The Chosen, He Gets Us / Superbowl Ad & Andy Stanley (A Different Jesus?)

New Age Christianity and a Different Jesus

But I just want to talk to you for a moment about what I'm calling New Age Christianity. The Chosen is probably the most popular evangelical trend at the moment. It's a TV show. He Gets Us is an ad campaign.

If you watched the Super Bowl, you saw the commercials. And then Andy Stanley, probably one of the most popular pastors in America today. What they are teaching, I'm calling New Age Christianity. It's a new Jesus.

It's a different Jesus, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11 .4, that those who come to you, they want to preach a different Jesus and you're putting up with it. So this is not biblical Christianity. This is New Age.

This is a new form of Christianity. Again, and the TV series, The Chosen. The Jesus on that TV program. He says and does things that the Jesus in the Bible doesn't do. Like you watch The Chosen, Jesus never said that.

Jesus never did that. The men in the series who play the apostles, Peter, is consistently referring to John the.

Baptist.

On the TV show, the man who plays Peter doesn't think John the Baptist is a true prophet of.

God.

He calls him Crazy John, like this guy's nuts. The creator and writer for the TV series, The Chosen, Dallas Jenkins, son of Jerry Jenkins from the Left Behind series. And some people say, well, he must be solid then, right?

Dallas Jenkins says that Mormons are brothers and sisters in Christ. So the Jesus of The Chosen is not the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus of The Chosen is a 21st century Jesus. He is a New Age Jesus. The same thing with the He Gets Us ad campaign.

Have you seen this? You know, they ran some commercials. It's almost funny, but it's not. They ran some commercials during the Super Bowl. And there's just a ton of money behind this ad campaign that nobody's really sure where all the money came from, which sort of makes me wonder whether or not it's like funded by George Soros or something.

Because the Jesus from the He Gets Us campaign, it's like a social justice message. But again, this is a New Age Jesus. One He Gets Us ad showed a guy with gang tattoos and he said, Jesus was a rebel who roamed the hood with his apostles.

I mean, come on.

Another video depicts Jesus as a refugee. So what is he trying to sneak across the southern border in Israel or something? Like what are they trying to do here? Like it's not that hard to figure out. But what is this?

What are they doing? They're taking current issues and trying to kind of blend it all with Christianity in order to get people to think differently. One video from the He Gets Us ad campaign shows a single mother.

And it's like, well, Mary was a single mother too. So some people, you say, well, maybe some people will identify with this. Maybe God can use this. Well, is it possible for God to use something like that to get a person interested in Jesus?

Well, you know, anything's possible. It's been said that God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick. But as a pastor and a Bible teacher, part of my responsibility is not only to teach the flock, but also to protect the flock.

And the thing is, these depictions of Jesus as like he's a gang member and the apostles and Mary's a single mom, like this is just not accurate. Jesus wasn't a gang member who roamed the hood with Peter, James, and John.

I mean, that's just, it's ridiculous. Now, listen, don't get me wrong. We should pray for people no matter where a person is in life. We should pray for them. And if they're willing to turn to Christ, no matter what their background, we should be accepting of them.

Amen.

But that's one thing to teach a different, you know, to depict Jesus in a different way. Because one thing with all these new age depictions of Jesus, the one thing that is consistently lacking from all these things, whether it's the chosen or Andy Stanley, you know, there's one thing that seems to be missing and that's repentance.

I mean, Dallas Jenkins should repent of saying that, you know, Mormons love the same Jesus we do and they're brothers and sisters in Christ. He gets us, well, yeah, I mean, people in the hood can be saved.

Amen.

But they don't need a message saying, hey, Jesus was sort of like a gang member too. And he was roaming the, no, that's not helpful. The message they need is a message of repentance, which brings us to Andy Stanley.

Andy Stanley, Open and Affirming Christianity, and the Lack of Repentance

One of the most popular mega church pastors in the United States. And people think Andy Stanley is solid because he's the son of Charles Stanley. But the fact is Andy Stanley, and I don't even think he preaches the gospel because anytime he talks about following Jesus, again, there's no talk about repentance and having a change of mind about your sin and then seeking to turn from it.

Andy Stanley has been in the news the past few weeks for leading his church in a open and affirming direction. He even encouraged homosexual men in his church to get married. This actually goes, it's actually nothing new.

