Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Wes Huff and Andrew Schulz: 5 Ways Evangelism Has Shifted (And The ONE Thing We MUST Do) || SLP587

Transcript

Wes Huff and Andrew Schulz: 5 Ways Evangelism Has Shifted (And The ONE Thing We MUST Do) || SLP587 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, hello and a very warm welcome back to the Speak Life podcast.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: My name is Thomas Thurrogood, Media Producer at Speak Life, and in this episode, Glenn Scrivener is going to take another look at Wes Huff's appearance on Andrew Schultz's podcast, the flagrant podcast.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: And this time Glenn is going to be thinking about five ways that evangelism has shifted and how you kind of see those played out in the conversation.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: And the one thing that we, as Christians, must do.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: So I hope you enjoy this episode.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: I'd just like to draw your attention again to the 321 podcast.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: Episode six came out this week.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Six of eight.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, and as always, you don't have to wait another two weeks for the final episodes to come out.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: If you go to three two onecourse.com and create an account there if you haven't done so already, you will be able to get instant access to all eight episodes.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Not only uh to listen to, but also you can get the the videos for them.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: We shot them in high quality at the Hailsham Pavilion Cinema.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: So do check out the three two one podcast if you haven't done so already.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: And if you listen to the three to one podcast, have you entered the three to one podcast giveaway?
1:17
SPEAKER_00: It's very easy.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: You can go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash giveaway.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: And it's your opportunity to win a set of amazing prizes, including a copy of The Air We Breathe, a copy of How to See Life, a copy of How to Speak Life, a copy of Love Story, a copy of The Gift, a copy of Long Story Short, a Speak Life Cup, a couple of Speak Life pens, a packet of church biscuits, all inside a lovely Speak Life tote bag.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Why are they called tote bags?
1:46
SPEAKER_00: I've always wondered this.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: So apparently the verb tote means to carry by hand, and it was popularized in the seventeenth century.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: So you learn something new every day.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: That's all from me.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Hope you're enjoying the Speak Life Podcast.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Do check out the 321 podcast.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Do enter the 321 podcast giveaway, and I will catch you next time.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: Over to Glenn.
2:14
SPEAKER_02: I'm hating Christianity more and more.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: You making me you know me from Christ.
2:20
SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm pray for you, pray for you.
2:27
SPEAKER_04: It's like now we're cooking though.
2:29
SPEAKER_04: At the end of the day, all religions at their core are saying counter things.
2:35
SPEAKER_08: It's the equivalent of if we say, like When Wes Hoff went on the flagrant podcast, things got really heated at times.
2:42
SPEAKER_08: And I think what Wes reveals here is the one thing that your friends need more than anything else, and the one thing we as Christians must do to share our faith effectively.
2:51
SPEAKER_08: I'm Glenn Scrivener from Speak Life, and I want to help you to see all things through the lens of Jesus.
2:56
SPEAKER_08: We've already done one reaction video about Wes on Andrew Schultz's podcast, and we looked at 15 different killer lines that Wes delivered under pressure over this three-hour conversation.
3:08
SPEAKER_08: We've already looked at the thorny questions that were posed to Wes over these three hours from every single angle imaginable.
3:15
SPEAKER_08: We thought about the things that Wes did do that we can't do.
3:18
SPEAKER_08: We thought about the things that Wes did that we can do.
3:20
SPEAKER_08: We also thought about the things that we can do that Wes couldn't do in that situation.
3:24
SPEAKER_08: We can love our friends ongoingly in ways that Wes didn't have an opportunity to do as he sits in this studio.
3:30
SPEAKER_08: But I want to pay attention to the effects that his words are having on the people in that studio.
3:36
SPEAKER_08: Because sometimes when Wes lays down the gospel, it's being received really warmly, like here.
3:43
SPEAKER_04: And that changes things in that mercy and justice are not pitted against each other.
3:48
SPEAKER_04: It's not justice at the expense of mercy, it's not mercy at the expense of justice.
3:51
SPEAKER_04: They're actually accomplished together in the act of the cross, where the self-volunteering of Jesus going to the cross, right?
4:01
SPEAKER_04: He says, No one takes my life from from me, I give it of my own accord.
4:04
SPEAKER_07: This is why forgiveness is uh is an accomplishable goal, even for the most heinous act, because God has already taken on the punishment for that heinous act that that person committed.
4:15
SPEAKER_08: Andrew Schulz is really picking up what Wes is laying down there, and it's a beautiful moment, but there are many other times when Wes preaches the gospel and it is received with skepticism and with scoffing and with hardness.
4:29
SPEAKER_08: I want to pay attention to the six questions that are asked in this podcast that we must have good answers for, and which, by and large, apologists don't have good answers for.
4:39
SPEAKER_08: I want to make clear that Wes has good answers to these six questions.
4:43
SPEAKER_08: But so often when we think of apologists, we think of Bible answer guys who can answer questions about certain texts of scripture or about why we can trust the historicity of the gospels or what are the five minimal facts about the resurrection that can make us convinced that Jesus rose from the dead.
5:01
SPEAKER_08: All those sorts of things we tend to think of as apologetics.
5:04
SPEAKER_08: And I'm here to tell you that those questions might be important, but they are not the most heartfelt questions that your friends have right now.
5:11
SPEAKER_08: The six that I'm gonna tell you are the six that we should be much better at answering rather than the stock apologetic questions.
5:18
SPEAKER_08: Now I'm going to tell you the six questions, I'm gonna tell you some of how Wes answers those six questions, I'm gonna tell you how I would answer those six questions, but first of all, let's pay attention to where people are at in faith conversations right now.
