There’s No Such Thing as a Bad Question Here | Asking for a Friend: Part 2

Well, welcome to our first family and those of you online. Today, we are in part two of a four-part message series called "Asking for a Friend," where I'm taking your questions and trying to bring biblical wisdom and clarity to your questions. If you're wondering, I'm saving the complicated ones, the controversial ones, the hairy ones. Probably shouldn't use that word, but I'm saving those for next week, but we do have some important ones this week. And I wanted to say to all of you, thank you sincerely for trusting me to answer your questions. There are so many of them, and they're so important. And my heart behind this series is to be clear, is twofold. What I want to do is I want to bring clarity to some complicated and important cultural questions. And I want to do it with a heart of humility and compassion, because your questions are so important. And many of you ask questions that are more than just a question, but they represent maybe a marriage or a child or a relationship or a broken dream and a hurt. And many of them are personal. Some of them are painful. Some of the questions are things that you've wrestled with for years and years. And so I'll give you the ground rules of how we're going to answer your questions. What I'm not going to do is I'm not going to try to tell you just what's popular or what's culturally expected. What we're going to do is we're going to ask, what does the Bible say directly about the questions that you ask? And when the Bible speaks clearly, we're going to believe it and do what it says, even if it challenges us and even if it's different from what we want to hear. My second motivation behind this series is actually to teach you how to take your questions to the Bible so you can dig into God's word and find truth for yourself, because the Bible says a lot about a lot. But the Bible doesn't speak directly to every single subject. So when the Bible speaks, we're going to apply it. But when the Bible doesn't speak directly, what we're going to do is we're going to learn to look for other principles and other places to apply them prayerfully with wisdom so that our lives will honor God. Now, I said it last week and I want to say it again. Many of the subjects that we're going to talk about very sincere and committed Christians have different views. And so, hear me when I tell you, we can disagree and still love Jesus. We can disagree and still be friends. So we can agree about the essentials and we can debate and talk about and dialogue about some of the non-essentials. At the end of the day, our goal is not to be right, our goal is to be loving. If you agree, say amen, type it in the comment section so that we know you're with us and let's dive into the first question today from Life Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee. We have a lot of people ask about parenting and this person asks, how do I protect my kids from culture without isolating them? Good question. Parenting can be difficult if you agree, raise your hand. If you didn't raise your hand, you don't have kids yet, right? If you're a parent right now, it probably feels like you're losing somewhere in the parenting assignment. You've got phones to battle with. You've got TikTok, you've got Snapchat, you've got pornography, you've got pure pressure, you've got AI, you've got spiritual opposition from a very real enemy called the devil whose mission is to steal, kill and destroy and who is coming after your kids, trying to deceive them away from God's truth into the lives of this culture and this world. And so it may feel like culture is actually discipling your kids faster than you are. And in many ways, it is. And so if you're like a lot of people are instinctive to raise the walls higher and keep everything out. And I understand that idea comes from a place of love. But what we wanna do is we wanna look at God's Word and see if we can get wisdom on how we parent our kids. How do we disciple them without isolating them? And we're gonna start with the words of Jesus, a prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples in John chapter 17, verse 15. And this is what Jesus prayed. He said, "My prayer, God, is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of this world, even as I am not of it." In other words, they're in the world, but they're not of the world. Protect them, God, they're not of this world. And then he prayed, "Saintify them by truth. Your Word is truth." Now, notice, Jesus didn't pray, remove them from the world. He prayed, protect them from the world. And then sanctify them with truth. So our goal as parents is we want to protect them and disciple them. We want to protect them and teach them God's Word. Not just what it says, but why it matters and how to apply it to their lives. Protect them and sanctify them with truth. And that's one of the reasons why we're doing this message series is to look and see what does God's word say about how we live because what we believe determines what we do. So one of our top goals as parents is this. One of our top goals is to protect our children long enough for them to grow strong enough to choose holiness for themselves. We're going to protect them long enough and disciple them in the Word of God, sanctify them and truth for a long enough period of time that they can then choose to serve and honor God on their own. Now, how do we do that? Well, I'm going to take exactly how to do it in four minutes. (audience laughing) What I'm going to do is give you some biblical thoughts for you to