It goes back to 2012 where a guy in his church was married to a woman, yet he was in a relationship, an extramarital affair with another man. And Andy Stanley told him to pursue the divorce with his wife.

And then once the divorce was finalized, then he could begin serving in the church alongside his gay partner. And Andy Stanley said all of this in a sermon, again, going back to 2012. The sermon was called, I believe, When Gracie Met Truthie.

So you can check this out on your own, but there's no repentance there. And the idea that, well, yeah, this is what Jesus would do. Jesus would encourage divorce and encourage two men to get married. This is a different Jesus.

Again, the Jesus that Dallas Jenkins has, who says that, hey, Mormons are Christian. That's a different Jesus. I mean, the Jesus of Mormonism is the spirit child of a guy who lived on a planet near the star Kolob.

And he's the spirit brother of Satan. That's the Mormon Jesus. So these are all new age depictions of Jesus. This is a Jesus that somebody made up. You know, Mormonism, that's a Jesus somebody made up in the 19th century.

The Jesus that Andy Stanley is preaching is the Jesus that Andy Stanley made up in the 21st century. This is a new age Jesus. Now, I live in New England. Going back to that story about Andy Stanley encouraging two men to get married.

I live in New England and I realize there are people out there in mainline denominations like United Church of Christ, the Methodist, the Episcopalians. They would hang a rainbow flag out front and they think all this is great.

But one thing I think even they would have to admit that this idea open and affirming Christianity, as they're calling it. This was not accepted for the first 1900 years of church history. I mean, that's a fact.

And it directly contradicts the teaching of the Bible. For example, the Apostle Paul in Romans 1. Or even Jesus in Matthew 19 when Jesus himself defined marriage as being between one man.

And one woman.

You know, if you're going to preach a Jesus who's cool with all this or who's cool with Mormonism and just like, this is a different Jesus. This is a new age Jesus that was created recently in the vain imagination of men.

So bottom line, the Jesus Andy Stanley is preaching is a new age Christ. He didn't get these beliefs from the Bible. In fact, he strongly is in favor of churches not preaching the Bible. He says that preachers should get the spotlight off of the Bible.

And yet, just like Paul in 2 Corinthians 11, evangelicals are putting up with it. Let's read that verse, 2 Corinthians 11, verse 4. The Apostle Paul says, for if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit, which you have not received, or a different gospel, which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it.

The Corinthians were putting up with it. And there's many evangelicals today who are putting up with it. So the Jesus of the chosen, if this is the same Jesus as Mormonism, which Dallas Jenkins says it is, that's not the true Jesus of the Bible.

The he gets us campaign, the social justice Jesus who roamed the hood with the disciples, that's not the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus Andy Stanley is preaching that is totally fine with two men getting married.

You didn't get that from the Bible. And then Andy Stanley preaches that the found, well, of course, what does he say? The foundation of our faith, he says, is not the Bible. And Andy Stanley wants to unhitch from the Old Testament.

He acts embarrassed by it. Did the Jesus we read about in the New Testament say we should unhitch from the Old Testament? No, the Jesus of Scripture, the true Jesus, the only Jesus, he said about the Old Testament, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

I pray that you'll take these things into consideration. Go ahead and fact check me, everything I'm saying you can find online. It's all true. So my friends, beware of new age Christianity and the new spin on Jesus from these TV shows and ad campaigns and false teachers that are trying to push this new G.

You know what I think it is? I think the average person is just, they look at the Bible and they find it boring. They look at Bible believing churches and they, well, that's dull.

That's boring.

I'd rather just watch Netflix. I'd rather just watch TV. They find the Bible boring. They find the true Jesus, you know, he's not compelling. So they follow after all this other stuff. But my friends there, don't be fooled.

There is only one Jesus and there's only one Jesus who can save. And that's the Jesus of Scripture. The Jesus who died on the cross for our sins and rose again the third day. The Jesus who says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

This is the Jesus who preached repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. And the only way we can learn more about him, the true Jesus is to open the Bible. The book that says about him, that if we would confess with our mouth, the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved and given the gift of everlasting life.

Except no substitutes. There's only one true Jesus. And that's the Jesus of Scripture. Reject the new age Jesus or the Jesus is that people are creating in their own mind.