Session 10: Guarding the Flock from Woke Christianity with Virgil Walker - Equipping Conference

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Session 10: Guarding the Flock from Woke Christianity with Virgil Walker - 2022 Equipping Conference

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The Saviour, the
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Tsar and the Gospel will endure
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The Spirit's with the Church forevermore So let the
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Church arise Let the anthems for all the world has heard
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Of Christ the Risen King The Son of the
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Redeemed Boldly we shall sing The hope of all the world is
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Christ the Risen King Set the truth away, the truth away
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Christ alone, the light, the truth away
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You will save whom you will save We're the lost and helpless ones
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The rebels and the renegades Who spurned your holy love
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You will save whom you will save Mercy will be magnified
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Everyone has gone astray And followed after lies
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But you have loved us and opened our eyes
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It's your grace From beginning to the end
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It's your grace I'll pre -empt why you drew the ones who ran from you
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What can we do but offer you praise? You will save whom you will save We were captive to our wills
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And if our hearts had not been changed We'd flee your mercy still
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You will save whom you will save And who can question what you do?
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Make us as you choose And there is no one who boasts before you
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It's your grace From beginning to the end
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It's your grace We will never comprehend
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Why you drew the ones who ran from you What can we do but offer you praise?
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You will save whom you will save Yet the promised hope remains
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You will rescue anyone who calls upon your name
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And you will save whom you will save Faithful love won't be denied
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Christ has overcome the grave And for our sins he died
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And when he comes back His glory will shine
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It's your grace From beginning to the end
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It's your grace We will never comprehend
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It's your grace From beginning to the end
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It's your grace We will never comprehend
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Why you drew the ones who ran from you What can we do but offer you praise?
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It's your grace And see the mournful grave
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Where once a body lay Our God in human form
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By wrath and judgment torn But he's no longer here
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His death has conquered death Our guilt has disappeared
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And his forgiveness Jesus, he has risen
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Jesus, he's alive
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Opened the gates of heaven His death has brought us life
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Come see what God has done For vile and wicked ones
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The innocent is judged On lovely ones I loved
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Our joy is now complete For death has lost its sting
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And we are called to live life In his victory
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Jesus, he has risen
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Jesus, he's alive
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Jesus has done enough
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Our hope cannot be shaken
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Because God raised him up We cannot be forsaken
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Jesus has done enough Our hope cannot be shaken
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Because God raised him up Forsaken Jesus He has risen
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Jesus He has risen
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Jesus has risen
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Jesus has risen Jesus has risen
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So the first thing I want to do is to take you just on a historical journey of what got us to this point.
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How we landed at this spot from an ideological standpoint what's gone on in culture.
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Next I want to then unpack the text. As we look at the text we'll look at the way that Paul instructed
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Timothy to see if that instruction would be beneficial to you and to me in this critical hour.
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My goal is to make those connections apparent so that we can benefit from scripture. And then finally we'll apply those instructions for our context as we examine how to maintain a resolve how to maintain a fixed thought process about these things that we're encountering.
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First let's read the text. 2 Timothy chapter 4 verses 1 through 5 read this way.
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I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is the judge of the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom preach the word.
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Be ready in season and out of season reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
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As for you, always be sober minded endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist and fulfill your ministry.
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This is Paul's instruction to a young Timothy. As I walk through a historic timeline of the
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Just Thinking podcast I was trying to figure out if we're going to talk about guarding the flock of God against woke
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Christianity. What do we have in our library, our archive that could be helpful?
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When we talk about guarding the flock and what kinds of tools are needed what kinds of resources are available
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I wanted to see how well Darrell and I had actually done it at making sure that folks had something that they could be armed with.
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I mentioned earlier that there are places where we go where pastors or church leaders come to us and say man
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I hadn't had a chance to think about that topic or subject until I listened to you guys do a deep dive on it and it was incredibly helpful.
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I also mentioned that I think one of the ways that pastors can guard the flock is by utilizing us and others as resources or tools.
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I know Vodie has a great book called Fault Lines I think that book is incredibly helpful in letting you know the historic trajectory of the issues we've discussed.
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Our friend Owen he has a book it's called Christianity in Wokeness. I think,
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I don't know if I know that I had a chance to review the book and then I signed it. I think you did too as well right?
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We reviewed the book before it was published and said oh this is good stuff. We commend those books and resources to you.
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I'm aware with G3 Press we're constantly providing additional material for you regarding this issue.
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I'm tempted to name the author and the name of the book but it's not yet in final print yet I want to be careful of that but be looking to G3 Press for a book about wokeness, about how to navigate these issues from a pastoral perspective.
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So if you're a church leader or a pastor this book will be incredibly helpful because what the writer, the author did was he went through the book of Galatians and just walked through the text of scripture and really provided some tremendous tie -ins and ideas that will be incredibly helpful.