take, research more, pray more, and apply these prayerfully to help lead your children to be fully devoted followers of Christ. We'll start with this. Start by paying attention to who's shaping your kids. Really, really important because who your child is with will shape who they become. What they watch will determine what they believe. So we're going to do everything we can to get them around the right types of people to help shape them to become fully devoted followers of Christ. And scripture is really clear about this. Proverbs 13, 20 tells us to walk with the wise and what do we become? You become wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm. And this is one of the reasons we talk about life groups all the time because you know it. When you're around the people of God and they're praying for you and you're in the Word together, you start to become more like Christ. But when you're around crazy people, you get dumb. And every single one of you probably have a testimony of some time in your life when you are not dumb alone. Raise your hand if you know what I'm talking about. So what we want to do is we want to think about who's influencing our kids. And you say, "But how can I control their friends?" Well, you can't completely control their friends, but there are some things you can do that are very, very wise. Write this down. You can't control every friendship, but you can influence many of the environments where friendships are formed, right? You can't completely control who they're going to be friends with, but you can control the types of environments you put them in where they're likely to make friends with either the right types of people or the people that you might want to be more careful with. And so you want to put them in places where people that you trust can reinforce your values and reinforce what you teach. Because if you've been a parent for a little while, you know that whatever you say doesn't really matter that much. But when someone else who's cool says the very same thing, your kids are mind blown. And that's why we want to put them in the right places where other people can reinforce the right belief system. And if you said like Craig, how is it that you have six grown children all faithfully serving Jesus? One of the best things we did was put them around you, people like you. They were raised in wife kids, week after week after week after week. There were ways in switch with many of you who directly invested in their lives. There are around Christians and mentors. They had, they were around godly families. In fact, we chose the very dance studio and sports teams that our kids were involved in, not based on the quality of the programs as much as the quality of the people. Look at who they're with and start there. Then, mom and dad, look at what you're modeling. Look at what you're modeling. Because your priorities become your children's theology. So important. And this is where if you feel a little bit convicted, maybe you should. How you live more than what you say. How you live, what you do, teaches what you really believe. For example, if you never read the Bible, and they never see you read the Bible, you are communicating by your actions, do not prioritize the word of God in your life and how How do you expect to follow it in their life? If you say we're a Christian family and God comes first, but church is always optional and sports never are. You're teaching theology, just not the theology you intended. Look at what you model, look at it carefully. At some point, it's really important that you strategically and prayerfully prepare them to be different. You actually want them to know if you're following Jesus, you're not going to be normal. You don't want them to be normal because normal is dumb. Normal is not working, right? You look around at what a normal teenager is today and normal is anxious. Normal is lonely. Normal is broken. Normal is afraid. Normal is depressed. Normal is suicidal. Normal is not known who they are. Normal we aim for holy. Holy. In fact, the very Greek word for holy is word haggios and it means to be set apart. It means to be different. So we have to help our children understand the goal is not to fit in. Sometimes it's to stand out because you are different. Don't worry if they don't fit in, worry if they never stand out because one day they're going to be a party and they're going to be tempted. Or it's going to be late at night and they're in bad doom scrolling seeing things they shouldn't see and you're not going to be there in that moment. But the Holy Spirit will. If they're new in Christ and in His Word, the Spirit of God will be with them in that moment and the Spirit of God will guide them into all truth. So your goal is not to protect them forever but to prepare them to choose holiness when you're not there to choose it for them. Let's deal with another question. We had a lot of people ask about this theme. We had someone from live church and still water, someone from live church in Wichita, Kansas, someone from church online and then a lot of other people. And the question were asked around different morals, different beliefs about gender, different beliefs about sexuality and essentially all the questions were something like this. How do I love a friend whose lifestyle I disagree with without compromising my faith? Someone is, I care about, I love them and they're living in a way that's different than what I believe God's Word says. What do I do about that to a friend? Now just to be clear, I'm answering this question about friendship. But this is a son or a daughter