5:30
SPEAKER_08: And I think the flagrant podcast is a really good bellwether of where we're at as a culture.
5:36
SPEAKER_08: And here are five things that I think are part of this vibe shift that's happening at the moment in terms of faith conversations.
5:43
SPEAKER_08: First of all, people don't by and large think Christianity is stupid.
5:47
SPEAKER_08: Wes came on to the flagrant podcast, he was the smartest guy in the room, he's very often the smartest guy in the room that he walks into, but they were happy to treat him as the smartest guy in the room, and they were happy to defer to the intelligence of a Christian and to treat Christianity as intellectually credible.
6:03
SPEAKER_08: And that's certainly what Andrew Schultz thinks.
6:05
SPEAKER_08: He does not think Christianity is stupid.
6:07
SPEAKER_08: In fact, he's very aware that Christianity has taught us how to be and how to think in the West.
6:13
SPEAKER_08: He said this on a previous podcast.
6:15
SPEAKER_07: I wouldn't be furious.
6:17
SPEAKER_07: Why not, if people were pushing Christian beliefs on my kids.
6:20
SPEAKER_07: How so?
6:21
SPEAKER_07: Because I think Christian beliefs have carved out our culture, our rules, our interactions.
6:27
SPEAKER_07: I would be 100%.
6:30
SPEAKER_08: People don't so much think that Christianity is stupid, and they don't so much care that Christianity is weird.
6:36
SPEAKER_08: They price that into Christianity.
6:38
SPEAKER_08: They expect it to be weird.
6:39
SPEAKER_08: Like when Wes went on to flagrance and they started asking about jokes in the Bible.
6:44
SPEAKER_08: And somebody mentions the 42 youth who make fun of Elisha as a bald head and they are mauled by bears.
6:50
SPEAKER_08: And that is presented as a joke, and then it's moved on with, right?
6:55
SPEAKER_08: I mean the bears killing those killing the kids is always funny.
6:58
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, Elijah.
6:59
SPEAKER_04: Go up bald head.
7:00
SPEAKER_04: Um and he sends the she bears after them to kill them.
7:04
SPEAKER_08: Uh that's I mean people don't care that Christianity is weird.
7:09
SPEAKER_08: They don't think it's stupid.
7:10
SPEAKER_08: They don't care that it's weird.
7:12
SPEAKER_08: They also don't mind that Christians are trying to convert them.
7:16
SPEAKER_08: Um Wes is kind of there to make his best case for Christianity, and people don't care that he's there to convert them.
7:23
SPEAKER_08: In fact, they kind of respect that.
7:25
SPEAKER_08: Andrew Schultz in a previous episode has said this about a friend of his who was trying to convert him.
7:30
SPEAKER_03: My best friend in elementary school used to try to convert me all the time.
7:34
SPEAKER_03: He was like, I was literally taught anybody who's not Christian is going to hell.
7:38
SPEAKER_03: So I thought I was gonna waver.
7:39
SPEAKER_07: So if you believe in God and you don't try to convert your friend, you don't love that mother, bro.
7:44
SPEAKER_07: I look at the super Christian.
7:46
SPEAKER_07: My boy sent me these books, these Christian books.
7:48
SPEAKER_07: He literally just like the reason for God, all these things.
7:50
SPEAKER_07: He had a little note in each one.
7:52
SPEAKER_07: I didn't say thank you yet, but but like I love that kid now, man.
7:57
SPEAKER_07: Even if I don't read a single one of those books, that's his way of going, I f with you and I want you to go to heaven.
8:04
SPEAKER_08: Andrew Schultz respects you if you try to convert him.
8:07
SPEAKER_08: So people don't think it's stupid.
8:09
SPEAKER_08: People don't care that it's weird.
8:11
SPEAKER_08: People actually respect you if you try to convert them.
8:14
SPEAKER_08: Fourthly, people are actually interested in the Bible.
8:16
SPEAKER_08: Wes goes onto the podcast and spends a lot of the time explaining the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Intertestamental period, the the the canon of scripture from the 16th century onwards.
8:28
SPEAKER_08: Um, Wes is talking about the Bible the whole time, and they want to talk about the Bible.
8:32
SPEAKER_08: And have you seen how Andrew Schultz thinks of the Bible?
8:35
SPEAKER_08: Here he is in a previous episode reading out Isaiah chapter 41.
8:39
SPEAKER_08: It's fire.
8:40
SPEAKER_05: Did that fear not, for I am with you.
8:44
SPEAKER_05: Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
8:48
SPEAKER_05: I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
9:00
SPEAKER_05: They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faith.
9:08
SPEAKER_05: That is gone.
9:11
SPEAKER_08: Obviously, the soundtrack was added by a TikToker, but um, Andrew Schultz uh has respect for the Bible and love for the Bible and is open to hearing more about the Bible.
9:22
SPEAKER_08: And as his friends and family try to convert him, he's open to reading the Bible.
9:27
SPEAKER_08: So people don't think it's stupid, they don't care that it's weird, they don't mind that you're trying to convert them, they are open to the Bible.
9:33
SPEAKER_08: They're also open to going to church.
9:35
SPEAKER_08: Um here's Andrew Schultz talking about church, and it's kind of moving.
9:38
SPEAKER_07: I I was at uh I I went to church this Sunday, right?
9:41
SPEAKER_07: So how was that?
9:42
SPEAKER_07: It was phenomenal.
9:45
SPEAKER_07: My wife really wants to go, her brother goes, and I'm like, all right, this is gonna be cool.
9:50
SPEAKER_07: And it was beautiful, man.