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Those are some tools and things you can look to but the reality is we began dealing with this issue to a great degree.
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One of the things that we found out is that there's not a lot of written material about this stuff. There really isn't a lot in the way of tools and resources.
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Darrell and I are working with an editor right now on the next installment of our book.
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We have Just Thinking, most of you have the book, Just Thinking About the State. The next installment will be
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Just Thinking About Ethnicity and that will probably be out the first part of next year.
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We'll be looking for that but there aren't a lot of resources. I love, we just had a conversation just moments ago about the importance of taking these big issues, these issues with these multisyllabic issues, right?
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The gender non -conforming binary, all of that, and boiling it down to the root issue, which is sin.
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And when you're able to do that, you're able to identify the cure, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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I think that's important for you to do at any turn, but particularly for church leaders. There are a handful of resources that you can get that operate from a biblical worldview.
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Those are helpful, use those. Educate yourself on those but more importantly, make sure that you're opening up the word of God in the way that we're attempting to do in this space.
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And be sharing that with your people. We're grateful, again, as this is our last session,
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I'd be remiss if I didn't once again just say thank you for every nicety, all the hospitality.
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Daryl, myself, Melissa, we've been really blessed by the ministry here this weekend. And our hope is that for your time, we never want to waste anyone's time, our hope is that for your time you received a tremendous benefit in the way of being equipped.
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That's what the conference is about. It's about being equipped so that you can go and do the work of ministry and we're hopeful that we were effective in doing that.
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But as I walk through our historic timeline of Just Thinking and the episodes, one of the things I noted is if you watch what we were doing, if you go back, you can see this in retrospect, you can almost watch a timeline of what was happening to get us to where we are.
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Our third episode was done in January of 2018 and it was the episode was called
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Racial Separation. And it was an episode based on an article written by a black lawyer.
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This black lawyer had written an opinion piece for the New York Times. He wrote it in November of 2017 but it had started picking up traction and in fact, this lawyer was actually on Tucker Carlson's show at one point.
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And we talked about this issue because the idea that he posited, he posited a question and the question was this.
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Can my children be friends with white people? Can my children be friends with white people?
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And he had written this lengthy piece in this article that caught the attention of some folks months later after kind of the holidays.
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I think it really came to fore because we were rolling into Dr. Martin Luther King's holiday and some of the issues around that and so it got paid attention to.
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And in 2018 we started seeing these kinds of stories pop up.
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And so Darrell and I were actually on a weekly cycle. I don't know how we did that but every week we were doing something about one of these articles.
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We would just grab an article read what happened and then provide commentary on it. That's kind of how we cut our teeth, how things got started.
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Episode 4 we had social activism in the black church. Episode 5 was Colin Kaepernick and civil rights.
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This was right around the time of the Colin Kaepernick thing. As soon as it popped, Darrell and I were talking about it.
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So for those who maybe come late to some of these issues, you can go back and look. I even saw that we actually had an episode early on about gun control.
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We actually had an early episode. I mean there were so many things that the Lord and his providence had us discuss.
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Darrell then hit on an episode called Big Bang Racism. That was episode 6. Episode 10
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MLK Jr. and the Deity of Christ. By that time I think this was probably right after the
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King holiday where King is of course re -deified. We have a whole holiday where he's looked at in ways that he shouldn't be.
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We should have a proper light about who he is and his theology as I kind of shared with you but we were talking about that.
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Episode 16 was probably my favorite. It was one of my favorites. It was how to be a better white person. How to be a better...
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So if you're interested in what it takes to being a better white person episode 16 will be the one that will help you out.
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Episode 22 was one that caught the attention of a lot of people within reform circles. The reason why was because it was our commentary on what was the
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MLK 50 conference. If you are aware it was the 50th anniversary of the MLK assassination and reformed leaders from all over began to gather and say some things that seemed a little out of place.
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At the time we were just new to this whole podcasting thing and didn't know how wide or how deep or how far our reach was but we were very conservative in naming names.
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I don't think we named a name. However, if you had watched the MLK 50 thing unfold when
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I began to say things like, you know what if a pastor is going to hire me because I'm a 6 and he wants to hire a 7 and you know
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I said he's got it all wrong because at the end of the day I'm a 10. And he's just missing out.
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If you'd watched it you would know who I was talking about and what was happening. You would know that Matt Chandler was the person who had made the statements that he did that were concerning to me at the time and we discussed those issues in particular.
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Episode 45, Social Justice in the Gospel. This was long before even the folks who had put together the statement on social justice in the gospel came out.
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I think at the time you were behind the scenes doing some writing and some editing of some of the work on the statement for social justice in the gospel during that time.
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One of my favorite episodes to say is episode 67 because of the way
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Darrell says it. The episode is called Whiteness and he emphasizes the WH. It's Whiteness.