or a family member. There's actually a different weight there and that's a different conversation. Let's talk about friends today. And what we want to do is we want to start by looking at Jesus. How did Jesus treat people? And we look at what people said about Jesus in Matthew 11, 19, very interesting. They said this. They said the son of man, that's Jesus, came eating and drinking and they say, "Here is a glutton and a drunkard." Now he was not a glutton, he was not a drunkard, but because he was hanging out with people that might have been, they kind of gossip about him and assumed that he was. So that part is not true, but what was absolutely true is this. They said, "Here's a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." Jesus was a friend with people who didn't leave live in a way that he would always teach. He didn't isolate himself from people that were morally different or people that were far from God. In fact, he loved them and he hung out with them and he ate with them and he spent time with them, but he never compromised truth to do it. In fact, there's a powerful story about a woman who was caught in the act of adultery. And the religious men said we should stone the woman to death. So Jesus said, "Hey, boys, whoever hadn't sined, you can pick up the first rock and throw it." And they're all like, "Well, I don't want to come to this party," and they all started to go away. And so Jesus looked at the woman and in one sentence, he showed grace and truth. John chapter 1 says that Jesus came full of grace and truth and watched it. He said to the woman, "Then neither do I condemn you and Jesus declared, 'Go now and leave your life of sin.'" Grace and truth in one sentence, neither do I condemn you. I don't judge you. Grace, don't do it anymore. Don't sin anymore. Leave your life of sin. Truth, you don't have to choose between the two. You don't have to be all truth. You don't have to be all grace. You can be both of them Jesus was and that's what he modeled. So in your friendship, what you want to consider is, what are you being asked to do? You believe one thing, they're living something else and they want to grab coffee. They're going to the hospital and you consider sitting with them in the hospital room. They're going through a hard time and you want to be there to support them. That's presence and Jesus modeled presence over and over and over again. But maybe sometimes they're going to ask you to do something that's outside your beliefs. They want you to attend a wedding that you don't agree with or use pronouns that you're not comfortable with and you're wondering, "Now am I just being present or am I communicating agreement?" Super important. You have to remember, you can love someone without agreeing with everything they do and you can disagree with someone without rejecting them and let me say it again, super important. You can love someone and yet their lifestyle may be different or their actions different than what you believe and you can disagree with them without rejecting and pushing them away. Super important track with me, okay? When you disagree with a friend to you, it might be all theological. Here's what the Bible says, here's what I believe. You're not living that way so it's a theological disagreement. To them, it probably doesn't feel theological, it probably feels personal. And when you understand that, something changes. What you believe doesn't change but how you approach them might change because your goal is not to prove your point but your goal is to love them well. Your goal is not to make a point in the life of someone else. Well, here's what the Bible says and so on and your goal is not to make a point. Your goal is to make a difference. So when you understand for you, it might be theological and yes, that's completely true. But to them, it might feel personal. And so what that might do is it might give you a little bit more grace on the lead side before you start bringing the truth in. And this is where some of you are going to get mad at me because you're going to want black and white. Like, no pastors, this is the way it is and this is what, listen, some issues just are not black and white. And there are sometimes you need wisdom and you might talk one way to one person and on the very same issue to another person you have a different relationship, you might handle it slightly differently because who you're talking to, your relationship with them and what they believe matter so much. For example, are you talking to the new person that worked that's been there for three weeks and they're not a Christian? Or are you talking to a 20 year friend who's trying to follow Jesus? Those are different situations and so you might prayerfully approach them differently. Are you with me? If you're with me, Sam, with you, are you with me? For example, what does the word say? I'm going to give you three different scenarios about situations that may not change what you believe but might change how you approach someone about what you believe. Let's say you're dealing with a fellow believer. They follow Jesus, they're committed to Jesus and their believer and they are living contrary to the word and it's obvious. Things 6-1 tells this, if a fellow believer is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual, you who are righteous should restore that person gently, restore, restore, meaning help bring them back to righteousness. Not rebuke, restore. Our goal is to restore, not to be angry and the Bible says but be careful or you might be tempted. If you don't come in high, heavy and proud, you come in and