9:53
SPEAKER_07: Like the feeling that I got.
9:55
SPEAKER_07: First of all, I'm crying within three minutes.
9:58
SPEAKER_07: I walk in and it starts with the music.
10:01
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
10:02
SPEAKER_07: I am balling crying within three minutes, okay?
10:07
SPEAKER_07: It's in a public school auditorium, and it is, it's not at like some fancy fing, you know, Joel Osteen church.
10:13
SPEAKER_07: It's in a public school auditorium, like the reality.
10:18
SPEAKER_05: Go jack water.
10:20
SPEAKER_06: Jesus wasn't gonna be in some fancy ass synagogue, you know what I mean?
10:23
SPEAKER_06: He was in the streets with his people, you know what I mean?
10:28
SPEAKER_07: Bro, they're singing the most beautiful.
10:29
SPEAKER_07: I love Christian music, bro.
10:31
SPEAKER_07: Like, honestly, I'm mad at uh Pastor Carl.
10:34
SPEAKER_06: You should be because I was up in that hill song crying too.
10:37
SPEAKER_06: If you play any Christian music for me right now, Mr.
10:40
SPEAKER_06: Carl is fire right.
10:42
SPEAKER_08: Beautiful stuff.
10:42
SPEAKER_08: And if you want to reach the Andrew Schultz of this world, and I don't think it's just him, I think there's so many people who are like him who don't think Christianity is stupid, they don't mind that it's weird, they don't care that you're trying to convert them, they actually respect you for it.
10:57
SPEAKER_08: They're open to the Bible, they're open to going to church.
11:01
SPEAKER_08: Um, this is a different kind of atmosphere in which to do our evangelism in the year 2025.
11:07
SPEAKER_08: And all those things that we were very sensitive about in prior times, I think we can just leave those to one side.
11:13
SPEAKER_08: We should never have cared that people think we're stupid.
11:15
SPEAKER_08: We should have been unashamed about the weirdness of Christianity.
11:19
SPEAKER_08: We should have tried to convert our friends, whether they respected us for it or not.
11:23
SPEAKER_08: We should have been opening up the scriptures no matter what, we should have been inviting people to church no matter what.
11:28
SPEAKER_08: It's wonderful now that all those things are not barriers to evangelism, but actually bridges to evangelism.
11:34
SPEAKER_08: That's wonderful.
11:34
SPEAKER_08: But there's still one thing that our evangelism must do, one thing that our non-Christian friends crave more than everything else.
11:42
SPEAKER_08: And I think this podcast where Wes went on to flagrant, I think it shows us this one thing in spades.
11:50
SPEAKER_08: What is it?
11:51
SPEAKER_08: Well, let's have a look at these six questions that are asked to Wes that I think are the most vital questions to ask.
11:57
SPEAKER_08: We begin with Wes preaching the gospel beautifully, once again, and then we'll hear Andrew Schultz's first reaction to that beautiful gospel.
12:07
SPEAKER_08: And I think we'll start to see what the one thing is that our non-Christian friends really want more than anything else.
12:14
SPEAKER_08: Let's have a look.
12:15
SPEAKER_04: When I study world religions, I I come up with this conclusion that all world religion or all worldview perspectives are some form of survival of the fittest, in that it's a do this, feel this, or think this.
12:29
SPEAKER_04: Right?
12:29
SPEAKER_04: It's do this pragmatism, it's feel this emotionalism, or it's think this intellectualism, right?
12:34
SPEAKER_04: You need to be the best at the the knowledge, you need to, you know, be the most spiritual, you need to do the most things, and it's one or a combination of those things, right?
12:48
SPEAKER_04: Christianity is uh the opposite of that in that it says you can't feel, think, or do good enough.
12:58
SPEAKER_04: Right?
12:58
SPEAKER_04: So it's not about that.
13:00
SPEAKER_04: It's not do and you'll be accepted, feel and you'll be accepted, think and you'll be accepted.
13:04
SPEAKER_04: It's God has stepped out of eternity and into humanity in the second person of the Trinity in Jesus, and now you're accepted.
13:12
SPEAKER_04: Now you can think, now you can feel, now you can do, but it's not on your shoulders.
13:18
SPEAKER_07: I get that it's supposed to alleviate it, but in order for it to alleviate it, you first have to accept that you're a piece of sh.
13:25
SPEAKER_07: And what if you don't feel like you're a piece of sh?
13:28
SPEAKER_07: Right.
13:28
SPEAKER_07: So now I have to stop feeling good about myself, and I have to convince myself that I am a piece of sh just as much as a murderer, children.
13:36
SPEAKER_07: Right.
13:37
SPEAKER_07: Just so somebody else can get me back to not somebody else, God can get me back to feeling good about myself.
13:43
SPEAKER_07: And uh I think that that really works for people who feel like they're a piece of sh all the time.
13:48
SPEAKER_07: But if you don't feel like a piece of sh to convince yourself that you are, and the only way out of your piece of shitness is to believe in this one person who will then through that belief convince you to do the good and kind acts that you were already doing prior.
14:04
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I I can see how that's like a heavy weight for for people to take on.
14:08
SPEAKER_08: Feel the emotional weight of that.
14:09
SPEAKER_08: Uh, Wes is trying to take uh the burden off of our shoulders, saying that we can't do enough to earn heaven.
14:15
SPEAKER_08: And actually, Andrew Schultz is experiencing this as uh more of a condemnation.
14:20
SPEAKER_08: Oh, are you you're saying nothing I do is good enough?
14:22
SPEAKER_08: I can never measure up to God?
