Answering Faith's Questions (Part 4) | With Dr. Sean McDowell

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

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

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

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 16:14

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

Romans 5:8

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.