Answering Faith's Questions (Part 3) | With Dr. Sean McDowell

What up crossing family, I am so glad to welcome you to all at

all of our different locations, those of you watching online and

inside. And a very special welcome to

those of you who are joining us for the first time or the first

time in a long time. I mean this when I say this.

I believe that today could be a significant moment in your faith

journey. But before we jump all the way

into that, I want to make you aware of some key things that

will more than likely matter to you in a big way.

We are opening up camp registration today.

We are excited about it. If you go into the app and

you'll find in the For You section a way for you to sign

your kids up. And I just want to encourage

you. Our church is growing, which is

a really, really good thing. So if you're wanting your kid to

go to camp, I would tell you to sign up early.

And the good news is if you do that, you will save money.

For those of you who want to help send kids to camp, there's

two opportunities for you to do that.

One, you can sign up for the In Your Corner golf outing.

And that registration is but also in the app and through

those four different events, we use those funds to help make it

possible for kids to attend camp who may not be able to afford

it. If you are a person who loves

Jesus, loves kids and hates golf, and you're just saying,

hey, I want to provide a scholarship, or you might be a

person who just doesn't want as many kids in your neighborhood

over the summer, you can help scholarship kids to go to camp.

And every bit that you give helps.

Our goal is simple. We want every kid that wants to

go to camp to be able to go to camp.

And for anyone who is looking for a stretch goal, Jennifer and

I stretch goal is we found out that we are going to be having 9

summer camps this year to fulfill the needs of our church

across this region. If we were going to send one kid

to every single camp, that total would be $18190.00.

And so Jennifer and I are going to make a commitment and if you

guys want to join us in that, we would love to see you do that.

For more information, like I said, all of that is available

to you do directly in the app. Now, in years of my ministry

here in this region, I've sat across the table from hundreds

of you and almost always there is a question of faith that

needs to be answered before a step of faith or obedience is

taken. And that is why I am so glad

that you are here today, because you need to hear me say this.

God is not afraid of your questions, and as a church we

are not afraid of your questions either.

In fact, we believe that God and His Word not only welcome every

question, but have answers to every question about life and

about faith. Now, to give you some context,

every single one of our services this weekend is unique because

it would be impossible for us to answer all the questions you

have. So what we're trying to do is

four or five questions over our services this weekend.

So if you want to hear some of the other questions answered,

you'll just catch it on playback online at a later time.

But to help you take your next step, we have invited Doctor

Sean McDowell to partner with us this weekend.

Doctor Sean McDowell devoted his career to helping bring truth to

the next generation, which we love, and as a college

professor, high school teacher, prolific author, he has

exceptional insights into prevailing culture and he

imparts his observations to 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 the Teacher or Educator of the Year

award in his hometown. He is a highly sought after

speaker which is why we are so grateful that he was willing to

come and spend Super Bowl weekend with us.

He's spoken at various camps, churches, universities worldwide

and is a frequent guest on radio and television shows.

He is the best selling author and Co and has Co written or Co

written over 20 books. This guy doesn't sleep.

He has a Master's degree in both Theology and Philosophy, APHD in

Apologetics and Worldview, and he is the Co host of the Think

Biblically podcast. What are you doing with your

life? You guys need to step.

OK. But more importantly, he is a

dedicated husband and father. He's been married to his high

school sweetheart, Stephanie since 2000.

He lives in Southern beautiful California, which is where we're

need to launch a campus. We have got to get out of here

blank. If you want help, right, we've

got to get out of here. So crossing family, would you

please give a warm crossing welcome to Sean McDowell.

So. This is a big deal for me and

let me tell you why. I felt like God called me into

ministry. And so I signed up to go to

Bible college because I was like, God, I feel like you've

told me that this is what I'm supposed to do for the rest of

my life. But I showed up to Bible college

feeling like I was called into ministry and I have these big

questions that were like a siren going off in my head.

And I was going, if I'm going to bank my eternity and the rest of

my life on this, I've got to get some of these questions really

figured out. And so I signed up for an

apologetics class and that helps you defend your faith and

understand your faith and examine your faith amidst all

other faiths. And one of the very first books

that I got and I read was a book called More than a Carpenter

that was written by his father. And so his family blessed my

family and helped me come and have a stronger faith.