14:24
SPEAKER_08: Is that what you're saying?
14:24
SPEAKER_08: Am I meant to feel like a piece of S, right?
14:26
SPEAKER_08: And do you hear what Arkash said off to one side?
14:29
SPEAKER_08: And I have to convince myself that I am a piece of sh just as much as I is a murderer or a child molester.
14:34
SPEAKER_08: You know, I have to feel like I'm just as much of a sinner as a murderer or a child molester or that kind of thing.
14:38
SPEAKER_08: And Andrew Schultz wants to know emotionally, how does that make sense?
14:42
SPEAKER_08: And that's question number one.
14:44
SPEAKER_08: How are we meant to make emotional sense of this idea of sin and of the attached idea of judgment?
14:51
SPEAKER_08: That's where the video goes next.
14:52
SPEAKER_08: And Arkash raises the very heartfelt issue of hell.
14:55
SPEAKER_08: Let's have a look.
14:56
SPEAKER_03: But the alternative is hell.
14:58
SPEAKER_03: That's the issue I have.
15:00
SPEAKER_03: If there was a first class, a business class, and a coach, I'm with it.
15:04
SPEAKER_03: I don't gotta be first class.
15:05
SPEAKER_03: That's fine.
15:05
SPEAKER_03: But the idea that it is a like God doesn't owe you heaven, but he don't he don't need to give you hell.
15:10
SPEAKER_08: Do you hear what he's saying?
15:11
SPEAKER_08: He's saying, make it make emotional sense.
15:15
SPEAKER_08: Andrew Schultz asks about sin.
15:17
SPEAKER_08: You know, make it make emotional sense to me.
15:19
SPEAKER_08: Arkash is saying about hell, make it make emotional sense to me.
15:22
SPEAKER_08: And then there's the question of, you know, what about the person who's never heard of Jesus?
15:26
SPEAKER_08: What about the person on some island somewhere and they've never heard the gospel?
15:30
SPEAKER_08: What will God do to such a person and can you make that make emotional sense for me?
15:35
SPEAKER_07: I guess in the circumstance with the person who lives on the island and has never heard about Christianity.
15:39
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
15:39
SPEAKER_07: But what if he lives his life as a Christian without because God is omnipresent, right?
15:46
SPEAKER_07: Like God maybe has given him the gospel uh in a different way than he gave it to you.
15:52
SPEAKER_07: The covenant's written on the heart is uh people.
15:54
SPEAKER_07: So it's like, what if that person is living a devoutly Christian life and the the God that he's praying to might not be named Jesus Christ, but isn't it possible that God is up there like, I I know who he's praying, he's praying to me because I put it on his his heart.
16:11
SPEAKER_07: Is it is it possible that he's accepted in heaven?
16:14
SPEAKER_07: I I again I don't wanna I don't want man to decide what God is capable of, and I sometimes think that like we do that.
16:20
SPEAKER_07: And I'm not trying to skirt out of the responsibility of just going, hey, I gotta get baptized and go to the show.
16:24
SPEAKER_07: I'm gonna put it on you.
16:25
SPEAKER_07: No, but like sometimes it's possible that man is going, like, hey, God doesn't know unless you do this exact thing, and then God's up there, like, listen, I get the point what you're trying to do, but like the guy on the island who's living this perfectly devoutly Christian religious life, yeah, he gets into because I put it on his heart.
16:41
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so I I I think ultimately that's a question I don't know the answer to because it's not something that's directly outlined in scripture.
16:47
SPEAKER_08: Do you see what this central issue is in evangelism?
16:50
SPEAKER_08: None of these guys think that Christianity is stupid.
16:52
SPEAKER_08: They all expect it to be weird, they all expect Christians to evangelize them, trying to convert them.
16:57
SPEAKER_08: They expect Wes to bring the Bible, they expect Wes to invite them to church, and they're open to all that kind of stuff.
17:03
SPEAKER_08: But what are they constantly craving in all these questions?
17:07
SPEAKER_08: What's the one thing?
17:09
SPEAKER_08: They need it to make emotional sense.
17:12
SPEAKER_08: Can you make it make emotional sense to them?
17:15
SPEAKER_08: That's the thing they crave, that's the thing we need to be delivering.
17:18
SPEAKER_08: It comes through in the fourth question that I want to highlight for you.
17:21
SPEAKER_08: Arkash is asking how forgiveness works.
17:23
SPEAKER_08: And how come Jesus died on the cross for all the sins in the world, but not the sin of not believing in him?
17:30
SPEAKER_08: Right?
17:30
SPEAKER_03: He he puts it like this Isn't it also weird that he died for all of your sins except the one?
17:35
SPEAKER_03: Every sin except the one.
17:36
SPEAKER_03: What's the one?
17:37
SPEAKER_03: Don't believe in him.
17:39
SPEAKER_03: Like you don't believe in him, so you're going to hell.
17:41
SPEAKER_03: Everything else, you're good.
17:42
SPEAKER_08: That's the fifth question, and you can feel the heart behind it that Arkash has.
17:46
SPEAKER_08: And straight after that fifth question, Andrew comes in with a sixth question.
17:51
SPEAKER_08: And what kind of faith is being expected of people when actually, back in Jesus' day, even when they had the risen Jesus in front of them, some doubted.
17:59
SPEAKER_08: And why are we expected to have this white hot faith?
18:04
SPEAKER_08: And even back in the day when they had Jesus in the room, they didn't have that kind of faith.
18:08
SPEAKER_08: You know, what how does faith make emotional sense?
18:11
SPEAKER_08: Here's the way that Andrew Schultz asks the question.