humble gently trying to restore them toward righteousness. Now let's say they're not a believer, different approach. Colossians 5 and 6 says this, be wise in the way you act toward outsiders, non-believers, let your conversations always be full of grace. In other words, if someone's not a believer, they didn't sign up for your beliefs. So who are you to try to hold them to it? The first goal is not to correct their behavior but to help them find the grace and love of Jesus who changes them. Same situation in different approach. No matter who they are, Paul tells us this. Ephesians 4.15, "Speak the truth in love." In love, Christians speak the truth in love. There is no excuse for an arrogant, judgmental, condescending, belittling Christian. We speak the truth in love, grace and truth. Now, you speak the truth in love, you can't control their response. You don't know what they're gonna do, but you can't control your approach. You can't control your heart. You can't control your tone. You can't control how much you pray about it, and you can control genuinely trying to show that you love the person and want the best for them. Jesus is always our model. Think about it. Jesus never compromised truth and Jesus never withheld love. Can we move on? We a lot of people ask about this subject. Nancy from Life Search Shawnee asked about this. Blake from Midwest City. Gianna from Life Search in Des Moines, Iowa. They all ask some version of the question, what does the Bible say about women in ministry? So before we answer that question, it's important to note very honestly, that this is one of those issues where very sincere Christians disagree. I've got friends that I love and respect their ministry that have a different take, and they love and respect our ministry and they have a different take. What happens is there are strong Christians that interpret a few Bible verses differently. So I'm probably not going to settle this 2,000 year debate in six minutes. But that's right, just for fun. So anytime we approach any issue in the Bible, we never use one verse to prove our whole theology. We look at a verse in context, what is the rest of the chapter say, what is the whole book say, what is the whole Bible say. So we're looking for context. We look at the whole story of the Bible, and then we look for patterns. So when we talk about women in ministry, I'll tell you some patterns I see. Go back to the Old Testament, and you can see in the Old Testament that God didn't trust women to significant leadership. You take Deborah. She was a baller. (audience laughing) And she was, right? I had a friend who'd say, "She was the OG and the OT, okay?" Deborah, she was a judge and a prophet who led the nation of Israel. You can read about her in judges chapter four. She was a significant spiritual leader. In the New Testament, in a time when people didn't value women in the way that we value women today, Jesus elevated women. He honored women. He cared for women, women followed him, and learned from him and women supported his ministry. And when you think about it, after the resurrection, the stone was rolled away, the tomb was empty. Who were the first witnesses, men or women? The answer is, women were the first ones there. Some of the women are excited about it. Some of the women were louder on this section over here, right? (audience laughing) Okay, what did Jesus tell the ladies to do? Did he tell them to sit there and be quiet? No, he said, "Go tell everybody I'm alive. "I'm alive." He said, "Go tell people the tomb is empty." And I'm alive. Then you go to Pentecost. Remember Pentecost. When the Holy Spirit poured out and people speak in other tongues. And Peter quoted the book of Joel, when he said this, he said, "Your sons and your, help me out. "And your, and the daughters too will prophesy." Even on my servants, both men and women will pour out my spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. Now, what does it mean to prophesy? It means to speak on behalf of God. Men and women will speak on behalf of God. Then when you look in the New Testament in the early church, Priscilla and Aquila, they were both leaders. And Priscilla and Aquila corrected and taught Apollos. Now, if you notice Priscilla, she's the female. Priscilla and Aquila are mentioned six times in the New Testament. Four times, she's mentioned first. In almost all historical riding, the man is almost always mentioned first in scholars assume that it's possible that she was mentioned first, 'cause she was the power player in the relationship. She was very, very involved. Phoebe also in the New Testament served as a deacon, important role of spiritual leadership. And then Philip had four daughters who all, again, prophesied, spoke on behalf of God. So whatever you believe, you have to acknowledge all through the Bible, God entrusted women to significant ministry. Case closed, right? No, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Now we come to 1 Timothy chapter two, verse 12. And this is what Paul says. Paul says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or assume authority over a man. She must be quiet." What do we do with that? Okay? Well, it's easy to see why sincere Christians disagree. Can you see that? It's easy to see why respected Bible believing people to have a different approach to this. So some understand this verse as a timeless restriction that women can't teach or exercise authority over men at all in the church. Other people see it as specific instructions to a situation that was going on in Ephesus. And people debate, very smart people do. And it's a