And now your story is going to look like a lot like my story

because he is here to help you strengthen and grow in your

faith. And I want you to know something

really cool about him. He has a very similar story to

that. In fact, How about you share a

little bit? Of it I do, yes.

So so my dad's story was he grew up in a painful broken

background, saw some Christians lives who are different and he

wanted that peace and content. They challenged him to consider

the claims of Christ. He set out to disprove it,

became convinced it was true, literally transformed his life.

So I grew up hearing about this thought, oh, Christianity is

true. Until in the mid 90s when I was

in college. I'm fishing around on the

Internet and I come across this huge atheist site dedicated to

claiming that Christianity is false and debunking my dad's

content. Which, by the way, your dad's

book sold 10 million copies more I.

Live about 30 million for more than the Carpenter alone.

OK, so his dad's in the game, right?

Yeah, your your dad's got got throwing some heat.

He's spoken to more young people, live than anybody in

world history, written over 150 books, lived a modern day

Apostle Paul type life. He's 86 years old right now,

still chugging along and I come across this website just trying

to debunk his stuff. And I sat there and my heart

sank. And I remember going, Oh, my

goodness, I don't know how to answer this.

And I felt that in my mind and I felt it in my heart.

So I went to my dad. We're in Breckenridge, Co, over

vacation. And I remember sitting across

the little table like this. And then I just said, dad, I

want to know it's true, but I'm not sure I'm convinced that

Christianity is true. If you're a parent or grandkid

or grandparent, how would you respond if one of your kids or

grandkids said this to you? My dad didn't miss the beat.

He looks at me, goes, son, I think that's great.

And I remember looking at him going, did you hear what I just

said? He goes, you know, she can't

live on my faith. You've got to figure out what

you think is truth and follow it.

He said, if you follow, if you think after truth, you're going

to follow Jesus because Jesus is the truth.

He said, and you know what? Your mom and I love you no

matter what. And that's what I've tried to

do. And of course, I think

Christianity is true. And like my dad had dedicated my

life to trying to help Christians make sense of it and

provide answers for skeptics who want to know.

Great. So this is what we're going to

do. We're going to help answer some

of the big questions that you have had, that other people have

had, and help you start to build your faith.

Because when we talk about a reasoned faith, it means that

the faith in God is a reasonable conclusion.

So let's do the first one. There's a lot of religions,

there are a lot of religious texts.

Why should we trust the Bible over all the others?

So the quick answer is because the Bible is true and the Bible

is inspired by God. And of course you say, all

right, how do we know it's true? How do we know it's inspired by

God? Well, the Bible is 66 books

written by roughly 40 authors over 1500 years.

So it would take a while to lay out all of the evidence.

But here's a few hooks that will help.

One is archaeology. The Bible's not a book about

like some distant unknown land. It's about real people, real

places, and real times. And as we consistently go to

investigate those according to the Bible, we consistently find

archaeology that backs it up from the Old Testament to the

New Testament. SO1 quick example from the Old

Testament. This is fresh out of my mind.

I just interviewed this guy two weeks ago about Jericho.

We know exactly where Jericho is.

There's no debate about this. Because they would build city on

top of a city on top of a city because of a water source and

because of a foundation. We know exactly where Jericho

is. Well, recent archaeology

suggests that what's called City 5 actually may match the

biblical description of being burned with certain grain that

was leftover. Walls falling in the pottery

matches. The time I interviewed this

scholar and he laid it out. I thought that's pretty

compelling that this story may be 1400 years roughly before the

time of Christ. We know where it took place and

the archaeology matches up with it.

And of course you can get full archaeological study, Bibles

almost page after page, discovering amulets and tombs

and inscriptions, etcetera. So that's one piece.

A second piece is if we want to know if we can trust a writer,

we ask, does this writer include material that's embarrassing?

Now? Why?

When we invent material, we do so to make ourselves look good,

not to make ourselves look bad. What's fascinating is the Old

Testament. New Testament are filled with

what we would call embarrassing material.

