who was
crucified and then three days later rose again like he's the
only one who, and when you're the only one who you get to make
the exclusive claims. I am the only one who is married
to Jennifer. That is an exclusive claim.
And I've got all the receipts to back it up.
Literally thousands upon thousands of receipts to back it
up. She doesn't send the bill to
anybody else. Now listen, that is not a
hurtful claim. That's a truthful claim.
When Jesus saying he's the only way, he is not making a hurtful
claim. He's making a loving.
Claim. Amen.
Because if you want to get to God, He has made a way.
Now this ties into the next question.
By the way, really quickly, Christianity is not an exclusive
faith, it's an inclusive faith, meaning Jesus died for everyone
and invites everyone to repentance.
Buddhism mostly limited to China.
Hinduism mostly limited to India.
Islam mostly limited to the Middle East.
There are Christians following Jesus in every faith and
language and background in the world.
It truly is the most inclusive faith.
Come on now. So we're talking about faith.
OK, This is a a question that I remember wrestling with in my
early years of ministry. So graduated from college and
you're going to go Clayton. You must not have been doing as
good of a job in class as you should have.
So I'm going to if God or why doesn't God make himself more
obvious? Because if this is where we're
putting ourselves in, which is a dangerous place.
So let's acknowledge it. If I was God, I would park,
disguise speaking this, you know, I'm God, pay attention to
me. And everybody would go, hey, I
think this is real. We probably ought to get this
figured out. Why doesn't God do that?
Totally fair question all of us at some point have been like God
answer this prayer God make yourself more clear and then I
would believe I get it but Romans one tells us that God has
made himself sufficiently clear. We know this.
It's obvious because it's written into creation.
So God has made himself sufficiently known through
creation, but we suppress it in unrighteousness for other
reasons. I think we also know God exists.
Romans 2 through conscience. There's a moral law.
We know there's right and wrong, and we know we've fallen short
of it. But that only makes sense.
There's a moral law if there's a moral law giver.
So I think God has made himself sufficiently clear.
Nonetheless, we say, why does God make himself more obvious?
Well, here's the trade off is that the more obvious God makes
us, the more he kind of squelches our freedom.
So we're kind of forced to believe in God rather than
choose to believe in him. Out of relationship, he'd say,
yeah, but God, if he just did more obvious miracles, people
would believe. And I'd say maybe, maybe let me
give you 2 examples from the Bible.
Only in the Gospel, John, do we have the raising of Lazarus from
the dead on the 4th day. By the way, there were people
watching this. Jesus shows up and they laugh at
him, saying you're going to rise him from the dead.
They raise him from the dead and everybody repents.
Actually, you know, that's exactly how the story didn't go.
They raised from that publicly. What do they want to do?
They want to kill Lazarus and run Jesus out of town.
It wasn't a lack of evidence, it was something else.
How about the Old Testament you mentioned?
Like why doesn't God part the Red Sea he did or part some sea
he did for the Israelites? They saw all the 10 plagues and
the miracles manna from heaven. And then you go along in the
story, what do they do? They go up the mountain and they
start worshipping a golden calf when Moses goes up the mountain.
So more evidence doesn't necessarily mean people will
follow and worship God, which is what God wants from us.
I struggled with this as well. My God, why don't you make
yourself more obvious? And I remember, I remember an
atheist on this website, now that I think about it, in the
90s, he said, if God really exists, why wouldn't he write on
the moon Jesus lives or why wouldn't he write on the cell
made by Yahweh after we're after all all our toys say like made
in China. Clayton, I studied DNA and I
stopped. I thought, you know what he did
with DNA. It's as if God has signed every
cell with evidence of His presence.
I understand the cry for more evidence.
It's human nature to do this. But don't let us miss how God
has made himself known in our moral conscience, in creation,
in miracles, in change lives, in the Scripture, in the church for
those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
God might not be as obvious as we would like, but he has
sufficiently made himself known. If you're there, I would say,
God, make yourself real to me. Reveal yourself.
Be willing to repent of sin, get into the scriptures and bring
your questions to God. God can take it.
That is so good and let me let me key in and put a couple more
things in your tool belt on this one.
One, we are saved by faith through grace.
So there is an element of us that has to believe.
I don't have to believe that Jennifer exists.
I can see her. I don't have to trust that she
exists. I can see her.
And God tells us that the way we please Him is by faith.
So there is an element of our walk with him that is sustained
and originates in the area of faith.
But watch this. God blesses that.
He looks at his followers who have seen him provide all kinds
of miracles. He says that you know you are
great. It's great that you guys
believe, but blessed are those who believe even though they
don't see. And what are we told that we
will get enjoy when we get to heaven?
Our faith will disappear because we will have sight.
God has made Himself clear to people who are willing to look,
and He has made Himself available to those who are not
obstinate to belief in Him. But if you have a hardened
heart, it doesn't matter how many miracles you see, you still
won't believe. In fact, in almost every big
atheist Christian debate, there comes that moment where
oftentimes the the the Christian apologist will say, if God
parted the sea and opened the doors right now and he said all
this stuff to you, what would you think?
And he goes, well, then I would believe he goes, you sure you
wouldn't think you were having a hallucination?
Because that is actually the claim that they put on all the
people who did see Jesus who had rose from the dead.
So even if you buy into their argument, they won't give it
over because their hearts are hard, they're rebellious,
they're wicked against the things of God.
All right, let me let me do this.
And would you guys give Sean a big round of applause?
Thank you so much. Thank.