18:13
SPEAKER_07: Also, his own followers didn't believe in him until he came back.
18:16
SPEAKER_07: And now we gotta believe with him, and we didn't even get to see him come back.
18:19
SPEAKER_07: Yeah so I I can't like I I can't believe if his own followers, the people who saw him do all the cool stuff, the second he dies, they're like, Yeah, he was bullshit.
18:29
SPEAKER_07: And then he comes back, like, okay, we're on board.
18:31
SPEAKER_07: Yet we have to have this undying faith that even his own closest followers couldn't have, and he has a higher expectation for us than them.
18:42
SPEAKER_07: It's a it's a good point.
18:44
SPEAKER_07: Because if he did come back, I guarantee we'd be like, hey, I'm shooting.
18:47
SPEAKER_06: I'm doing all your homies there too.
18:48
SPEAKER_06: But why do you have a higher expectation for us and we never even mention?
18:51
SPEAKER_08: See the emotion in Andrew.
18:52
SPEAKER_08: This is so heartfelt for him.
18:54
SPEAKER_08: And this is the thing.
18:55
SPEAKER_08: This is the thing.
18:56
SPEAKER_08: Like, forget trying to make it look clever.
18:58
SPEAKER_08: Don't worry that it looks weird, right?
19:01
SPEAKER_08: Do try to convert your friends, they might respect you for it.
19:04
SPEAKER_08: Okay, do bring the Bible into things, do invite your friends to church, all that stuff.
19:08
SPEAKER_08: That's the sort of stuff that we should have been doing the whole time, even when it was hard.
19:11
SPEAKER_08: All that stuff is now easier, but there's this one thing that we must continually do.
19:16
SPEAKER_08: Make it make emotional sense.
19:18
SPEAKER_08: Make it make emotional sense.
19:19
SPEAKER_08: Do you hear the cry of the heart from from Andrew or from Arkash?
19:24
SPEAKER_08: Make it make emotional sense.
19:25
SPEAKER_08: And watch what happens when it doesn't make emotional sense to these guys.
19:29
SPEAKER_08: It it kind of the the temperature rises and rises and rises to this crescendo until Weshuff does something that helps it make emotional sense.
19:40
SPEAKER_08: What does he do?
19:41
SPEAKER_08: Have a look at this clip and then tell me what you think he does to make it make emotional sense.
19:47
SPEAKER_08: It's brilliant.
19:48
SPEAKER_04: A Christless Christian life isn't a Christian life.
19:51
SPEAKER_04: So how do you know he's not in there?
19:53
SPEAKER_04: It's it's written on your heart.
19:54
SPEAKER_04: Sure, but if he's confessing Sikhism, the tenets of Sikhism confessing God's confessing, God's going, God's going.
20:03
SPEAKER_04: I listen, you could call it that.
20:05
SPEAKER_04: You're you're so here's the here's the thing.
20:07
SPEAKER_04: All religions are saying I'm hating Christianity more and more you making me, you're moving me from Christ.
20:22
SPEAKER_04: It's like now we're cooking though.
20:24
SPEAKER_04: That's the letter living thing that Christians say, right?
20:27
SPEAKER_04: Blessing.
20:28
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, bless your fucking best.
20:30
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
20:30
SPEAKER_04: I mean, at the end of the day, all religions at their core are saying counter things.
20:37
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
20:37
SPEAKER_04: Like I said before, like they can't be all true.
20:40
SPEAKER_04: It's the equivalent of if we say like they're all true, it's the equivalent of me saying, I went to the library and I read all the books, and I came to the conclusion that all the books, despite their differences, are really saying the same thing.
20:51
SPEAKER_04: They all have words, grammar syntax, letters, numbers, you know, so everything from one fish, two fish, redfish, blue fish to mind conf is the same thing.
21:00
SPEAKER_04: Whoa.
21:00
SPEAKER_04: Right?
21:01
SPEAKER_04: You could conclude one of two things.
21:02
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
21:03
SPEAKER_04: I didn't read all the books, or I read the books so poorly that I'm not giving justice to what the content of the books is.
21:10
SPEAKER_04: I didn't read all the books, or I read them so poorly that I'm at, yeah, yeah.
21:13
SPEAKER_04: And I would say the same goes for worldview perspectives.
21:17
SPEAKER_04: If we say that all of them are saying the same thing or getting to the same result, we either are not studying the religions uh themselves and what they actually say, or we're not doing justice to the fact that they say mutually exclusive things.
21:32
SPEAKER_04: I think that's 100% true right now with us.
21:35
SPEAKER_08: Did you notice what happened?
21:36
SPEAKER_08: I mean, this is at the three-hour mark of uh this interview in which Wes is being like thrown grenades from all different kinds of areas and he's diffusing each one of them.
21:46
SPEAKER_08: And even after three hours, he is um very forthrightly, robustly, but graciously and winsomely kind of answering the questions.
21:54
SPEAKER_08: And when things get heated, did you notice how he kind of leaned forward on the couch and said, Hey, hang on, guys, hang on, guys.
22:00
SPEAKER_08: And what is the one thing that actually started to make emotional sense for Andrew?
22:04
SPEAKER_08: He told a story, didn't he?
22:06
SPEAKER_08: Wes told a story.
22:07
SPEAKER_08: He gave the analogy of reading through all the books of the Bible, right?
22:11
SPEAKER_08: And you can see as he's telling the story, the room goes quiet and Andrew starts listening, and Wes tells this story about reading all the books, including One Fish, Two Fish, Redfish, Blue Fish, and Mein Kampf.
