Oh, I want to welcome those of you joining at all of our
different locations, those of you watching online and inside,
and a very special welcome to those of you who are here for
the first time or the first time in a long time.
I really believe this. I believe that today could be a
significant moment in your faith journey.
Now, before we get to that, I want to make you aware of a
couple things that I think will be important to you.
One, camp registration is open today.
That's exactly, exactly right. So if you hop in the app, you'll
find that that in the 4U section.
So if this is a perfect time, our church has grown, which is a
great thing. And there's only so many beds at
camp. So you want to sign your kid up
early and you will save if you do so.
Second thing is there might be some of you are going, you know
what, I want to help send kids to camp.
There are two ways for you to do that.
One is through the in your corner golf outing at the
registration for that is in the app.
We use the funds from that golf outing to help support camp.
They'll be for them across this region and your participation
will make a difference and to those of you who are interested
in providing scholarships for camp you're going I'm not going
to golf. I love Jesus but and I love
kids, but I don't love golf. You can just participate with us
and creating a scholarship in every bit will help.
Our goal is simple. We want to make sure that every
kid who wants to go to camp will be able to go to camp.
And for anybody who is looking for maybe a stretch goal in
their generosity, you could join Jennifer and me.
We totaled it up. We're going to have 9 camps this
summer for our kids, which is ridiculous.
And to send one kid to each of those camps would be 1900 or no
$18190.00. And so if you're interested in
taking that step alongside Jennifer and I, you can do that.
You can find all of that information on your device in
the app and it will point you in all the directions that you need
to go. Now, one of the things that I've
noticed in my years of ministry in this region, sitting across
the table from hundreds of you, I've noticed a pattern.
There is almost always a question of faith that needs to
be answered before a step of obedience is taken.
And that is why I am so glad that you are here today.
You see, God is not afraid of your questions, and neither are
we. In fact, we believe that God and
His Word not only welcome every question, but have answers to
every major question about life and about faith.
And just to kind of give you some context, every single one
of our weekend services has been unique.
There are a bunch of questions that we've been getting through
over the course of our weekend services.
So if you didn't hear the answer to the question that might be
rattled around in your brain when we post the services
online, feel free to watch all of them and it'll help you get
catch caught up. But to help you take your next
step of faith, we have invited Doctor Sean McDowell to part
with us this weekend. Doctor Sean McDowell has devoted
his career to help bring truth to the next generation.
As a college professor, a high school teacher, prolific author,
he has exceptional insights into the prevailing culture and
imparts his observations to educators, pastors, parents and
students alike. He is currently an Associate
Professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University,
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, which is why we were so thankful we were able to get him
to come here. He's spoken to various camps,
churches, universities worldwide, is a frequent guest
on radio and television shows. He's a best selling author and
has written and Co written over 20 books.
He has a masters degree in both theology and philosophy and a
PhD from apologetics and worldview studies.
This guys tired folks. He's incredibly tired.
He is also the Co host for the Think Biblically podcast.
But most noteworthy, he is a dedicated husband and father.
He's been married to his high school sweetheart, Stephanie,
since 2000. He lives in beautiful Southern
California, where we're going to be launching one of our
locations so we can get out of this place.
Blink if you want to move. OK.
So would you guys please welcome Doctor Sean McDowell to the
stage? Thanks brother.
This has been a blast. That's fun.
So we've done. I think this is what is, is this
our fifth? Is this our fifth time this
weekend? 12344, yeah.
This is our fifth, isn't it? Did we do 4?
Week in Thursday, Thursday, Saturday.
Yeah, it's fine to teach math. We're a little mushy.
Now what I want to do is I want to tell you a little bit of why
this matters to me. I felt called to go into
ministry, and so I enrolled in Bible college.
But I still had some huge questions about faith.
And I was going, I got to get these dialed in if I'm going to
spend not just the rest of my life, but if I'm banking my
entire eternity on it. And so I enrolled in an
apologetics class in Bible college.
And one of the very first books that I read was a book called
More Than a Carpenter, and it was written by his dad.
And so part of my faith journey was blessed by this family.
And now part of your faith journey will be blessed by this
family. Tell us a little bit about your
faith journey. Yeah, thanks.
So that book, more than a Carpenter, captures my father's
story. Some of you might recognize the
name Josh McDowell. My dad's written 150 books,
spoken to more young people live than anybody in world history
and college campuses. And that book, one of the
reasons I think it's like 30 million in print is because it
tells his dramatic story of having an alcoholic father
abuse. He experiences a kid, a sister
who took her own life, be challenged by Christians to
consider the claims of Christ, trying to disprove it but being
surprised by the evidence. And it turned his life upside
down that he was able to look his alcoholic father in the eyes
and say I love you and I forgive you.