You Jesus was with his disciples ancestry of Philippi.
It was like the Lake of the Ozarks for the Middle East.
It was where you went away to kind of have a good time with
your close friends. Not in a sinful way.
I don't want to paint that in a bad way, but because I know you
guys go to the lake and you lose your Jesus.
But Jesus is with his disciples ancestry of Philippi and he
asked them in Matthew chapter 16 verse 14, who do you say that I
am? And their answer was, some say
John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others
Jeremiah or one of the prophets. A lot of people that you know,
they have a different view of Jesus than maybe you do,
depending on where you're watching or where you're reading
or what you're scrolling through.
You'll say, you'll see some people say that Jesus was a
fictional character. Some will say that he was a
prophet. There'll be some who will say he
was a really good teacher. There'll be some who will say he
was a charismatic leader. Others will say he was just a
mid, a misunderstood 1st century Jew.
And all of this is a bunch of hoopla about nothing.
But Jesus didn't end the conversation there.
The next verse, Matthew 16, verse 15, Jesus said, but what
about you? Who do you say I am?
The question today is not what do others believe about Jesus,
but what do you believe about Jesus?
When you stand before God, he's not going to give you a pop quiz
on what all of your friends and family and neighbors thought
about Jesus. He's going to say, what do you
believe about Jesus? Simon Peter raises his hand,
verse 16, and he answered, you are the Christ, the Son of the
living God. And Peter's answer was the right
one. He realized that Jesus was the
Christ, the anointed one, the promised Messiah, God in the
flesh, who was going to deliver people not just from the penalty
of their sin, but save them from their sins and bring them into a
right relationship with his heavenly Father.
And you might be thinking right now, easy for Peter.
He was there. He saw all of this take place.
I want you to hear me say this. Yeah, I know.
And do you know what he did? He died taking his eyewitness
testimony to the nation's. Hear me When we talk about
placing our faith in Jesus, I'm not discounting the fact that it
is a step of faith, but it is a reasoned faith.
When I say a reasoned faith, I'm saying there are reasons,
really, really good reasons to believe that Jesus is the
Christ. There are eyewitness accounts
not just of his life, but also of his death and resurrection.
In fact, Jesus appeared to over 500 people after his
resurrection. The biblical text, it can stand
up to critics and it can hold up to skeptics.
The evidence for the existence of God not only stands up to
scrutiny, but it delivers the very best and most reliable
answers. I believe the best answer for
the beginning of the universe is found in God.
The fine tuning of the universe, that answer is found in God.
How do we explain the laws of nature, the existence of
objective moral values? Those are all rooted and found
in God. And that is before you count the
countless lives that have been transformed, changed, redeemed
and repurposed, of which I'm 1. And so are you.
And you might be saying, but I don't know everything.
Yeah, I get it. You don't know everything.
But you know enough. Hear me?
How many of you fellas here help me out?
You know everything there is to know about women.
Raise your hand. Yeah.
Someone, someone just got saved here at 48th St.
Yeah. Nobody knows everything there is
to know about what? But raise your hand if you want
one or you're glad you have one. If you didn't raise your hand
there, that was a You're going to be buying some expensive
stuff before the day's over. OK.
You got to stay awake. I got Jennifer here.
I still to this day do not know everything there is to know
about her, but I knew enough about her to know that I wanted
to spend the rest of my life with her.
It makes sense to me that a God who created the world, set the
stars in place, wrote the laws of nature, moved the mountains
into place, is big enough to hold the waters of the ocean,
and the palm of His hands might be a little too big for me to
completely wrap my mind around. But I know enough to know that I
need Him. I know enough to know that I
want Him. And I know enough to know I
don't want to spend another day of my life without Him.
And if you're here today and you've never started that
relationship with Jesus Christ, it's time for you to think about
it. And if you're here today and
you're going, you know what? It's time for me to start living
my life in alignment with the faith that I actually profess.
I'm so glad you're here today. And that's why we're going into
this time of decision. And we're going to do, Yeah,
thank you guys. We're going to do something we
don't get to do all that often. And that is I'm getting to stay
live at all of our locations. And thank you so much for
staying connected with us. And let me just talk for just a
second to those of you gathering all across this region who have
never started an intimate personal relationship with Jesus
Christ. You see, God is not just great
and powerful and majestic and mighty, He is also good.
So good in fact, that He did not make us get right.
And then we could go to him and said He came down to make us
right so we could be with Him. Romans chapter 5 verse 8 says
this, but God demonstrates His own love for us and this that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
In other words, salvation was His idea.
He did it before you drew your first breath, before you
committed your first sin, before you rejected His Son, abandoned
his purpose for you, and He still sent his Son to the cross
anyway to bring you back to Him. And in just a few moments, at
all of our locations, when the people stand and sing and people
come to the steps and pray. If you're here today and you've
never started an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus
Christ, your next move is to talk to somebody about that.
And at all of our locations next to the baptistry, there's going
to be a campus pastor or somebody who would love a chance
to talk with you, and I hope you'll do it.
And to those of you who do have a relationship with Jesus
Christ, my prayer for you is simple.
May your faith in God inspire you to greater devotion, to
greater obedience and greater participation in the mission of
God. May it strengthen you in your
prayers and guide you through your darkest valleys.
Would you guys stand with me? Heavenly Father, you know
exactly what every single one of us needs to do in this moment
right now, and I'm asking that You would lead us, guide us,
direct us, and empower us to take the steps that we
desperately need to take. In Your name, I pray.
Amen.