Introduction to Outlier University - Outlier

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Jesus is the ultimate outlier.

Now, many women here at the road, if the church was doing its job, as God has called us to do our job, engaging the culture in a way as Jesus would, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the love and the grace of God, we wouldn't have depression like we have it.

We wouldn't have suicide the way we have it.

And so God's called this church to equip the saints in a way that we're calling Outlier University based on this idea of being an outlier.

We believe that God wants us to think different, love different, and make a difference.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Mother Teresa, in speaking to a joint session of Congress, said this about America.

It is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for.

We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love.

There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love.

A conference board survey released in 2010 found that only 55% of workers surveyed were happy with their jobs.

Excuse me, it was 45% were happy with their job, the highest in 22 years of polling.

Depression rates today are 10% higher than they were in 1960.

Every year, the age threshold of happiness sinks lower.

50 years ago, the onset of depression was 29.5 years old.

And today it's almost half that at 14.5 years old.

And we see an increasing number of young people committing suicide because of depression.

And so what we have today is we have a country that's struggling and a country that's battling depression, anxiety, and despair.

And so we have, if you've ever seen a plot graph, I want to show that PowerPoint of a plot graph.

You can see that when you're doing a survey with a plot graph where the majority of the people are.

But whenever you do a plot graph or you do a survey, it might be height in relation to weight, it might be size in relation to something configuration on the X and Y axis.

You always have this one little dot that's kind of weird, and it's called the outlier.

And this outlier is off from the beaten path or from the larger group in the plot graph.

And you learn in sociology 101, if you haven't learned this, you will, or psychology 101, you know what you do with uh with the outlier if you're doing a survey and you're trying to develop some kind of a paper or you're trying to get yourself published in a book, is you kick it out.

You don't count it because it's obviously an anomaly.

It's obviously some strange aspect of the of the survey that someone didn't understand.

And so today, when you're when you're looking at the the most recent psychological discussions of the last, say, 50 years, there's been a desire that's also affected education to move education from the perspective of the average.

And so what you have in a third grade class or a fifth grade class or a seventh grade class or even in a collegiate class is courses that are catered to the average.

One particular professor who's been challenging this thinking in his studies at Harvard calls it the cult of the average.

So that everybody wants to be average.

And Jesus came as an outlier.

And he came to change society from the herd mentality to raise us up into a whole new perspective of how we live.

And Jesus came as an outlier challenging the status quo.

And our desire and our passion is to follow what Jesus did.

And I want you to look at a very, very interesting passage.

Look at John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

Would all of you look at John chapter 1 with me?

John 1 · chapter mention

And as we think about Jesus and how Jesus lived his life, there's this cryptic verse.

It's verse 14.

So if you have your Bibles, John is in the New Testament fourth book, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

John describes Jesus probably better than any of the four Gospels as far as his spirituality and what he taught.

No other person in world history has stood out, detached from the herd, held differing beliefs more from the body of culture than Jesus Christ.

Particularly impressive to readers of history of Jesus throughout history has been, as one writer commented, quote, an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Jesus Christ.

Now look at verse 14.

And the word became flesh.

So speaking of the word, Christ became flesh, dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.

And this is the part that's really interesting.

Full of grace and truth.

Full of grace and truth.

Timothy Keller, in his book, Making Sense of God, which I'd highly recommend, in understanding from a skeptical viewpoint why we believe Jesus is the Son of God, writes this.

One of the most counterintuitive combinations of in Jesus' life is this idea of truth and love or truth and grace.

Then as now, people rejected and shamed those who held beliefs or practices that they thought wrong or immoral.

But Jesus astonished everyone by being willing to eat with tax collectors, collaborators with the occupying Roman imperial forces.

This outraged those we might call the political left, those zealous against oppression and injustice.

But he also welcomed and ate with prostitutes, which offended those promoting conservative traditional morality on the right.

Jesus deliberately and tenderly touched lepers.

People who were considered physically and ceremonially contaminated, but who were desperate for human contact.

Yet he also ate repeatedly with Pharisees, showing that he was not bigoted toward the bigoted.

He forgave enemies who were going to crucify him.

And the friends who were letting him down in the hour of his greatest need, he forgave.

Nevertheless, though welcoming and befriending all, Jesus was surprisingly, listen, insistent on bearing witness to the truth.

So full of grace and love, but also full of truth.

Zacchaeus, the despised tax collector, was stunned by Jesus' love and embrace of him.

Yet, when hearing his call to repent, he stopped his government-backed extortion racket.

When Jesus encounters women who are considered sexually immoral by the society, he engaged them with a respect and graciousness that startled onlookers.