That's the family I grew up in when the 90s in college.
I'm fishing around on this new technology of the time.
Maybe you've heard of it called the Internet.
Mid 90s and I come across this huge website dedicated to
arguing that Christianity is false and debunking my dad's
content. I sat there in the first time I
thought, Oh my goodness, I could be wrong.
I don't know how to answer this. To make a Long story short, I
went to my father and we were sitting down at like a table
like this. And I remember looking him in
the eyes. And I said, Dad, I want to know
it's true, but I'm not sure that I'm convinced Christianity's
true. He didn't hesitate looking in
the eyes. You go, son, I think that's
great. And it looked right down.
And I was like, did you hear what I just said?
I mean, imagine if your kids or grandkids said that to you, how
would you respond? He said, Son, you can't live on
my faith. You've got to seek after truth,
build your own convictions. If you follow truth, I'm
convinced you'll follow Jesus because Jesus is the truth.
And then he said, I love you no matter what.
And obviously I came full circle or wouldn't be here.
I helped my dad update that book, which is really special to
me, but I've dedicated my life to help Christians realize
there's answers if we're willing to seek them, and to help non
believers who are open to Christianity realize that
Christianity makes sense. Perfect.
So let's start off with a big question.
Now each of like I said, each of these are unique and we haven't
spent each ready. Let's go.
This will be fun. This is.
I'm reading through the cards. This one's going to be spicy.
Let's start here. Is there historical evidence for
Jesus Christ? Lots of people, you might say he
was a, you know, fact fiction. Is there any historical evidence
not just including the Bible? What's unique about Christianity
is it's rooted in the person of Jesus.
So Buddhism is about being enlightened, but who the
historical Buddha was is irrelevant.
Hinduism. There might be different gods
and prophets, but the identity of Krishna isn't relevant to
Hinduism. Muhammad was a prophet but
unlike Jesus, didn't claim to be God.
There are other prophets. Christianity is rooted in the
person of Jesus being born of a virgin, living a sinless life,
dying on the cross and raising on the third day.
So if Jesus isn't risen, Paul says in First Corinthians 15,
your faith is in vain. This is exactly the right
question. Is there historical evidence?
Well, it turns out there is. So for for Jesus, a few things.
We obviously have the Gospels. We have the other writings of
the New Testament. We have early church fathers
that come after the apostles one or two generations later.
And then we have ancient writers like Josephus, a Jew who writes
in the 90s, Tacitus of Roman who writes in the early 2nd century,
chronicling the life of Jesus, which by the way, is kind of
remarkable. Why Now?
Jesus is the most famous and influential person who's ever
lived. But at that time he had no
government power. He had no military position.
He probably travelled 100 a 150 miles in his lifetime.
He was not the kind of figure that people would pay attention
to in a obscure corner of the Roman Empire.
But we have tells the story that Jesus lived, compelling evidence
Jesus was crucified and then at least 21 arguments I'm aware of
that the tomb was empty. By the way, you know who
discovered the empty tomb and all the gospels, it's women.
Women's testimony was not considered as significant as a
man. So why would they invent a woman
discovering the empty tomb? That's one example.
Jesus lived, died tomb is empty in the way of all these early
claims of people who said they had seen the risen Jesus, the
women, the apostles, James who wasn't one of the 12.
We have Paul who wasn't one of the 12.
And then they're consistently willing to suffer and die for
the claim that they have seen the risen Lord.
That's why Acts 420 says we cannot stop speaking about what
we have seen and heard. We are witnesses to these
things. And then Paul says, or Peter
says in Acts 2, he says the Jesus was attested by miracles.
He's tested by wonders and signs, and you yourselves know
this is true minimally. That's a lot of confidence for
my witnesses to say these facts happen and you all know it's
true. I could keep going, but yes,
there is good evidence for the historical Jesus and the
resurrection. And in fact, I mean clean this
up if you need to, but most his, almost all historians and truth
thinkers agree universally that Jesus was a real person who
lived on a real planet earth. The question is for them whether
or not he was divine. Really quickly, there's basic
facts around the person Jesus that he lived, that he died, he
was buried, tomb was empty. Paul claimed he saw the risen
Jesus. Apostles report beliefs they saw
the risen Jesus. There's widespread agreement
about these things. But there's only one explanation
that can account for all the facts that we know about
history, and it's that Jesus has actually risen from the grave.