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We had Sufficiency of Scripture Against Black Liberation Theology Politics in the Black Church and then the episode that I think thrusted us past reformed circles and really put us in more of a bigger spotlight was the
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George Floyd in the Gospel episode. Episode 89. A lot of folks at that point had heard about us.
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The Church of BLM, Activist Theology would follow. Episode 116, The Church and Culture. Again, I give you the title of these episodes for you to take some time as we depart from here.
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If you're looking for a resource to go back to, oftentimes it's not simply as you've experienced this weekend.
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It's not we're showing up and telling you our words and our opinions so you can think, oh, we're so smart because that's not at all what we intend.
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Our intent is to say, here's what's out there in the way of original source material. Here's what's out there in the way of theological material.
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Here's what's out there in the way of historic theology, in regard to church history, in regard to practical theology, so that you can have a robust picture of how to address the issue through a biblical worldview.
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It was during some of this time as we were preparing for this, as I go back historically and think about my own condition, my own situation,
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I realized that I was kind of a wide -eyed participant at my first SBC convention.
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The first one I ever attended was in 2019. As the days of that convention progressed,
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I think we all learned about what would become Resolution 9. Resolution 9 would come forth.
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For those who aren't aware of Resolution 9 and SBC environment, Southern Baptist Convention environment, every year the
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Southern Baptists, about the second or third week in June, meet together and convene. 44 ,000 churches from all over the country, the world's largest denomination, gather together for the purpose of identifying what they believe, where they stand, being encouraged by resources that are there, and then going back out to do the work of ministry.
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A lot of money exchanges hands. If you're familiar with the SBC, you know this process. It was in 2019 when we were there, and on the floor of the convention, there's a process to provide the leadership resolutions.
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These resolutions, while they're not binding in any way, they give you an indication of where the church, where the
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SBC in particular, stands on a given topic, on a given subject. You can go back through the history if you ever want to look at the
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SBC convention and their previous resolutions. There were times when they stood on the wrong side of history, not only about the issue of slavery, but even on the issue of the pro -life movement.
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There's actually a resolution that doesn't actually strongly condemn the idea of life.
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They actually affirm choice. So there were times when the resolutions were on the wrong side of not just history, of Scripture.
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Let me be clear about that. And this was one of those times. I was there in 2019.
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I was in the room as this resolution gets entered onto the floor, and there was some chaos that stirred about, and I'd known some of the thought leaders that were behind the scenes trying to address the issue, but in the resolution, the idea that CRT could be used as an analytical tool for the purpose of identifying issues within SBC churches.
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That it was a profitable tool that could be used to think through historic wrongs.
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Well, as you've been here this full week and understand the messiness, the wild ideology that is
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CRT, the fact that it is all about criticism, it has nothing to do with any analysis.
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You recognize the wrecking ball that having a resolution with the largest denomination in the world affirming it and the impact that that will have throughout the rest of church culture.
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Well, this is not the way to guard the flock against woke Christianity. As we saw that enter the floor, we were very concerned.
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I knew even at the time given the history of what I'd already dealt with Daryl and I on the podcast, but even more than that, what
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Daryl gave you a little bit of his resume, how he had went and studied black liberation theology at Princeton.
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How years prior to that, I had a clear understanding of what CRT was and how damaging it was and where it could rear its ugly head and was talking about this on the podcast.
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The crazy part about it is I recognized that there had been no guarding of the flock because as this whirlwind took place, most that were in the convention thought, what's the big deal?
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If CRT is something that would be helpful to right the wrongs of historic past, well, what would be wrong with it?
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When they're thinking about justice, their thought process is well, I mean, who doesn't want justice?
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It doesn't matter if it's social justice. I mean, it's justice, right? We all just want to get along.
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I know we have a historic past regarding racism at the beginning of our denomination, so this will be another opportunity to right that wrong.
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The problem is very few people that were there in the audience knew what was taking place.
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When they were ready to pass the resolution, they just flip up their little folder and there you go, it's voted in.
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I was there. When I left that place, I thought, oh my goodness, what has gone on?
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Now, if you've been in the SBC, have friends connected with the SBC, you might be familiar or aware of what's called the conservative resurgence.
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It's where the SBC was on the brink of kind of a liberal decline. The issues that surrounded it had to do with the ideas about the origins of life or whether Genesis could really be taken literally or whether it could be something that wasn't taken literally.
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Maybe there was some allegorical components. This was a battle within the SBC primarily in its seminaries.
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Because the seminary is the place where future pastors are trained, this was a real problem.
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It was those who were part of the conservative resurgence that jumped in when the SBC was on the brink of falling off the cliff in a liberal direction forever.
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Men who believed in the inerrancy of Scripture, who stood up and said, no, we're not going to do that.
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They began to gather, to make contacts with one another, to strategize and to figure out ways to shift leadership into the right direction.