So why would God choose the people out of those who were in

slavery rather than those who were noble?

Why would a man after God's own heart commit murder and be

polygamous and be a terrible father?

I could go on and on, but the Bible really realistically

portrays people, includes embarrassing content.

You get to the disciples, and the Bible's full of mistakes.

The disciples do. Peter denies Jesus, Jesus calls

them Satan, they fall asleep in Gethsemane.

They don't understand his teachings.

Why? Because the writers care about

truth. The last thing when you get to

the Gospels is that the writers are eyewitnesses.

They proclaim what they saw and what they heard.

So first, John says, what we've seen, what we've heard, what

we've touched, we proclaim to you.

Second, Peter says we're not following myths or stories, but

we were eyewitnesses of what we have seen.

Just read the New Testament. It's like a drum beat.

We are witnesses. We saw, we heard, and then the

writers are willing to suffer and die for that proclamation.

Start piercing these things together, and it tells us the

Bible is actually true. Now, how do we know?

It's inspired really quickly. One of my favorite examples is

there's a prophecy in Isaiah 13 and Jeremiah 50 that Babylon

would be destroyed, never rebuilt, and jackals, owls and

hyenas would live there. A friend of mine who's an

archaeologist in that area, it's actually modern day Iraq has

gone to that area and ancient Babylon is outside of the walls

of Saddam Hussein. And ancient Babylon is like a

graveyard. It's still has not been

reburied. And he saw owls Jackal been

rebuilt, and he saw owls, jackals and hyenas live in

there, prophesied hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

That's one example of a divine stamp, so to speak, on the

Scriptures. Let's push just the tabit

deeper. But let's do a quick quick

answer to this one. But lots of religious texts have

similar content. Like a lot of religious texts

talk about a a flood. So how come the Bible and these

other texts have some of the same instances in them?

Well, I I think that actually suggests that there really was

an ancient flood. If we have so many stories from

around the world and especially in the Middle East, that tells

me there probably was some kind of worldwide flood.

Now, when you compare the biblical account with some of

these other accounts, the biblical account is far more

realistic. I know there's animals and an

ark, and it's a miracle that's taking place, but it has far

more realism to it. And then you add the other

evidences that the Bible's true, and I think it really suggests

that there was a kind of global flood.

OK, now this. I was not planning on this, so

be gentle here, OK? We haven't even discussed this

at all. So OK, nationwide flood, or I

mean worldwide flood, people go hocus pocus, you know, stuff

like that. But recently, is it on the top,

top of Mount Everest that they've discovered?

Is it fish DNA on the top of Mount Everest?

Have you heard this? I've heard this kind of thing.

Yeah, is. This is there.

Is there truth and validity to this?

OK, so I don't know for sure if that's true or not.

To me, that suggests that doesn't prove that the earth is

young and we haven't talked. I wasn't going there.

I was just talking about the. Fact that but let me let me so

let me make a point behind that. There are certain things

Christians have to agree on. God is the creator, the Bible is

true. There's some issues we can agree

to disagree on. So like maybe the age of the

earth. Now, if they found fish on the

top Mount Everest, either that means there was a global flood,

or if the Earth is older, which many Christians hold, then they

were at some point below the sea and pushed up as natural

processes we see and we'd expect to find it at that point.

So there's two ways to make sense of that.

I haven't done a deeper dive to really land that.

One OK, perfect. Next one.

We've tried to cover one of these at each of our services,

talking about ways to prove the existence of God.

Let's I want you to put on the morality lens.

How does our sense of morality prove the existence of God?

OK, everybody knows there's right and wrong.

No one is actually a relativist. You might hear people say things

like, well, that's true for you, but not true for me, or who are

you to judge? But again, I live in Southern

California, and I tell my students, I say, if somebody

tells you there's no such thing as right and wrong, cut in front

of them in line. Or if you're really foolish, cut

them off on the freeway and they will give you a gesture letting

you know for sure that you violated A moral norm and you

should have behaved differently. You see, you know what people

believe, not by what they say or by what they do, but by how they

want to be treated. People break a promise to you,

but they will cry foul when you break a promise to them.