So yes, there's historical agreement, but the question is,
is Jesus really God? Now?
It's getting personal, so there's incentive many times to
come up with other theories and explain it away.
OK, while you're talking, you brought up the Prophet Muhammad,
and you know what we would call him?
False prophet, But give us some key differences between
Christianity and Islam. Love it.
So let's start with some of the similarities.
Islam, Judaism, Christianity, monotheistic faiths.
We believe in one God who's a creator, and this creator has
spoken through different scriptures.
So we have much more in common with Islam than we do, say,
Buddhism or Hinduism or other Eastern faiths.
Where we differ is over the character of this God, how this
God has revealed himself, the means of salvation, and the
identity of Jesus. Which are all huge.
Things which are massive things. So of course Muslims have the
Quran, which I do not believe is historically accurate or
inspired. They reject that God is triune,
which the scriptures revealed that God has revealed himself
about. It's a faith that is rooted in
works. I mean, you have to ultimately
they say salvation is from Allah's decision of mercy, but
you are to work and follow the five pillars to earn your
salvation. In a sense, Jesus said in John
6, What work must I do? Believe, believe, believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.
It is a free gift of grace. But the biggest difference comes
in. I was speaking at a conference
in Houston a number of years ago and I was riding in a cab and my
cab driver was a Muslim and he asked what I was doing.
I said, well, I just gave a talk on Jesus and he goes, oh, you're
Christian. He goes, that's wonderful
because we worship the same God. I responded back to him.
I played a little bit dumb. I said, oh, you think Jesus is
God? And he about crashed the car
because that's like the worst sin on Islam.
It's called shirk to associate anything with Allah, who is a
one person deity, you might say. And so Muslims often say we
worship the same God, but they'll reject the Trinity,
they'll reject that Jesus is the Messiah.
They'll reject that Jesus is divine.
And the evidence of Jesus claiming the divine is so early
and so overwhelming, it's really difficult to get around.
OK, so let's go a little bit more personal where, you know,
we're trying to get the people who attend the crossing to read
their Bible. And, you know, we tell them to
start in the New Testament. And but let's say someone goes,
you know what, I'm going to start in Genesis and they're
doing, you know, pretty good. And then all of a sudden they
get into some books, the Bible, where you start reading things
that are kind of difficult to wrap your mind around and more
importantly, really difficult to wrap your heart around.
And so let me let me ask you this way.
It appears in Scripture that God endorsed genocide, which seems
way out of character for God. And how do we wrap our minds
around that? OK, first thing I would do is I
would challenge the term genocide and exactly what it
means about wiping out a specific ethnic or racial group.
That is not what's taking place in the Bible.
There are some differences there.
Nonetheless, there's some pretty jarring commandments about the
Amalekites and the Canaanites and the Moabites that strike us
as like, wait a minute, this seems unjust.
Now into the earlier services. You asked me about suffering and
you asked me about evil. Often times people say why does
God allow evil? Why doesn't he act and stop it?
Friends, this is an example of God's seen egregious evil and
stopping it. So in some ways, you can't have
it both ways. You can't say God doesn't act
enough and God acts too much. Now, when we look at what we
know about the Amalekites and the Canaanites, I see kids in
here, so I'm not going to go into detail, but let's just say
the sexual perversion. Let's say the child sacrifice,
the wickedness that was there. At some point God is going to
come in and judge wickedness. That's what God does.
But don't miss how patient God actually was.
Genesis 1516, God is speaking Abraham and he says it's not
till 400 years that you inhabit the land when the sin of the
Amalekites has run its course. In other words, God knows the
future, but he gave them every single chance century after
century after century. And I imagine he was sending
them prophets and words to repent, but they never did.
That's one piece to keep in mind.
The other thing that's really interesting is what when you
come to the story of Jericho, where God is like, wipe this
out, there's Rahab who lived there, and Rahab, when the spies
show up, she had heard the things that Israel had done.
They were aware of the God of Israel and what happens.
She was spared because of her fear for the God of Israel.
So in many of these circumstances, if the people
would flee, it wasn't you still had to chase them down and kill
them every time it was. We are purifying the land in a
sense because this is where the Messiah was going to come from.
Now, admittedly with this question, Clayton, this requires
so much more in packing, so much more discussion.
This is one of the most emotion filled and difficult questions.
I fully concede that. But we look at the patience that
God gave the people when we look at the level of evil and
wickedness that was there, when we look at the fact that God
would warn people and they could flee from him based on hearing
the stories, and we think about God saving the world through
that land, through his Messiah Jesus who was born there.