Yet he gently points out to the Samaritan woman the wreckage of her many failed relationships with men and calls her to find the sole satisfaction she has sought in his eternal life.

In the famous account of the woman caught in adultery, Jesus says to her in one breath, Neither do I condemn you.

And in the next, go and sin no more.

Here we see the counterintuitive but brilliant conjunction of both truth and love.

Both a passion for justice and a commitment to mercy.

He is full of grace and truth.

John 1, 14.

Jesus is the ultimate outlier.

Now, many women here at the road, if the church was doing its job as God has called us to do our job, engaging the culture in a way as Jesus would, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the love and the grace of God, we wouldn't have depression like we have it.

We wouldn't have suicide the way we have it.

And so God's called this church to equip the saints in a way that we're calling outlier university based on this idea of being an outlier.

We believe that God wants us to think different, love different, and make a difference.

And this is built on one of the most counterintuitive statements that Jesus ever made.

So now turn to Mark chapter 12.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 12.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

So go back to the left.

Matthew Mark.

In Mark chapter 12, Jesus is being challenged by the political and religious left and the political and religious right with the questions that were coming his way.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

If you look at Mark 12, starting at verse 13, the Pharisees, the conservatives, are asking Jesus about paying taxes.

Then in verse 18, the Sadducees, the liberals, are challenging Jesus and asking Jesus questions about the resurrection.

But look at verse 28.

Then in verse 28, and you that have been a part of the road, at least since the fall, where I did the teaching on this passage, Jesus, in a counterintuitive way, doesn't answer either one of the questions to the satisfaction of either group, but this is what he says.

Then one of the scribes came and having heard him reasoning together, perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, which is the first commandment of all.

And Jesus said, The first of all the commandments is this Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

And you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind, and with all of your strength.

This is the first commandment.

And the second, like it, is this you shall love your neighbors yourself.

There is no other commandment greater than these.

So as we began to consider what is it that we want to build at the road, God gave us this phrase, building whole-hearted disciples, building whole-hearted disciples of Jesus.

That's our vision statement at the road.

As we began to consider a university that we might train and equip men and women, even into the next generation, to make an impact and engage the culture, we couldn't find anything better than this right here.

That we would train men and women in the first commandment, to live the first commandment.

And so everything that we're doing at Outlier University, which started in the fall and now is coming up with our winter quarter starting off next week at 9 a.m., is built around this concept of loving God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strengthening your neighbors yourself.

I want you to look at this graphic.

So in this graphic, you can see at the center is loving God, but then playing off of what Jesus gave us as the key first commandment of loving God with all of our heart and soul, bottom left, mind and strength, the top, and neighbor as ourselves, we're building a curriculum.

We're building a school which is going to become accredited that's built around this concept of the first commandment.

So look at the diagram, and to the left, that's your right.

Is that your right or your left?

I don't know which one it is.

No, it's your left.

Biblical foundations and spiritual formation coming out of the heart and soul, mind and strength, Christian apologetics, biblical worldview, neighbor is self, missional living.

So today what I want to do is introduce to all of you our dean and our professors for the coming um quarter.

So Stu Orr is our dean.

So let's welcome Stu Orr as a dean.

And you'll need that mic.

Hello, church.

If you don't uh know it already, uh you will soon, that this is a totally unique church and a totally unique pastor.

My wife has always said that.

And I'm glad that now all of you can agree with that.

I'm very unique.

And I'm glad because I got her.

This church sees every Christian, that's every one of you, as a learner.

Every Christian being developed as a wholehearted disciple of Jesus Christ, every Christian growing in spiritual maturity.

With the ability then to make a difference in the world.

At Outlier University is the place where that will happen.

Outlier University put the core of the mission to loving God, as Steve said, with all our heart, soul, mind, strength, neighbors ourself, and we see Christ's calling on each of us to build a fully orbed Christian.

Not one who just specializes in a heart relationship with the Lord or a mind relationship with the Lord or a hand relationship with the Lord, but a fully orbed Christian.

And all our classes are going to be arranged in that order, and our curriculum is being designed with that intention.

That's our mission.

Now, for you all, we have three goals for you.

One is to equip you with Bible-centered historical and scientific knowledge, not just Bible knowledge, not science knowledge, not just historical, all knowledge.

Because that's what the culture deals with.

They don't believe the Bible.

As well as critical thinking skills.

How to evaluate things and grow you as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

We want you to be able to engage the secular culture with a biblical worldview.

Everything you do, 24-7.

Two.

We want to equip you with winsome relational skills that will facilitate your love and compassion for your neighbor and a great desire to serve your neighbor.

Three.

We will provide you with opportunity for you and your non-Christian friends to work through tough questions, your doubts, your objections to the Christian faith, their doubts, their objections to the Christian faith.