22:22
SPEAKER_08: And as soon as he said Mein Kampf, Andrew was like, whoa, okay?
22:25
SPEAKER_08: Because this is a story with punch.
22:28
SPEAKER_08: He tells a story that packs punch.
22:30
SPEAKER_08: And it really arrests the attention of Andrew.
22:34
SPEAKER_08: And it makes the point that if you think every single book says the same, it just says that you're a bad reader.
22:40
SPEAKER_08: Okay.
22:41
SPEAKER_08: And if you think that all worldviews and all religions are exactly the same, well, you're probably not reading very well.
22:47
SPEAKER_08: You're certainly not reading very widely.
22:49
SPEAKER_08: And Andrew 100% agrees with that.
22:53
SPEAKER_08: Isn't it amazing what a story did?
22:54
SPEAKER_08: And if a made-up story like that can arrest the room and reorient you and make you come on board to something that hadn't made emotional sense, well, how much more does the story of the gospel do that?
23:06
SPEAKER_08: Uh Wes explained the gospel many, many times in this interview, but uh let me explain the gospel in a way that I hope answers these six cries of the heart, these six questions about sin and judgment and the unevangelized, about how salvation works, about how faith works.
23:22
SPEAKER_08: The story of the gospel makes sense of all these, and I think it makes emotional sense of all these things.
23:27
SPEAKER_08: As Wes is very keen to lay out there is a father loving his son in the joy of the Holy Spirit.
23:33
SPEAKER_08: So God is eternal life.
23:35
SPEAKER_08: That's that's what we're talking about.
23:36
SPEAKER_08: Eternal life is not something over there that God might let you into.
23:41
SPEAKER_08: And it's not like heaven is something over there, and then Jesus is this tiny little gateway, and you've got to go through that little gateway into this very broad thing called paradise.
23:51
SPEAKER_08: If that were true, that would make no emotional sense, it would make no logical sense, it would be an irrational kind of a gospel, and I can understand why people would reject it.
24:00
SPEAKER_08: But we're not saying that little Jesus is the only way to this bigger thing called heaven.
24:07
SPEAKER_08: What we are saying is cosmic Jesus is eternal life.
24:11
SPEAKER_08: Okay?
24:12
SPEAKER_08: The the the Father's Son, filled with the Holy Spirit, is filled with life, and he is eternal life himself.
24:20
SPEAKER_08: John chapter 17, verse 3, Jesus says, This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, who is speaking to his Father, and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent.
24:30
SPEAKER_08: Okay, so eternal life is to know the Father through the Son.
24:34
SPEAKER_08: And how narrow is that gateway to life?
24:38
SPEAKER_08: Well, that gateway is only as narrow as Jesus, and how narrow is Jesus?
24:41
SPEAKER_08: He is cosmic, he is eternal, he is divine.
24:44
SPEAKER_08: Jesus is eternal life, and to be estranged from him is to be on the outside.
24:50
SPEAKER_08: And this is the way that Jesus describes hell throughout the Bible.
24:53
SPEAKER_08: It's out of darkness, it's outside the feast where there's weeping and wailing and the angry gnashing of teeth.
24:57
SPEAKER_08: It is to be lost, it is to be exiled, it is to be apart from Christ.
25:01
SPEAKER_08: And the Bible does say in Proverbs chapter eight, for instance, that all who hate Christ love death.
25:08
SPEAKER_08: Calls him wisdom in Proverbs chapter eight.
25:10
SPEAKER_08: But all who hate wisdom, this person, Christ, love death.
25:14
SPEAKER_08: And if you don't know how that makes emotional sense, just think of addiction.
25:18
SPEAKER_08: Okay, peep people can love their addiction more than they love life.
25:24
SPEAKER_08: They can love that which destroys them more than they can love that which gives them life.
25:28
SPEAKER_08: And this is true universally, and I do think it makes sense of the human heart.
25:33
SPEAKER_08: No one has sabotaged my own happiness better than I have myself, where I have loved things poorly, stupidly, foolishly, wickedly.
25:42
SPEAKER_08: And it is very psychologically believable indeed that when life comes to release me from that addiction, that I can end up hating that release, hating that salvation.
25:54
SPEAKER_08: And if you still don't know how that makes emotional sense, I do commend to you C.S.
25:58
SPEAKER_08: Lewis's book, The Great Divorce.
26:00
SPEAKER_08: He makes it very emotionally plausible that those on a bus trip from hell, even though those from heaven are inviting them into heaven, nevertheless, each one in turn kind of beats their chest and says, I don't want anyone's bleeding charity.
26:15
SPEAKER_08: I'm gonna go back to the outer darkness.
26:17
SPEAKER_08: And one by one they all do.
26:19
SPEAKER_08: Um, if these ideas of sin and judgment don't make sense, um, enter into a story, the kind of story that C.S.
26:27
SPEAKER_08: Lewis says, and I think that will start to make emotional sense to you.
26:30
SPEAKER_08: When Arkash says Jesus died for every sin except the sin of disbelieving in him, hopefully, having reframed things, you see, like the the one thing that excludes you from salvation is not having Jesus.
26:42
SPEAKER_08: If you want Jesus, you get Jesus.
26:44
SPEAKER_08: If you don't want Jesus, you don't get Jesus.
26:46
SPEAKER_08: But he has died for the sins of the whole world, as 1 John chapter 2, verse 2 says, or as John 3.16 says, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son to whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
26:57
SPEAKER_08: What happens for those who haven't heard, as Wes said, I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know the judge.