We can begin to piece together a response to this.
One last thing I would say is God can't murder.
By the way, God can kill, but he can't murder.
Why? Because God is the one who gives
us life. God is the one who gives us
breath. God is the one who made
everything. He doesn't owe you and me
another breath. He doesn't owe us that.
So if God is the giver of life, God can take life when he deems
right based on His sovereign plan.
That is a really, really good answer and I want to, I want you
to hold this intention. I would say there are no easy
answers that's right to these questions, to this particular
question, but there are good answers.
I kind of unpacked this a little bit earlier.
God is perfect in his love and His knowledge.
There is nobody who has ever existed that has been loved more
by anybody other than God. So when God was going about
that, he was still, he was still inside of his loving nature.
OK, two, if a bad guy was trying to break into your house and do
bad things, you would issue, you would protect your family.
And So what he said earlier makes total sense.
He's saying you can't get mad at God for allowing all kinds of
evil, and then get mad at God when he wipes out evil.
Does that make sense? You guys got to hold.
You got to hold a little bit of that intention.
And here's the third thing I would put in there.
The Bible tells us that when that happened, no good people
died. The Bible says the wages of sin
is death. All of us have sinned.
So the issue that we're actually wrestling with is not why did
they live, but why does God through His grace allow us to
live? And that is because of the
person in the work of Jesus Christ that we are allowed to be
saved from our sins. So God was still operating
inside of his loving character. He was still operating inside of
his divine power. He was still doing a right and
righteous and just act even though it is hard for us to
swallow and navigate. All right.
Let's get into this. Let's stay, let's stay on theme.
So if God is perfect, why does the universe seem filled with
imperfections and chaos? OK, so a few things to say about
this. God is morally perfect.
When we say perfect, that's what we have to keep in mind.
He is holy and he is perfect in his moral character.
If God is going to make a physical world, there's going to
have to be some give and take between what he makes.
What? What do I mean by this?
If you said Sean, what's a perfect laptop, I would say,
well, what do you want that laptop for?
If you needed to edit videos, you might need a bigger screen.
To me, a perfect laptop is 1 I can work on in the plane if I'm
in the middle seat between two people.
So what do I need? If you're sitting between two
people that are built like me, you better hope it's a phone,
OK? I'm glad you said it, not me,
for a perfect is going to be smaller.
Now in some ways you say I want a bigger laptop.
It has more power, but bigger is also going to weigh more.
So my point is when you make things physical in creation,
there's going to be some give and take required.
So I'm not sure what it even means to say a perfect laptop, a
perfect body, a perfect waterfall, like there's just
naturally give and take involved in creation.
Second thing is the reason things are broken and imperfect
is also because of the fall. Now this is not me just
inventing something. This is me going back to Genesis
chapter 3 taught in the Bible that God made creation and it's
good. He repeats on every day it's
good. But when sin creeps in, in
Genesis chapter 3, we are told in Romans 8 that even creation
groans because of this. So a lot of the brokenness in
the world, the brokenness in our bodies, the brokenness in
creation, the imperfections trace back to sin.
The third thing I would say is often what we think are
imperfections are not imperfections, and it can be
driven by a worldview. So a certain Darwinian
naturalistic world view assumes the world was cobbled together
accidentally without purpose. So they point towards a lot of
imperfections in the human body. And there used to be a thing
called junk DNA. The assumption was DNA in our
bodies came about through this purposeless natural process.
So we'd expect to see a lot of it not have a purpose, but
certain people motivated largely by what you might say a
judeo-christian or intelligent design approach that says, you
know what, I don't think DNA came by accident.
I think there's a designer, let's go find those purposes.
Guess what they find? They find purposes for them.
So I'd caution people like tonsils.
In the past, they say take your tonsils out.
It's an imperfection, we don't need it.
And then later they go, oh, actually you needed that.
So with those three things, give and take in creation, the fall.
But then be careful assuming there's certain imperfections
wedded by a Darwinian worldview. We consistently find purposes
and reasons for things as we probe further, which is what we
would expect if there really is a designer.
Man, that's an incredible answer.
Would you guys give him a big round of applause?
Thank you so much. Jesus was hanging out with his
disciples ancestry of Philippi, which is kind of like the Lake
of the Ozarks of the Middle East.
And they're on a, you know, a mini hangout sesh.