In the process, you will build your own faith.

Now, this winter semester, as Steve said, starts next week with five exciting and different classroom opportunities.

And you will be hearing about those in a minute from the teachers.

And in the coming months, you will also have experiential opportunities.

This isn't just about classroom learning.

This is about experiential opportunities too.

Participating in projects.

We want every professor, every teacher here to be looking for ways of giving you opportunities to start a project.

Participation in local and foreign missions.

There'll be missional opportunities.

Leading and joining opportunities in discipleship, community, and focus groups.

We're also planning for special forums, retreats, even seminars with world-class professors and lecturers.

And some self-start-study opportunities like the book club and so forth, which will include reading, research, and even reporting back.

Now, here's the really cool part of this whole thing, and the reason we're calling it the university.

You'll be earning credits in any of these areas.

We're even designing a curriculum so that you can earn an outlier diploma.

More on that as we develop the program.

But in this way, the reason we're doing this, you will be able to self-measure your own spiritual growth this way and set goals for yourself.

Now, we are blessed with some excellent teachers in this congregation, and we're starting to meet even new ones that are coming here.

And I now want to introduce you to the five who will be leading and teaching the classes for this coming semester.

Now, you you were handed a syllabus when you first came in, so now is the time to take that out and follow along with the syllabus.

First, we have Jay Emman.

Jay has been with us uh the road for quite a while and teaching classes, and he's an in-depth student of the Old Testament.

Thank you.

George?

George Stanke, who will be teaching on the gifts of the Spirit.

George is a licensed counselor with family, a focus on the family.

Next we have Ron Lint, my fellow apologetics guy.

Ron is an author and a certified instructor in Christian apologetics, and he'll be teaching on the problem of evil and suffering.

He plans to solve that, right?

And Jody and his wife Linda Dillow, uh they are published authors and have taught biblical education around the world, and they will be leading a very practical course on the Christian life.

Each will now give you a brief introduction to their class.

Two minutes.

The teacher made sure we knew he was a doctoral candidate at Michigan State.

His first words were in the beginning, God.

Now a lot of you might get excited.

Please don't.

Because in my ninth grade rebellious mind, I had no idea how to refute what he then said.

He said, All of you who think God created the universe, tell me who created God.

So imagine that impact impacting a ninth grade brain in 1973, probably very similar to ninth grade brains and adult brains and baby boomer brains today.

In the beginning, God.

In Genesis, we discover man is appointed mortal sorrow, but the blessed God shall come down teaching, his death shall bring the despairing comfort, rest.

That sentence is spelled out in the root names of ten fathers and sons in Genesis chapter five, from Adam to Noah, proclaiming salvation, the promise of salvation to us before the flood.

In our day, we only have a post-fall perspective.

In Genesis, we discover a God who wants relationship.

So much so that He created humanity in a superbly crafted universe.

Then died to bring us back into that relationship in a restored universe.

For all the hard charging deception, fake news, human deceptions about uh Genesis, we find in the beginning the start of covenants and promises that are completed in Revelation.

Genesis begins the ultimate literary adventure, the greatest drama of all time, the greatest evils, the greatest good, the greatest romance.

We discover in Genesis the beginning of the scarlet thread.

It's the rock and roll book of the Bible, and that means I have to quit talking.

In Genesis, we discover the beginning of the scarlet thread that goes from the seed of Eve to the manger that we just celebrated.

Please join us in Genesis as we step into a book that is arguably, provably from beyond space-time.

All right.

The problem is there are so many good classes, and you can only sign up for one at a time.

So the uh the study on the gifts of the Holy Spirit is going to be a very in-depth, experiential, hands-on class.

And our goal is to help you, first of all, to know are they even for today?

Because there are many in the church who believe that all of the gifts ceased at the close of the Apostolic Age.

Historically, not true.

Some of you have been using the gifts in times past, but the gifts have just simply become dormant.

And I think that grieves the heart of God personally.

And so one of our goals is to see those gifts stirred back up.

And then we want to teach you what are the ground rules.

So we'll be looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 12 in regard to the gifts, chapter 13 in regard to motivation, chapter 14 in regard to rules of engagement.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

So it's going to be an exciting class, you're going to learn an awful lot, and you're going to have a chance to practice in a safe place.

Questions.

Have you ever experienced deep fear?

Deep.

Have you had evil done to you or to a loved one, someone close to you?

Have you lost a loved one, spouse, child?

Even after repeated prayer?

I did.

I had a son who committed suicide.

I know something about that.

Have you had a failed marriage that just brought horrific circumstances?

Have you prayed repeatedly and you begged God for help and he did not answer you?

Have you had that happen to you?