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This was one of the rare times. This was not an overnight process. If you really begin to calculate the time frame of the conservative resurgence, it took about 20 to 25 years from the time they determined that that's what they wanted to do to see the full orbs shift into a conservative direction.
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This was what was known as the conservative resurgence. Last night in the Q &A, when I was asked, well, do you think it's off the cliff?
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What do you think? I hesitate, not because I don't know with clear eyes where things are.
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I absolutely do. Just ask me, I'll tell you. But I'm hopeful.
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I'm hopeful. I'd hate to think that this massive denomination that God has in the past used in great ways is over.
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At the same time, here's what I do understand. God never needed the SBC to accomplish His goals, what
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He desires to see happen for the purpose of the kingdom. The SBC, however, needs
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God. Of that, I'm absolutely clear. The truth is that after the 2019 convention, most that were departing home from that convention had no idea, no definition, or understanding of what critical race theory was.
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Why? There had been no proper protection of the flock of God. That protection happens in local churches.
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That protection happens when a pastor who understands the times recognizes perhaps he's not the subject matter expert but is willing to bring someone in in an effort to protect the flock.
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That's the kind of thing that has to happen. Fewer still had any idea about intersectionality or the impact of social justice.
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However, we would all soon be acutely aware of its impact and the fruit as these ideologies would actually play themselves out in the streets in 2020 having left the convention.
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By late December, no less than January of 2020, there was tremendous outrage at the time at a little known synodoc called or it was a they called it a synodoc.
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It was a movie that was on that was on YouTube called By What Standard.
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It was created and produced by friends of mine, Tom Askell and founders and a dear friend of mine by the name of Chalk Knox.
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I got a chance to hang out with Chalk Knox a little bit ago. He's a guy who produces these movies.
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Did a fantastic job. I had no idea at the time. This is a little back story. I'll take a little rabbit trail here.
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As this movie was being recorded, I had no idea what was being recorded. I'm sitting there with my friend
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Knox, David, and I'm watching them do these snippets across the
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SBC and interviews and I'm actually in a room where Tom is and he's having a conversation.
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He's on the phone. He's getting video and I'm back there. I have no idea the impact that this synodoc is going to have that the 2019 resolution has got.
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I'm just a kid in a candy store just hanging out with some friends watching all this unfold.
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I only began to put all of the pieces together after I got back home and I went, oh my goodness, what in the world is going on?
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If you haven't had a chance to view that and you're curious about the trajectory of one of the largest denominations,
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I would encourage you to take a look at that. It's called By What Standard? It will give you a clear picture of what's happening in that space.
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Again, it is June. The SBC is about to meet again and they're going to determine the future direction that they're about to take.
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As they do, before they do, it would be good for you in an effort to see this flock of people protected from those kinds of issues that we've discussed all weekend to take a look at that movie.
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See what it has to say. See what's in it so that you can be aware so that when the news hit the fan, when the news stories hit the fan in the next two or three weeks, you're up to speed knowing what is all going to happen, what will take place so that you can be aware of those things.
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2020 wouldn't end, though, prior to us becoming very familiar with names like Ahmaud Arbery in February of 2020,
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Breonna Taylor in March 13th of 2020, and George Floyd, May 25th of 2020.
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Learning their names and their stories would mark us all as we witnessed nationwide protests in the streets, all in the name of justice.
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As I recount that brief glimpse at history, those days and events seem so long ago.
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Do they not? They don't seem like two years ago. It seems like decades ago that that took place.
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Why? Because in the news cycle what we're seeing is the constant barrage of CRT and social justice and the gender confusion and the wars of culture that are taking place.
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The question that you have to ask is, back in 2020 as we're watching all of this take place, even, you know, we come out of the convention in 2019, we didn't have a convention, and I think that was the providence of God.
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The reason I say that is because, as I mentioned, when people left, they didn't know what
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CRT was. And it took almost an entire year for them to get up to speed, and Daryl and I were everywhere.
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As the lockdowns took place in March because of COVID, we were doing two and three podcasts, news sources every day.
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Every week we were somewhere either live, in video, or on somebody's podcast, or their news show, or some radio program discussing these issues.
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We had churches who would call us and ask us, hey, can you guys, I know you've got a library of information,
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I want to pipe you in on the screen, video conference you in, our church will meet if you can talk to us about these issues.
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We were everywhere. And again, I say that not from a standpoint of bragging, but to show you the nature of the need for people to get up to speed on these issues relatively quickly.
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In 2020, we did not meet as a convention. As a result of that, people got educated.
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It's a good thing. So by the time the convention would reconvene, people knew what they were coming in for.
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Sadly, there was still no movement on Resolution 9. Now, they introduced a different resolution, but it never mentions
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CRT as problematic, as something that should be avoided.
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As I think about the response of Evangelicalism during the time, even before all the
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CRT stuff happened, one popular church website, I think, captured the time that we were in in 2019 very well.