And while he's there, he looks at them and he says, and who do
you say that I am? And in Matthew chapter 16, verse
14, we get their answer. They replied, some say John the
Baptist, others say Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of
the prophets. And there might be some of you
here today who you know, people who have a different view of
Jesus than you do. Some will say he's a fictional
character. Some will say he was a prophet.
Some will say he was a good, a good teacher, a great example
for us to look to. Some will say that he was a
charismatic leader. Others will say he was a
misunderstood 1st century Jew. But Jesus presses further.
He turns him and says, OK, but what about you?
Who do you say I am? And that is the question that
each of us have to wrestle through today.
Because the question you not have to answer is not what do
other people believe about Jesus, but what do I believe
about Jesus? What do you believe about Jesus?
When you die and you stand before God, he's not going to
ask you, what did your mom believe?
What did your dad believe? What did your neighbor believe?
But do you believe Simon Peter raises his hand, starts talking
before he gets called on and he says 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 from their sins and save
them from eternity without God. And you might be thinking, well,
yeah, sure. Easy for Peter to say he was
with Jesus. And I would say to you, yeah, he
was. And he died taking his
eyewitness testimony to the nations.
You see, when we talk about placing our faith in Jesus, it
is a step of faith, I'll grant you that.
But it is a reasoned faith. There are the eyewitness
accounts not just of his life, but also of his death and his
resurrection. In fact, Jesus appeared to over
500 people after his resurrection.
The biblical text can stand up to critics, and it can stand up
to skeptics. The evidence for the existence
of God not only stands up to scrutiny, but they deliver the
very best answers and the most reliable answers.
It is the best answer for the beginning of the universe, the
fine tuning of the universe, the laws of nature, and the
existence of objective moral values.
And that is before you count the countless lives that have been
changed, transformed, redeemed, repurposed, of which I am 1 and
millions across the globe. And you might be saying, yeah,
Clayton, but I don't know everything there is to know
about God. And I want you to hear me say I
get it. But I would tell you, you know
enough. Let me just talk to the fellows
for a second, fellas. How many of you know everything
there is to know about women? Raise your hand.
OK, Stay with me. But you knew enough to know you
wanted one. If you didn't raise your hand at
your weekend just got expensive, put your hand up, OK?
Even if you don't like her, be thankful she's next to you still
OK? I did not.
And I still do not know everything there is to know
about Jennifer. I just knew enough to know I
wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.
Can I be honest with you? It makes sense to me that a God
who created the world, put the stars in place, wrote the laws
of nature, moved the mountains to where it would be their home,
is big enough to hold the waters of the ocean in the palm of his
hand. Might be a little too big for me
to completely wrap my mind around, but I know enough.
I know enough to know that I need Him.
I know enough to know that I want Him, and I know enough to
know that I am lost without Him. What about you?
We're moving to a time of decision.
This is kind of a special moment for me because I'm getting an
opportunity to share this moment all across this region at all of
our campuses. And so I just want to take a
second. I want to talk to those of you
who don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ yet.
I want you to hear me say this. God is not just great and He's
not just powerful and He's not just majestic and He's not just
mighty, He is also good. So good in fact, that He did not
make us get right so we could come 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 in this, that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. That means that salvation was
His idea. Making us right and holy and
pure was His idea. And when did He do this for us?
He moved on our behalf while we were still in our sin.
That is how good He is. Hear me.
He did this before you drew your first breath, before you
committed your first sin, before you rejected His Son and
abandoned His purpose that He had for you.
And He still did it anyway. That's how good He is.
And if you're here today and you've never started a right
relationship with Jesus, you're on the outside looking in.
I have a really good news for you.
You don't have to stay that way any longer in just a few moments
when the people around you stand and sing and some of them come
to the steps and pray. I want to encourage you to take
a courageous walk next to the Baptist St. each of our
locations and find somebody who's standing there and go.
I've got some questions or I want to start my relationship
with Jesus right now. If you're watching in the chat,
you can just say I need someone to talk to and they'll get in
touch with you. To the rest of you, to those of
you who know Jesus, you've already accepted him as your
personal Lord and Savior. I just want to pray this over
you, that may your faith in God would inspire you to greater
devotion, obedience, and participation in the mission of
His Kingdom. May it strengthen you in your
prayers and guide you through your darkest valleys.
Would you guys stand with me? Heavenly Father, we're just
asking you to do something in each and every single one of our
hearts in this moment right now. Speak to us, make it clear to us
the step that you want us to take.
God, show us who you want us to become.
Point to us, to the sin that we need to release, the step of
faith that we need to take. And then God, would you give us
the courage to take it. In your name I pray.
Amen.