27:03
SPEAKER_08: I do know that the judge of all humanity is the one who loves us so much that he came off the judgment seat, put himself into the dock, gave himself the harshest judgment there's ever been so that no one need ever go to hell.
27:15
SPEAKER_08: I don't know the answers about who goes up and who goes down, but I do know who the judge is, and I trust him because when I see him on the cross, I see that he loves us more than his own life.
27:26
SPEAKER_08: And those who seek Christ will get Christ.
27:28
SPEAKER_08: What about Andrew's question that all this story will make us feel like a piece of S?
27:32
SPEAKER_08: I thought Wes did a fantastic job in the podcast of just saying, well, look, the fall that happens in Genesis 3 is after Genesis 1, where we are said to be in God's image.
27:43
SPEAKER_08: That actually everything that frames the fall is that we are on high, that we are in the image of God, that we have an immense dignity and worth.
27:52
SPEAKER_08: We are beloved dust, to use uh Kyle Strobel's term.
27:56
SPEAKER_08: We are beloved dust, and we have fallen from that great height, but we still are beloved dust.
28:01
SPEAKER_08: And I would just say to Andrew that the modern secular story that says we are beautiful and unique snowflakes has not produced greater mental health than the Christian story produced.
28:12
SPEAKER_08: The post-Christian story that ignores all that is faulty about human beings and all that goes wrong and all the darkness that's in my heart and Andrew's heart and everybody else's heart, a story that diminishes that or dismisses that or minimizes that has not led to greater flourishing.
28:26
SPEAKER_08: It has not led to greater mental health, it has not even led to a greater sense of self.
28:30
SPEAKER_08: It turns out that the Christian story, being more realistic about our hearts that turn in on themselves, that get addicted to all the wrong things, that seek love in all the wrong places, and that screw everything up for God and for the world in the process, that story of what the human heart is really like.
28:47
SPEAKER_08: I would say that that is reality.
28:49
SPEAKER_08: Living in tune with reality is where mental health actually lies.
28:52
SPEAKER_08: And that moving away from that story has not led to a greater sense of self.
28:56
SPEAKER_08: Apart from the Christian story, what we try to do constantly is we try to look good in the presence of judgment.
29:02
SPEAKER_08: And that's what our whole lives are about.
29:04
SPEAKER_08: That's what Andrew's natural life is, that's what my natural life is.
29:08
SPEAKER_08: I want to look good in the presence of judgment, but that's not good for my mental health because the difference between the projection, the mask there, and the actual reality of the heart produces the hypocrisy, produces a gap, produces anxiety, produces mental ill health.
29:23
SPEAKER_08: And the whole idea of trying to look good in the presence of judgment is not the pathway to peace.
29:29
SPEAKER_08: The pathway to peace is to look bad in the presence of love.
29:33
SPEAKER_08: And that's the Christian story.
29:35
SPEAKER_08: Just drop the act, look bad in the presence of love.
29:38
SPEAKER_08: It's not about declaring yourself to be a piece of s.
29:41
SPEAKER_08: I mean, you are beloved dust, you're intended for the life and love of God.
29:45
SPEAKER_08: I mean it's not about declaring yourself to be a piece of s, right?
29:49
SPEAKER_08: You are beloved dust, you're intended for the life and love of God.
29:52
SPEAKER_08: So you're not a piece of s.
29:54
SPEAKER_08: But you are sinful.
29:56
SPEAKER_08: You are really sinful.
29:57
SPEAKER_08: And surely you can see that even just other human beings in your past could look back at the ways that you've treated them and say, that Andrew Schultz, he's a m that Glenn Scrivener, he's a m, that Wes Huff, he's a m, right?
30:10
SPEAKER_08: And if that's just what another human being can say about some of the things that we've done in this life, what do you think the God of Heaven can rightly say?
30:17
SPEAKER_08: And yet he doesn't really call if a piece of hm.
30:20
SPEAKER_08: He does say that sometimes our hearts are wicked and evil and dark and broken and corrupt.
30:27
SPEAKER_08: And at the same time, we're capable of great goodness.
30:29
SPEAKER_08: West doesn't deny that, I don't deny that.
30:31
SPEAKER_08: But actually, mental health comes when you drop the act and you look bad in the presence of love.
30:37
SPEAKER_08: And that's where the healing comes, that's where the health comes, that's where the restoration comes, that's where liberation comes.
30:43
SPEAKER_08: Finally, Andrew asks, why is it that at the end of the Gospels, even when they have Jesus in the room with them, there are some people that disbelieve, and yet we're meant to believe in Jesus.
30:52
SPEAKER_08: Now there's a couple of misunderstandings going on there.
30:55
SPEAKER_08: Like, faith is not the price you pay in order to get saved.
30:59
SPEAKER_08: It's not like Jesus comes and he's got his arms folded until you like reach into your pocket and go, All right, um, so what what what what do I owe you for all this salvation?
31:07
SPEAKER_08: Oh look, here's here's some fa I've got some faith on me.
31:10
SPEAKER_08: I'm gonna pay you in faith.
31:12
SPEAKER_08: Um, faith is not a thing that you push out of yourself.
31:15
SPEAKER_08: Faith is pulled out of you by somebody who's trustworthy.
31:19
SPEAKER_08: And it's just you saying, I trust you, okay?
31:22
SPEAKER_08: It's just you in all your weakness and darkness and brokenness and mess and yes, sin, looking at Jesus and saying, You're great.
31:31
SPEAKER_08: Can I have you?
31:32
SPEAKER_08: And that that simply just saying, can I have you, that simply is a statement of faith.
31:37
SPEAKER_08: To say that is to have faith.