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I won't take the time to read you everything, but what they did was they, in 2019, they were talking about, Evangelicalism was talking about church growth.
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We had a great economy, and we were all talking about the growth of the church, and what we were going to do moving forward.
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Things were great. So let me give you a backdrop of what a major Evangelical website actually had to tell you about what they needed to do in this current cultural environment that we had.
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The question that they asked was, how do you grow your church numerically? Well, they had an answer, and the answer was, you brand it.
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You make it a brand. You need to increase your digital presence.
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You need to increase your email blast. You need to start a newsletter. Here's an idea. Number five, you need to sponsor a local sports team, and what you need to do is you go to the local sports team.
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You find a patch that you can sew on their jackets or their jerseys that represents your church, so that when someone asks them where they got their jerseys, they can say, we got it from that church, and then they can come into your church as a result.
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At no time did any of the suggestions on this major site include preaching the gospel.
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At no time did this website include evangelism, sharing your faith, or anything of the like.
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It was all about a contemporary view of how do we attract the culture as churches increase their social media footprint and focus on the right words and say the right things.
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There was much more focus on what it takes to draw a crowd than preaching the gospel. There was little desire to offend others with subjects like sin or repentance, things that actually mattered the most.
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Many had exchanged being salt and light for being civil and liked.
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Pragmatism is the approach that says if it works, it must be right, but sadly, far too many believed this as truth and began using strategies to attract bodies instead of attracting believers.
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In light of this, by the middle of 2020, no one should have been surprised that on Sunday, the
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Sunday after George Floyd's death, to witness pastors breathlessly racing into their pulpits to declare that black lives mattered.
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On May 30th, in fact, five days later, before all the circumstances, five days after George Floyd's death, before all the circumstances surrounding that death were clear, or even the motivation of one,
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Derek Chauvin, the officer that was engaged in the act, SBC leadership had connected all the dots to those things in question and had put out a statement.
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I want to read to you the statement that they put out. In light of what you now know, I want you to hear it with different ears.
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This is a test for you to see if your discernment is actually increased as a result of our time together.
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Here's what the statement said. I just want to read it to you. I want you to put your ears on.
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I want you to think through this from a standpoint of having right discernment. They said this, quote, as a convention of churches committed to the equality and dignity of all people,
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Southern Baptists grieve the death of George Floyd, who was killed on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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While all grieve, we understand that in the hearts of our fellow citizens of color, incidents like these connect to a long history of unequal justice in our country.
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Going back to the days of grievous Jim Crow and slavery eras, end quote.
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After the time we've spent, you all's radar should be going off. You should automatically, the word reproblematize should be jumping out of your mouths and minds and you should go, oh, they're going to reproblematize slavery and Jim Crow, pull it from its context, slap it into this context for the purpose of creating a narrative.
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And that narrative is now attached to our fellow citizens of color.
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Oh, they've now separated the fact that we're all the Imago Dei, created in the image of God, and have now decided that we're to respond differently on the basis of the melanin in our skin.
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Now when you hear that, having spent time this week, you should hear that and go, oh, there's a whole bunch of problems with that.
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In fact, what you should do is when you see stuff like that from now on, you should say, I want to go to Darrell's Twitter page, because Virgil's going to be a little bit slow.
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I want to see what this brother's going to say about this one right here. This will be good. It was
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Charles Spurgeon who said, discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong, it's knowing the difference between right and almost right.
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The first part of the statement is correct, that as people committed to the equality and dignity of all people, we should grieve the death of George Floyd.
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However, any grief on the subjective basis of one's skin color, especially for those who call themselves believers in Christ, should be closely examined, rather than made an excuse of.
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It's problematic to suggest that people of color are an ideological monolith, meaning that they all felt a certain way about what they saw.
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Darrell has shared with you, I'll share with you. I never thought about Jim Crow or slavery. I thought, oh my goodness, this man is about to lose his life.
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Like you, if you've watched the imagery, you're wanting to scream to the officer to get off the man's neck.
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Nothing to do with the color of their skin. It had everything to do with an image -bearer of God. Nothing even to do with the circumstances that caused that to take place.
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Had to do with that it's a human being. Add to this idea that people with a certain melanin count were absent of the knowledge.
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So if you had less melanin than I did, then somehow you were less connected to what was going on.
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Maybe you shouldn't feel as badly as what's going on. What are they doing? They're minimizing the Imago Dei. If you're white, you're not really connected to humanity.
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If you're black, then you, there's a special knowledge that you have. Votibachum calls this ethnic
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Gnosticism. I have special knowledge because of the melanin count in my skin.
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Darrell is darker. He probably has a better understanding.
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Right? Not to beat a dead horse, but I have no idea who was polled to determine what was actually happening in the hearts of fellow citizens of color.
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I don't know. I'm uncertain how this incident was connected to Jim Crow or slavery. I have no idea why whites would be less concerned than blacks or why blacks would be more concerned than whites.