People might lie to you, but they will call foul when you lie

to them. Why?

Because right and wrong is written on our hearts.

It's written on our hearts. I had AI.

I'm wearing a superhero shirt from a a comic artist named Todd

McFarlane. He's one of my favorite Spider

Man artists. I had a chance.

He he created the character Venom.

I had a chance to interview him and in the beginning of

interview he talked about how morality is subjective and

there's no objective standard for morality.

But then towards the end he said he couldn't believe in God

because the problem of evil. And I said, wait a minute, you

can't have it both ways. You can't say morality is

subjective and then say I condemn God because God is evil,

because that's a moral condemnation that requires

morality is objective. We all know there's right and

wrong because it's written on our hearts.

It's inescapable. Even atheists know right and

wrong. Why?

Because they're made in God's image and they live in God's

world. So if there really is an

objective moral law, the best explanation is there's a moral

law. Giver friends Fyodor Dostoevsky,

the Russian novelist, said If there is no God, all is

permissible. I think he's right.

If there's no God and there's no objective moral norm, I don't

see how you consistently condemn racism and genocide and theft

and murder and fill in the blank.

But we all condemn those things, even though some people don't

follow it and live that way. We know it's wrong because we

know there's a moral law, and if there's a moral law that's above

and beyond human beings we're accountable to, the best

explanation is there's a moral law giver.

Isn't that great? So when you're talking to people

and they're talking about my truth or this is just my, the

problem is, is what happens when my truth bumps into your truth,

You can't have That's chaos. You can't get frustrated at the

evil in the world. You can't even get frightened

because everything is now whatever you decide.

And that's how wickedness thrives.

There has to be something beyond us and outside us governing us

in order for our world to even begin to make sense.

So while we're doing that, I wonder if I should frame this as

a I'm not going to frame it as a moral thing.

What happens to people when they die if they lived in a place

where they never heard about Jesus?

OK, this is a good question. What about those who've never

heard? And this strikes us and is

incredibly unfair, right? Which, by the way, if we're

saying this is unfair, we're appealing to an objective moral

standard, which if you think, yeah, that's a good question, it

tells me, you know, there's an objective right and a wrong.

It's inescapable. But it seems unfair that

somebody would go to hell for just not hearing the name of

Jesus. So the question is, has God made

himself known to everyone? And my answer is, yes, he has.

We say, how so? Romans chapter 1 says God has

Romans 1 · chapter mention

made himself known in creation from the size and the complexity

and the beauty and the organization and the origin of

the universe points towards a creator.

We also know God exists Romans 2 by our conscience, the moral

law. Everybody has sufficient

knowledge to know that God is real.

Now God knows our hearts. And I think God knows that if

somebody would respond to the way God has revealed himself in

natural revelation, God would give that person the saving

knowledge of the person of Jesus to make sure that they can pray

in him and be saved. So look, I maybe it's actually

two weeks ago. A friend of mine is a former

Muslim and he's been called the Billy Graham of Iran.

And I interviewed him about what's going on with some of the

protests and what's happening there.

And he said, Sean, we are seeing hundreds of thousands.

This is over the past few years, but climaxing now of Muslims

coming to Jesus. And I said, are there

supernatural phenomena like dreams and visions?

He goes, Sean, that happens so often that sometimes people

don't even mention it. Why am I bringing this up?

God is not limited by our technology and communication

means to get His word to somebody.

If that person would respond. Last thing on this, I don't know

for sure. The answer that I just gave that

makes the most sense to me. OK, but here's what I know.

God is God and you are not, and I am not.

Let God judge those who haven't heard.

But friends, if you're hearing this, you have heard.

You've heard. So we are accountable to the

knowledge that we have and can't get off the hook for not hearing

because maybe there's some people who haven't let God judge

them. We are responsible.

We've heard the word of Jesus, specifically this morning.

That's perfect. And let me, let me give you 3

things to hold intention here, OK?

One, the character of God tells me, and this is something to

like is to comfort you. OK, we'll do comfort.

We'll end with convict. So it's coming.