31:40
SPEAKER_08: Faith is not a thing that you pay to Jesus in order to get this goodie called salvation.
31:46
SPEAKER_08: The other thing to say is that at the end of the Gospels, these stories are written as little paradigms of how you and I can have faith.
31:54
SPEAKER_08: Like, for instance, on the road to Emmaus, at the end of Luke chapter 24, there is a couple, they had been following Jesus right up until the cross, they've just seen their teacher die, their world has fallen apart, and on Sunday they think it's all over, they're just heading back home, and they don't know what's coming next.
32:08
SPEAKER_08: They had hoped Jesus was the one, he's now dead and buried.
32:11
SPEAKER_08: They are utterly despairing.
32:13
SPEAKER_08: And who should join them on the road but Jesus?
32:15
SPEAKER_08: And you're quite right, Andrew, to point out that they didn't recognize Jesus as he pulled up alongside them along the road.
32:21
SPEAKER_08: They didn't recognize him.
32:23
SPEAKER_08: And so this story is basically about how they come to trust in Jesus.
32:27
SPEAKER_08: And it's not just how they come to trust in Jesus.
32:29
SPEAKER_08: It's a paradigm for how you and I will come to trust in Jesus.
32:32
SPEAKER_08: And don't you love that it's walking along a road?
32:35
SPEAKER_08: Don't you love that it's a process?
32:37
SPEAKER_08: Jesus is not there with his arms folded, like just waiting for you to have a feeling or waiting for you to tick off some items on a creedal list of beliefs.
32:44
SPEAKER_08: He's walking with you and reminding you of his presence in your life.
32:49
SPEAKER_08: And I think Jesus is doing that to Andrew Schultz right now, and I think it's kind of beautiful.
32:54
SPEAKER_08: Secondly, what Jesus does is he kind of opens up the scriptures to them.
32:57
SPEAKER_08: He says, Isn't this what had to happen?
33:00
SPEAKER_08: Didn't the Messiah have to die and then rise again?
33:03
SPEAKER_08: He kind of gives them the scriptures as these spectacles that they can look through and reframe the way they see life.
33:09
SPEAKER_08: And then thirdly, he invites himself over for dinner and he breaks bread with them.
33:14
SPEAKER_08: They have this little mini church service, as it were.
33:17
SPEAKER_08: And as they break bread in this mini church situation, then their eyes are opened.
33:22
SPEAKER_08: All the post-resurrection experiences are like this.
33:24
SPEAKER_08: They are little paradigms of how we go about trusting in Jesus, and it's not in a great flash, and it's not about screwing up your stomach muscles very tight and pushing some faith out of you.
33:34
SPEAKER_08: It's actually about Jesus gradually opening your eyes to himself.
33:38
SPEAKER_08: And I think he's doing that in Andrew's life, actually.
33:41
SPEAKER_08: And he does it by being our companion and opening our eyes to stuff that we have known all along.
33:46
SPEAKER_08: It happens by opening the Bible, which Andrew seems to love to do.
33:50
SPEAKER_08: It happens by going to church, which Andrew seems to have had some good experiences with.
33:55
SPEAKER_08: And Jesus is patient, and Jesus is kind.
33:58
SPEAKER_08: And he does not want a different kind of faith from you, Andrew, than he wanted from that couple on the road to Emmaus.
34:04
SPEAKER_08: In fact, he wants you to walk that same path, and I think you are walking it.
34:09
SPEAKER_08: Do you see how stories can actually start to make things make emotional sense?
34:14
SPEAKER_08: It won't make emotional sense to everybody.
34:16
SPEAKER_08: Arkash at the very end of the podcast says this.
34:19
SPEAKER_02: I'll see you in hell, buddy.
34:22
SPEAKER_08: But that's okay.
34:23
SPEAKER_08: Wes goes over and they hug it out at the end.
34:25
SPEAKER_08: And it's an ongoing journey for all people.
34:28
SPEAKER_08: But this is the one thing that our non-Christian friends really need.
34:32
SPEAKER_08: They don't think Christianity is stupid.
34:34
SPEAKER_08: They don't care if it's weird.
34:35
SPEAKER_08: They don't mind that you're trying to convert them.
34:37
SPEAKER_08: They are open to the Bible.
34:38
SPEAKER_08: They are open to church.
34:40
SPEAKER_08: But it's got to make sense.
34:41
SPEAKER_08: It's got to make emotional sense.
34:44
SPEAKER_08: And the best way to make emotional sense is to tell a story.
34:47
SPEAKER_08: Maybe you tell an analogy, maybe you give an illustration, maybe you tell a parable, but ultimately you can frame things in the gospel.
34:53
SPEAKER_08: The gospel is that the Son of the Father, filled with the Spirit, comes to planet Earth to enter into our darkness to take on all the sins of all people, to rise up again and to offer us for free eternal life because he is eternal life.
35:07
SPEAKER_08: That doesn't answer every single question we have, it doesn't answer every question for me, it doesn't answer every question for Wes, but it offers us a person to whom we can entrust our questions.
35:16
SPEAKER_08: A person who really does make emotional sense of our lives.
35:19
SPEAKER_08: That'll do for now.
35:20
SPEAKER_08: If you want to see the emotional sense that Jesus Christ makes of life, go to 321course.com.
35:25
SPEAKER_08: Do the 321 course right now.
35:26
SPEAKER_08: You can binge it in a couple of hours.
35:28
SPEAKER_08: You can do it over eight sessions.
35:29
SPEAKER_08: It's entirely free.
35:30
SPEAKER_08: Go to 321course.com.
35:32
SPEAKER_08: Thanks so much.