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We should all be equally horrified by the death of an image bearer of God, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the death of that person.
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After the statement, of course, there were numerous Facebook posts and blog articles and podcasts and even sermons that spent time explaining the plight of the black man and the need for whites to repent of their whiteness.
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Evangelicalism, of course, following cultural cues, adopted the narrative of black victimhood and oppression and began calling for racial reconciliation.
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Unbeknownst to me, though, I thought we were already reconciled both to God and to one another based upon the finished work of Christ.
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Ephesians 2, 11 -22. And rather than seeking revelation through the whole counsel of the
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Word of God, churches sought cultural relevance and they adopted the culture's language on these issues.
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You remember Darrell and I telling you, don't adopt the language of the culture on these issues.
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You use biblical language. Far too many pastors were racing to be the first to step into their pulpit to say the phrase
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Black Lives Matter. However, they were disconnected from studying this hashtag movement's origin.
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Bible study groups were no longer assigned the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. And in exchange for these authors, they were told to do group studies with authors like D 'Angelo and Tisbe and Kendi and Morrison's writings.
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These are people who have embraced critical racism. Pastors were literally that summer inviting that garbage into their church and telling study groups of men and women that this is what you must read and study and discuss.
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If you ever hear someone do that, snatch the book out of their hand and I was going to say slap them, but I won't say that.
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During this time over the past 20 -22 months, Darrell and I have received thousands of emails and inbox messages from elders and church leaders and believers who are at a loss about what they're experiencing.
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Many are asking, what do I do? I think my church has just gone woke. We've received hundreds of emails along that line.
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If I'd made a list of all the churches that did that, we would be here a while. But you all know this.
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You were there. Many of you experienced it to one degree or another. I just wanted to give you my own personal lens to all of what we were experiencing.
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On a lighter note, one of my favorite movies of course is The Matrix. Any of you Matrix fans?
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Oh, a few of you. Not that many. I'm surprised. My estimation is most had.
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In the instance that most hadn't, let me kind of give you a little bit of background. The Matrix was a 1999 science fiction action film.
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Of course, does that date me by any stretch of the imagination? A man by the name of Morpheus was in search of Neo.
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His name was Thomas Anderson. Of course, Neo wanted to break free from The Matrix. The Matrix was this made up computer world that wasn't really real.
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He thought it was real, but it wasn't. Morpheus was in search of Neo to extract him from the computerized, generated world that he was in.
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Upon finding Neo, and before setting him free from the deception of the fake world, Morpheus offers Neo a choice.
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He asked Neo, he said, you can take the red pill and wake up and see things for what they really are, or you can take the blue pill, go back to sleep, go back to normal, and live life in the way that you had before.
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Well, for us, if you've lived through this, you've been given that choice. Most of you are choosing to wake up.
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We're the truly woke ones, right? We're awake. We get it.
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We see it for what it is. Our desire is to stand upon the truth of the word of God.
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We've been red -pilled. However, with each headline regarding the challenges that face us, we only get glimpses, really, of how far the rabbit hole goes.
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Here's the thing that I've recognized when I've watched this thing unfold, and that is this. What we're experiencing today, while it's new to us, it's not new.
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It took on a different name maybe in decades past, maybe 10 years ago, or rather 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 1 ,000 years ago.
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All of this is the same. We can trace it all the way back, and we've said this a number of times to Genesis 3 and the fall of man.
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Our desire to be autonomous, to do things the way we desire to do things. We've renamed these issues and isms, but the reality is all of them reveal the evil intent in the human heart.
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While the root cause of it all points back to the fall of Genesis 3, the current trajectory of CRT is a symptom of a much larger issue.
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Over the past number of months, Darrell and I are coming up on about three years of really diving headlong into this and being in places and speaking to groups and talking about these issues.
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It's been interesting to tell people what the solution is. Everywhere we've gone, every time we go, we tell folks the solution is the gospel, that the gospel is sufficient, that the finished work of Jesus is enough.
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There are times, not in this audience, but there are times when you can kind of see it in people's eyes. Yeah, I hear you.
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Every once in a while, there will be someone brave enough after a conversation is over to come up and talk to us. Listen, we thoroughly enjoy having conversations about this stuff.
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We especially enjoy having conversations about it with people we disagree. There have been times when he or I have both been at places where someone has come up to us who completely disagreed, but they were open.
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I believe that they were regenerative. They had a regenerative heart. They were saved.
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They were serious about their faith. They were just wrestling. They were coming out of this thing, trying to figure this thing out.
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They were brave enough, bold enough to come up and ask us, I hear what you're saying, and I'm almost there, but...
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And they would unpack where they were on the issue. We enjoy those conversations.
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And because of the fact that we understand what's happening and what's taking place and having experienced in some instances where they're coming from, it's easy for us to sit back with comfort and confidence and just listen until they get to the end of the thought and provide them what the
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Word of God says on the issue. There are others. I can see it in their eyes.