So, you know, hold your breath. There's not a person on planet

earth that you love more than God does.

God loves people, every person, more than you could possibly

imagine. So God has a desire, we're told

this in Scripture, that he doesn't want anyone to perish,

but all do come to turn alive. So God is going to give people

everything that they need to make a decision of faith.

That's Part 1, Part 2. God commanded those who have a

relationship. I got to be careful with that

finger, God. Oh boy, I had a lot of caffeine.

God commanded, God commanded people like you and me to go and

make disciples of all nations. When I talk to our staff, I talk

about do you have receipts? Receipts don't save us, but

receipts are evidence of the fact that we're taking God

seriously at His word. So we don't get to just lob the

complaint at God and go, how come you're not doing anything

to save people who are far from you when He's commanded His

followers, which means people who are doing the things that

God taught him to do, to actually go and do something

about the people who don't yet believe in Him.

So you and I have a part to play.

And how cool is that, that He allows us to participate in His

mission? Third, I just did this with our

college kids on Tuesday. The stories about Jesus are

contained in you all. You know, I'm going to use you

for a second are contained in the first four books of the New

Testament, and those first four books are called the Gospels,

and the Gospel's Greek word is. Like the good news is?

What it says it means good news. Here is the weird part.

We are nervous about sharing good news.

We get a lump in our throat about telling people good news.

And that is how shifty Satan is, that we get all the emotions and

all the feelings about sharing bad news, about the actual good

news that will save and transform a person's life.

When we say God's way is the best way, we actually believe

it. So when we are telling people

something, we should be telling them good news.

And here's the deal. Would you rather have life with

Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, with purpose, with divine

direction in your life? We want that for absolutely

every single person on planet earth.

And God has promised to reward and to go with people who are

participating in his mission. So one, it intention that God

loves them more than you, but two, you and I have a massive

part to play. All right, next one.

I can be fast. No, I want to.

I actually want to. OK.

Why does the God of the Old Testament seem so different from

the God of the New Testament? The keyword is seem, and I'm

glad you phrased it that way because the God of the Old

Testament is the God of the New Testament.

One of the big reasons it seems different is because God is

progressively revealing himself over time.

Reveals himself to Abraham, reveals himself to Moses,

reveals himself to David, and Solomon fully reveals himself in

the person of Jesus. Now still you say, why does the

Old Testament seem full of violence and judgement and the

New Testament seem full of grace?

Well, if that's your take, I'm not sure you've actually read it

closely enough. You referenced Ezekiel 1823

earlier where we see God's grace, where he says, I don't

wish that the wicked would be destroyed, I wish that they

would turn from their evil ways and live.

We see God's patience and grace and long-suffering with the

people of Israel, who by the way, God's chosen people to be a

light to the nations, are committing the same sins that

all the other nations are. He's patient with them.

But friends, we also see God's judgement in the New Testament.

Jesus talked about hell more than anyone else in the Bible.

Mark 9, Matthew 25. We see it in Revelation 14 and

Revelation 20 with references of like the fire and the burning

sulfur, weeping and gnashing of teeth.

It is a brutal kind of judgement.

So I think we see grace in the Old Testament and I think we see

judgement in the New Testament. Why does that matter?

Because on the cross is when we see God fully revealed.

Jesus satisfies the wrath and judgement of God, but he does it

through the act of love by laying down his life, paying the

price that you and I deserve. That's why in the cross, God's

justice and mercy kiss, so to speak, and come together, and

that's when we see God's character fully revealed.

That is a perfect answer. In fact, we are going to unpack.

You guys are the only service who's getting this.

We're actually doing another, I think it's a six week series

starting next weekend where we're going to actually be

looking at the God of the Old Testament and allowing us to

come to the same conclusion that the Hebrew writers came to about

God. And they didn't come away with

God is a hateful, vengeful, horrible, nasty, despicable

being. They actually called him his

love endures forever. Those songs, they came out of

the OT, not the New Testament. Would you give Sean a big round

of applause? Thank you so much.