Have you ever felt unloved, ignored by God?

Have you ever wondered how God could allow Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot to kill tens of millions of people?

How could a good God do that?

Have you ever wondered this?

Do we have free will in heaven?

And if we do, is there a possibility that we could sin in heaven as we do here?

The angels did.

We need to know, we need to think about these things.

Did you ever wonder why an omniscient, omnipotent, and loving God doesn't simply obliterate evil?

Just do away with it.

Well, did you know this that the problem of that, of those things, or the problem of evil, is the main reason for people, human beings, rejecting Jesus the Christ and embracing atheism.

Yet we don't talk about it.

We don't learn how to address this issue.

We don't approach it.

It's too doggone hard.

That's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna talk about it.

We need you, we need your story in the class, we need to know why God allows this to happen.

I'm not claiming uh that we're gonna know everything.

Only my granddaughter knows everything.

But we're gonna really attempt, and I need you to help do that.

It's not me, it's all of us together.

Thank you.

Last week I spent several hours with a man who had basically given up on Christianity.

Uh, the gap between what he thought the Bible promised and what he was actually experiencing was so large that he just gave up.

He had a lot of problems going on in his life.

He was experiencing health problems, finances, difficulties in his marriage.

And he kept asking significant questions.

Where was God in the midst of all of this?

He wondered.

He did have questions, like Ron was uh saying about whether God, uh whether or not God was really good, but his immediate question was, what is he good for?

The Bible gives enormous promises about the abundant life that Christians can experience.

Uh one obvious example is when Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches, and anyone who abides in me can have great fruit.

It's pretty impressive stuff, but a large number of you in this church feel you are not experiencing what you hoped you would experience in your Christian life.

For many, that gap is very real.

Jody and I are going to be team teaching uh this course on Thursday nights from 7 to 8 here at the church.

And what we hope to do together as seekers is to bring this gap together and discover um really how to close it.

And we want to do that by exploring practical, many practical things about the Christian walk.

Things like how do we enhance our prayer life?

How can we not just study the word of God, but how can we pray the word of God?

How can we make a personal quiet time more meaningful?

And I'm excited to share with you how learning and growing in what personal worship is has taken me into a deep and amazing experience of God's presence.

So we hope we'll see you on Thursday nights from 7 to 8, beginning this Thursday, January 18th.

And we're going to be working through a course called One to One that was developed in South Korea and has been taught all over the world.

And if you are a nerd like my husband, Jody, you can take it online.

There is a PDF of it.

Or if you're like me and you like paper and you like to draw or write all over everything, we will have copies of this Thursday night.

So come join us.

We want to learn together.

It's going to be interactive, and we want to learn from one another and grow more deeply in how to make our Christianity real.

But today, in our secular culture, we have friends and neighbors with a variety of religious beliefs, including Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, all mixed in with our cousin religion of Judaism and the classic cults such as Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses.

But new on the scene is this rapidly growing new spirituality.

Half of young adults today believe that astrology is science.

Yet there's even an app for it.

Twenty-five percent of Americans believe in reincarnation.

A third of those under 35 years old now classify themselves as nuns.

That's N-O-N-E-S.

They desire no religious affiliation.

How do you talk to these folks about spiritual matters?

How do you defend Jesus Christ as the only way, the truth, and the life?

In this class, you will learn how to defend the Christian faith from a biblical, historical, and scientific perspective.

I will point out why the evidence supports your position and actually defeats theirs.

I will give you practical insights and extensive notes.

We will have testimonials as well as break up into small groups to share and learn from each other.

My job is to give you reasons that strengthen your own faith while lovingly showing others the flaws in their way of thinking in hopes that they'll get to know Christ.

Thank you.

Morning.

I was having my quiet time, and I'm thinking about next week I'm going to be teaching on Philippians.

We're going to be talking about joy and leveraging joy in our life.

And I ran across this verse that I thought you guys really epitomizes and beautifully illustrates what we're doing with Outlet University.

This is, you don't have to turn there, just listen.

This is Philippians 1 9.

Here's what Paul encourages the Philippians to pray for themselves as he prays this for them.

And this I pray that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment.

Doesn't that capture kind of what Jesus was all about through grace and truth?

And what we're saying here is we're not just driving toward more knowledge, but we're driving also for a deeper love.

So passionate love with wisdom, knowledge, and discernment.

So, Father, in the name of Jesus, I want to thank you for these men and women.

I want to thank you for this church.

And Father, I pray that we at the Road at Chapel Hills will grow in our love abounding.

Abounding love in knowledge and discernment.

Bless you and praise you in your name.

Amen.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.

If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.

Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.

Thanks again for tuning in today.

Be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.