fair debate. Here's why I land where I do. One of the many reasons. Paul said this part about women. He also said this in 1 Corinthians 11 and 5. Paul said this, the same guy. He said, "But every woman who prays or prophesies, then he talks about their hair." That's a whole other can of worms will say for another Q and A, but he gets into that. But we see he says, "When women pray or prophesy and notice he didn't forbid women from speaking, he gave instructions on how they should speak." So whatever 1 Timothy 2 means, it obviously doesn't mean that God never uses women to speak and teach and minister. So looking at the whole Bible in context and taking 1 Timothy 2 seriously, this is why I believe in the whole context that women can be pastors and teach and serve under the accountability of church leadership just like I am under accountability of church leadership. And if I'm wrong, because I might be. None of us are always right. If I'm wrong, I've gotten there based on real genuine study taking the totality of all God's word. If I'm wrong, practically I'd rather be wrong empowering all God's people to do the work of ministry than leaving half the team on the bench. (audience applauding) And again, if you disagree, we can still love each other. At least I can still love you. (audience laughing) I hope you can still love me. That was a little bit heavy. So one of the questions, somebody asked is this. True question. Should toilet paper go over under? (audience laughing) The Bible says you're an overcomer by the blood of the Lamb and by the words of your testimony. Overcomer all the way. Overcomer, overcomer, overcomer. You'll be over and not under and you can't trust anybody who gets toilet paper like this. (audience laughing) Rebuke you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. You can be set free and delivered in Jesus' name. He who the Son sets free. (audience laughing) God is good. - God is good. - And all the time. - God is good. I learned that in seminary, someone taught me that and I started saying it in the early days of the church. God is good. I believe with all my heart. And then probably one of the top three most commonly asked questions was some version, if God is good. Why do so many bad things happen to good people? Katie from Colorado Springs asked about why she experiences chronic pain. Ali from Derby, Kansas asked why she struggles with middle health. Mason from South Tulsa, Oklahoma is hurting because he lost a newborn daughter. And so I wanna tell you, just past orally, I read through dozens of questions like this and I prayed for every single one of you by name. And my heart goes out to you and I felt that same pain before. And when you ask questions about that, you're not the first to ask these questions. Jeremiah asked this. He said why does the way of the wicked prosper? And why do all the faithless liberties? King David, a man after God's own heart, he asked God, why Lord, do you stand so far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? It's a really hard question, painful question, difficult question, why did something that seems unfair happen to someone who's following Jesus? Let's take a step back and just look at again at the Bible in whole. And what we know is this, we know that God created us with what theologians call a free will, it's the ability to choose. It's the same freedom that makes love possible, that same freedom makes doing evil possible. And because we have the ability to choose to do right, we also have the ability to choose wrong. And that's why you have innocent people killed by drunk drivers. And that's why you have really bad and evil people abusing really good and innocent people. And that's why you have violence in other forms [BLANK_AUDIO] offering people make choices and other people suffer. But not all suffering comes just from other people's choices. You've got cancer, right? You've got tornadoes, natural disasters, earthquakes, and such, whereas that come from. Well, we have to understand that sin didn't just break people, but sin broke creation. In other words, the world is not what it was when God created because it's been broken by sin. We would say, we live in a broken world. And that's why Jesus said this. He said, in this world, you will have trouble. He didn't say when you come to me, it's all going to be good and easy. No, you're going to be persecuted. You're going to hurt and people are going to die. And there's going to be accidents. And you may get sick. In this world, you're going to have pain. In fact, if you follow Jesus, you're going to be persecuted for following Jesus. In this world, you will have trouble. He said, but take heart for I've overcome the world. So this helps us to understand why they're suffering in the world. But it doesn't always explain why suffering is happening to you. And you may think, this happened in man. I really didn't deserve it. And the truth is, maybe you didn't deserve it. Think about Jesus. He never ever sinned. And he suffered too. You talk about not deserving it. He never sinned, never hurt anyone. He was rejected, betrayed, beaten, and crucified. And who is Jesus? Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus never sinned, and he suffered too. So we don't worship a God who watches suffering from a distance. We worship a God who entered into it. And so if you're hurting right now and wondering where God is, I get it. I get it. There are people close to me right now that I love that haven't done anything wrong, that are going through it, and it wrecks me. And sometimes I get angry and sometimes I'm confused. And sometimes I feel hurt. And so if you're there, I get it. And as your pastor, it crushes me to see my flock in pain. And so I did. I prayed for every single one by name. And I wanted to say to you with every bit of pastoral love and care that I have, don't mistake your pain for God's absence. You may not understand why something happened to you. You may not understand why you're going through what you're going through. But you're not going through it alone. I want you to remember, never forget God is good and God is just. He's a lot of other things, holy, righteous, true. God is good and God is just. God is good. Romans tells us we know that in all things, every single thing, even the painful things in all things, God is good. He works for the good to those who love Him that are called according to His purpose. He's good. He's good. And what's crazy is the hard times, sometimes, you actually get closer to Jesus in the hard times. You celebrate Jesus on the mountain tops. Sometimes you get to know Him intimately in the valleys. And what I can't say this will ever happen to you, but it has happened to me. I've gone through some really hard things and I thought to myself on the other side, I don't want to ever go through that again. And I don't want anyone else to go through that. But I actually wouldn't change it. Because what God did in me, through that difficult part, was something that probably He couldn't have done in me any other way. And so when you're hurting, just remember, He is good. And He is just. He is good. And He is just. And one day, God will make everything right. He will punish evil. He will punish evil. And He will reward righteousness. And Scripture tells us this, that one day, God will wipe every tear from their eyes. And there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. So if you're living in a painful moment right now, you may be tempted to question God's goodness. I get it. But stay in His word, stay in His presence, and keep walking with Him. And over a lifetime of knowing Him and serving Him, you will see He is trustworthy. He is faithful. He is good. And He is just. And that's why I tell you, God is good. And all the time, God is good. We've talked a lot about a bunch of different questions today. And underneath all of them is something that I almost all of us battle with. I know I do. And that's control. As parents, we want to control what happens to our kids. And our friends, our family, we want to control what they do or how they respond. We want to control what happens to us. We want what's good and not. What's hard, but sometimes following Jesus means surrendering control. And so I ask you today, just at the point of ministry, is there's something that you're trying to control that you need to trust God with. Child, your future, your job, your career, something painful that you want to change. To date all of our churches, with eyes open, if there's something you're trying to control that you want to surrender to God, but you just lift up your hand right now and say, that's me, lift up online, you can say, there's something I want to surrender to God. And if you're comfortable, you may just reach out to a person that had their hand up, you put a hand on their shoulder right now, we're going to pray. If you want to do that, we're just, we just reach out to someone close by. Don't be weird. God, thank you for the body of Christ. And thank you that we can rejoice together and that we can even mourn together. And so right now together, we surrender the things that we want to control. And we trust you God that you are good, you're just, you're holy and you're righteous. We surrender God, anything that we're trying to control, believing that you're working in all things to bring about good. We pray this in Jesus' name. As you keep praying today, there's some of you that not just trusting God with something, but some of you need to trust God with your eternity. If you feel guilty maybe for something you've done wrong, there's good reason because you've sinned like I have. If you feel like you're not good enough, there's good reason because you've fallen short of God's standards like I have. And that's why the gospel is good news for God so love the world that he sent his one and only son Jesus, that whosoever calls on him would not perish but have eternal life. Jesus is the son of God. When he rose from the dead, the women came and told everybody he's not there. He's alive, he's risen from the dead. So that anyone who calls on him could be saved him forgiven today at all of our churches. Those of you that maybe you feel far from God and something's drawing you, that's the Holy Spirit of God today is the day of your salvation. If you recognize you need him, we're stepping away from our sin, we're stepping into his grace, we're calling on Jesus wherever you are. If that's you today, we're stepping out and saying yes, Jesus, save me be the Lord of my life. I give my life to you today, this year prayer, would you lift your hands high right now, all of the place and say yes, praise God for you today. All over our churches, we have people today saying yes to Jesus, online, type in the comments section, I'm surrendering my life to Christ and we're gonna pray together wherever you are, would you just pray, allow, pray, heavenly Father, forgive all of my sins, Jesus, save me, be the Lord of my life. Fill me with your spirit so I could know you and follow you for the rest of my life, my life is not my own. I surrender it to you in Jesus name I pray. Search, can you celebrate, dig today, come on, search. (audience applauds)