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They're like, yeah, I hear you, but the gospel, but the gospel, and I'm not sure about that. We know about these philosophies of our day.
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For example, we mentioned Kant and thesis and antithesis and synthesis.
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I can't say that with the gap in my teeth, right? You mentioned
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Hegel and the Hegelian dialect. You heard Darrell talk about Hegelian dialectic issues.
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You've heard us talk about the issues we face from cultural Marxism.
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I talked about Max Horkheimer and how he applied critical theory on a larger scale. You heard about the
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Frankfurt School. We talked about the social gospel with Walter Rauschenbusch. Critical theory, liberation theology.
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You've heard all of that. You've heard about James Cone and black liberation theology, which was the precursor for critical race theory.
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At the end of the day, none of those things matter in light of the weight of the gospel. We need to recognize that when we believe that there's something more, that there's something new, that there's something different that must be done, we are at risk of doing the exact same thing that we are charging others with doing about the issue of race.
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They don't want to hold to the Bible. It's not enough. They've got to use a tool to overthrow the systems and structures of power.
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They've got to do something because God I mean, His arm's a little bit shortened to take on this issue so they need to step in where God didn't get to it and fix it.
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On the other end, when we say that there's something more than the gospel, we're over here. Believing that there's something else that's going to solve this issue and to pull it in our direction when
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God has set up from the beginning what is primary. We need to be resolved to do the things that need to be done.
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We need to determine what that is. I'm going to give you three things really quickly. We're going to walk through these quickly that I believe
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Paul tells Timothy in the text to do. First thing that we need to do is we need to remember.
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We need a reminder rather. We need to be reminded that things are going to be difficult.
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Often with success, when we experience success in our lives, we forget that things are difficult. We need to endure hardship.
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The first thing that we need to do is to be reminded that things are going to be hard. The second thing that we need to do is we need to reflect on that which is true.
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We need to reflect on those things that have been a source of strength from the beginning. Doing so, that will lead us to our third step which is to respond.
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We will then be able to respond rightly. I believe this text demonstrates those things. Let's look for a moment at the text to see if those things are in Paul's instruction to Timothy.
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Before I read the text, I want to remind you where Paul is at the time of his writing. Paul is in his second imprisonment in Rome.
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The letter is written shortly before Paul's death. Most believe that this was around AD 64 -65.
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Paul is anticipating his demise soon. We know that because of what he actually says to Timothy.
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He says, for I am already being poured out like a drink offering and my time of departure has come. Paul is clear about his condition and he recognizes that the end is coming.
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More times than not, when you hear someone say that a man or a woman is at the point of death, listen closely to what they're saying because what they're saying is of primary importance.
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Given the nature of the context, let's read 2 Timothy 4 verses 1 -5.
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Paul writes this to Timothy, As for you, always be sober -minded, endure suffering, doing the work of an evangelist.
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Fulfill your ministry. In verses 1 and 2, you'll find Paul's response urging
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Timothy to take. He says, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is the judge of the living and the dead, and by his appearing, preach the word.
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I charge you He charges him to preach the word. You might look at that and say, wait a minute,
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I thought the first point that you were making was that we need to be reminded that things will be difficult.
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I'm glad you caught that. Let's go back a little bit to 2 Timothy 3 verses 1 -6.
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Here we'll find the reminder that Paul gives. Here's his reminder. He says, but understand this.
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Here's the reminder. In the last days, there will come difficult times. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents.
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I usually read that to my kids. Ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self -control, brutal, not loving
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God, treacherous, reckless, swollen with deceit, conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power, avoid such people.
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Here's the warning. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
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By this warning, you would think that Paul was talking about our day. The truth of the matter is he is because he's talking about the condition of the hearts of men, and the condition of men's hearts have not changed.
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This is a constant reminder of Paul throughout scripture. He constantly reminds us to be careful. There's difficult times that are coming.
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This is how people will be. This is the manner in which you'll engage people in the culture. Be careful.
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Here's what's happening. We see that this warning happens over and over and over again.
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The true message of the gospel will always cause, when we're proclaiming the truth of the gospel, we will always face opposition.
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We need to be prepared for that. I would argue that perhaps two years ago we had an evangelical culture that couldn't face difficulty, that was really uncomfortable with difficulty.
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I think nowadays you realize that you're going to encounter opposition. We still have a large part of evangelicalism who's wanting to be liked, who
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I have done in the past a lot of street evangelism. I would have unbelievers come to me and engage me in conversation.
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I would have Christians see me on a street corner, get out of their car and scream at me that I was doing it wrong.
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What they were after in doing that was trying to tell me you need to do it in a nicer way. You need that sign that you have that tells people to repent and believe in Christ or that the gospel saves.