That was awesome. Jesus took his disciples to

accessory of Philippi, which is kind of like the Lake of the

Ozarks for the Middle East. And while he's hanging out with

them, he asked them this question, Who do you say that I

am? And in chapter 16, verse 14, we

get their reply. This is what they said.

Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still

others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

They answer the question that Jesus saying, people say a lot

of things about you and that's still true today.

There are some of you, you have friends and family members who

will say Jesus was just a fictional character.

Some will say that he was a prophet.

Some will say that he was a really good teacher.

Some will say he was a charismatic leader.

Some people would say he was an example to follow.

Other people would say he was just a misunderstood 1st century

Jew and he didn't intend any of this to take place.

But Jesus doesn't end the question there.

He pushes a step further. He says, but what about you?

Who do you say I am? Hear me.

The question today is not what do other people believe about

Jesus, but what do you believe about Jesus?

When you die and you stand before God, he's not going to

ask you, what does your mom think about me?

What does your dad think about me?

What does your boss think about me?

What about you? What do you believe about my son

Jesus? 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.

Peter's answer was the right one.

He realized that Jesus is 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 sins, but he was going

to save them from their sins so they could be made right with

God. And you might be thinking, and

rightfully so, easy for Peter to say, he was there with Jesus.

And I would tell you, yes, he was.

And he died taking his eyewitness testimony about who

Jesus was to the nations. When we talk about placing our

faith in Jesus, it is a step of faith, 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, over 500 Jesus appeared

to over 500 people after his resurrection.

The biblical text. They stand up to critics and

they can stand up to skeptics. The evidence for the existence

of God not only stands up to scrutiny, but they deliver the

best and 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 one. And I've seen him do it over and

over again. And I know you might be saying,

but I don't know everything I want you to know.

I get it, but I think you know enough at all of our locations.

Raise your hand if you know everything there is to know

about women. Raise your hand if you knew

enough to know that you wanted one.

There you go. You don't have to know

everything, but you know enough. I still don't know everything

there is to know about Jennifer. I just knew enough that I wanted

to spend the rest of my life with her.

It makes sense to me. Hear that line.

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 their spots, and 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 understand. But I know enough.

I know enough to know that I need Him.

I know enough to know that I want Him.

And I want to spend the rest of my life in eternity with Him.

And if you were here today and you haven't sorted that thing

out, I'm going to encourage you to do just that.

We're moving to a time of decision.

This is a special moment for me because I get to share this at

all of our different locations. And so wherever you're watching

from or joining from, I just want to talk.

First off, to those of you who don't have a relationship with

Jesus yet, I want you to hear me say this.

God is not just great and powerful and majestic and mighty

and a creator. He is also good.

So good, in fact, that He did not make you and I get right

with Him so we could come to Him.

Instead, He came down and made us right so we could be with

Him. Romans chapter 5 verse 8 says

Romans 5:8

this about our God. But God demonstrates His own

love for us in this that while we were still sinners, Christ

died for us. Hear me, this was His idea, not

ours. He did this before you drew your

first breath, before you committed your first sin, before

you rejected his son, abandoned his purpose for you.

He knew all of those things would happen, and He still sent

his son to die on your behalf anyway.

He is so good, good enough that if you come to him today in

faith, He will receive you. And so in just a few moments,

when the people around you stand and sing and some of the people

come to the steps and pray, I want to encourage you to walk

over next to the baptistery at whatever location you're at.

Or if you're online, just type something in the chat saying I

need to talk to somebody and ask the question that you need to

ask so you can take the step of faith that you need to take.

And to those of you who do know Jesus, here's my prayer over

you. May your faith in God inspire

you to greater devotion, obedience, and participation in

the mission of God's Kingdom. May it strengthen you in your

prayers and guide you through the darkest of valleys.

Would you stand with me? Heavenly Father, we're asking

you to do a mighty work in US right now.

We know that there are steps that we need to take, lids in

our lives that need to be lifted, sins in our life that

need to be let go. And we're asking you, through

the power of your Holy Spirit, to give us the courage and the

strength to do just that. God, we want to leave here today

more committed to you, more sure of you, more obedient to you.

Help us to do that. In your name I pray.

Amen.