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You should change that sign. It only needs to say, Jesus loves you. This I know.
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For the Bible tells me so. That was the evangelicalism of 2019.
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You cannot be evangelical in the real sense of the word and not face opposition.
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Paul would instruct the elders at Ephesus in this way. You heard me read this text of Scripture, Acts 20 verses 28.
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He said, Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood.
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I love that charge. What is he telling these elders to do?
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Guard the flock. It's going to be hard, but Christ has purchased the flock with his own blood.
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It's imperative that you guard the flock. Time and time again we see this warning.
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Paul is in this instance reminding Timothy of this truth so that he would not be caught off guard.
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Paul encourages Timothy to do this. Go back to 2 Timothy 2 verses 3 through 10.
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He says, You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and suffering that happened to me at Antioch and Iconium and Lystra.
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Which persecutions I endured yet from them all the Lord has rescued me.
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Paul is saying, Timothy, you've been fed the right food. You know the kinds of things that you need to do.
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You've been given the tools by faithful parents, by those who loved you and cared for you.
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You've watched me. You've watched my example. You know how I've endured. You understand what is at stake.
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Look at verse 14 of chapter 3 where he says, But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you've learned it and from your childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings which were able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
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What is he appealing to? He's appealing to his understanding of the scripture. What's going to be his strength in the days to come?
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The word of God. Then the crescendo of this chapter actually really breathes in new life with regard to the sufficiency of scripture where it says,
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All things are breathed out by God and profitable for reproof and correction and in training that the man of God would be complete, equipped for every good work.
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So for us to stand we must be reminded of the hardship, but we must reflect upon what we know to be true. What do we know to be true?
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We know that the gospel is truth. If we understand the nature of the gospel and its proclamation, we know we're going to have to endure suffering.
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Once we know those two things, we're able to respond and stand. Now go to 2
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Timothy chapter 4. Now that we understand those two things as we go to Paul's charge, now that you know those things,
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I charge you in the presence of God. Does it not ring more loudly, more boldly with the full understanding of the context of what
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Paul is telling Timothy? He reminded him of the hardship that he would endure. He's to reflect upon the truth of the word of God.
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He's to understand the nature of the opposition that comes against him. And then Paul the word crescendos where Paul says,
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I charge you therefore, the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is the judge of the living and the dead and by his appearing kingdom, preach the word.
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There's nothing in addition to that. There's no outside influence. There's no different ideology. There's nothing extra.
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It's preaching the word. Why? He needs to be ready in season and out.
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That's all the time. To reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience for teaching.
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For the time will come when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears that will accumulate to themselves teachers who suit their own passions.
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They will turn away from listening to truth and wander off into myths. Paul is telling him what's going to happen even as he preaches the word.
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It's not as if he's if Paul is saying to Timothy, you preach the word and I guess what's going to happen. It's going to fill your church with all these new converts and things are going to be wonderful and we'll be back to the great days of old.
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That's not what he's saying. He's letting him know what he will endure as a result of preaching the truth.
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As for you, always be sober minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist and fulfill your ministry.
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What most pastors are doing rather than being equipped to guard the flock is they're appealing to new programs and new opportunities and ways to win people and influence people that have nothing to do with the prescriptions that the word of God actually provides for us.
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We are to be resolved as faithful ministers of the word of God as it pertains to the cultural moment and our circumstances.
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These don't require new programs or new policies. They need for us to know our
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Bible. This cultural moment needs pastors and church leaders to stop capitulating and to be able to stand on the truth at all costs.
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We must remember that our historical roots, listen closely, our historical roots are the result of those who were willing to die for what they believed.
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On everything from justification by faith alone to the meaning of the Lord's table.
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There were men in pulpits who were willing to die for what was meant in the representation of Christ's life and death at the
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Lord's table. We need those kind of men to be faithful pastors and preachers in our day.
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Currently we're witnessing what's happening in culture. The excitement that I have about all of this is
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I know that there are men who will stand. I know that the church of God will continue. I know that at the end of the day
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Christ wins. Those who are part of the body of Christ get to experience the joy of that reality.
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I would charge you in the way that Paul charged Timothy to be about preaching the word, preach the truth, stand on the truth and we'll see
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God deliver us in the days to come. Amen? Let me close with a word of prayer. Father God I thank you for our time together.
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We've covered a lot of ground during the course of the last two days. We've experienced just a measure of your grace in our relations with one another, the fellowship that we've had, the joy that we've experienced in the singing of songs and the opening of your word.
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We're grateful for your word. We're grateful for the revelation that you've given us so that we can withstand the days that we live.
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I pray Lord God for your church, for the church that men and women would stand strong upon the truths that you declared, that we would understand that these aren't our truths.
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People aren't attacking us personally when they come against these things, but they ultimately are challenging you.
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The beauty of the word is that you never fail. We're grateful for that. We stand in that truth. We're grateful.