Living Faithful

Best-selling author, speaker, and advocate for Christian apologetics, Dr. Alex McFarland. Best-selling author and apologist, Dylan Burrows. Together, bringing you truth. For a new generation, this is TNG Radio. G.K. Chesterton, the famous leader who was very influential in the life of C.S.

Lewis, Chesterton once said, man's most pragmatic need is to be something more than a pragmatist. Welcome to the program. This is TNG Radio with Alex McFarland, Dylan Burrows. Dylan, good to be with you, brother. Hey, great to connect once again. Looking forward to our time together today. We've got several things to talk about, some current events and some cultural trends, and we're going to go to Ephesians chapter 4 here in just a moment.

If you've got your Bible, turn to Ephesians chapter 4. But let me talk a little bit about the Chesterton quote. The man's most pragmatic need is to be more than a pragmatist. Now pragmatism is kind of like utilitarianism. I'm just going to do what works.

If it works, or if I think it works, it must be true. Well, in terms of the Christian church, many pastors and churches I think oftentimes assume the kind of preaching and teaching and ministry that they should do is what they feel like will be of beneficial, or of perceived benefit to their parishioners. Now the fact is that we're called to preach the Word. We are called as Christians to make disciples of all nations to invest ourselves and involve ourselves in Christ's great commission to preach the good news of the Gospel to the entire world, and not merely to posture ourselves to what we might think is pragmatic or beneficial from a human standpoint. Case in point, a lot of churches where I go to speak, I will look at what's online or what maybe the sermon series has been like, and there are many good churches, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of great churches and there certainly are valiant, faithful leaders in the church doing their best to pass the faith on to this generation. However, a lot of preaching is pragmatic in the sense of, you know, better time management, or how to be a more efficient person, or how to communicate better with my spouse. And it's fine, we want to communicate with our spouses, we want to be relatable to our kids, but it is the double-edged sword of God's Word that pierces the heart and soul and changes lives. And I fear that we're beginning to reap the benefit, or the detriment rather, of a couple of decades of pragmatic ministry, utilitarian, how do I become a self-actualized person, how do I become more at peace with myself, rather than preaching the Word of God.

And Dylan, I'm going to share a little bit from Ephesians 4, but let me throw to you. If I approach ministry with the question, what's in it for me, doesn't that make me not only a pragmatist, but really a narcissist? Well certainly, and the definition of a narcissist is someone who has excessive focus on oneself or on one's physical appearance.

That's what we see in the social media obsessed generation, it's all about me, how I look, how I am perceived by others. And yet, in doing so, we often miss what the Bible calls us to do. We look at Ephesians 4 that you're talking about, it starts out with the Apostle Paul calling himself a prisoner for the Lord. This was not figurative, he was really a prisoner for his faith. This was not something that worked for him, this was him serving, and what he calls himself a slave of Christ, or a servant of Christ Jesus, as we see in other places. He was certainly not living a pragmatic life or a narcissistic life, but one of a servant.

Absolutely. We had a call about this on the radio show recently, on what did Christ do after he died on the cross, and it says that he descended into the lower parts of the earth, he preached to the spirits in prison, and there's a reference to 1 Peter 3 and also Psalm 68 about what Christ did, and it said he ascended to the heavens, gave gifts to men, and then it goes on, and I really think the quote, giving gifts to men, a fully-orbed treatment of that phrase would include Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the church, and the spiritual gifts that God gives to every believer. And by the way, every believer does have some spiritual gift, a supernatural ability that God imparts to you at the moment of salvation for use for the glory of God, the edification of the body, the evangelization of the lost, and the fulfillment of Christ's great commission. You, you as a believer, friend, have one or more spiritual gifts for God's use, for your purpose in life, to serve the Lord.

And no believer has every spiritual gift, but I do believe, Dylan, every believer has at least some one or more spiritual gifts. Now let me read Ephesians 4, 11 and following, and it does relate to this theme that we have today of getting away from the pragmatic and getting to the biblical, because if we stay on the path of mere pragmatism, narcissism alone, the results are going to be pretty dark. It says this, regarding our risen Savior, who sent the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, that, by the way, convinces of sin, that's John 15 and 16, convinces, converts, and really consecrates us for service. He gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect body, a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Now listen at verse 14, especially relevant in this culture where dozens of belief systems are competing for the hearts and minds of people. Ephesians 4, 14, speaking of the church, that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, in other words, on the other hand, speaking the truth in love, that we may grow up into all things into Him who is the head, Christ. See the goal of preaching, the goal of discipleship, is corporate Christ-likeness. That the body of believers, this great big tapestry called the family of God, people from all backgrounds, but unique in that we've come through Jesus, that we may be corporately conformed to Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Now there's a lot there, Dylan, but really the calling is that all of us allow the Spirit of God to shape, to grow, to guide our lives so that when the parts are conformed to the image of Christ, the whole is Christ-like and that we're a unified body for the glory of God and the fulfillment of the commission. Verse 17 follows up and says that He insists on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, meaning that when we come to faith in Jesus, our goal is to be different from the world, to be salt and light in a dark and evil world. And we'll talk more about this in just a moment.

Stick with us. Youth for a New Generation is here to equip Christians with a Biblical worldview through conferences and camps. And speaking about camps, registration is now underway for the TNG Summer Youth Apologetics Camp happening July 22nd through 26th at North Greenville University in South Carolina.

Alex McFarland will be there along with Tony Beahm. He's the Vice President for Student Services and Christian worldview at NGU. They'll engage your youth on topics like, If God is so good, why is the world so bad? Understanding and applying what God's Word says about gender and a whole lot more. Fifteen apologetic and worldview training sessions in all, along with a field trip to the Billy Graham Center. And of course, outdoor fun and games. And don't forget about the food.

Great food, enough to fill them up and keep them going. Find out more about the 2018 TNG Summer Youth Apologetics Camp when you visit TruthForANewGeneration.com. Our country is falling apart. Political unrest, social upheaval. The breakdown of the family, the rise of atheism, the rise of Islam. Our religious freedoms are under attack. There's gender fluidity.

Gender identity is making a mess of freedom of expression. So we need to put some skin in the game and love this nation. As Christians, we are to stand strong.

There has to be some personal investment in the living out and the preservation of America. Stand Strong America will help you take the fear that you face and the bleakness that you face, but help you become a champion, a bold champion for Christ. In Stand Strong America, Jason Jimenez and I lay out the facts about our nation, the current condition, and how you, yes, you, your family, your church, your community can be involved in keeping this great republic. Stand Strong America is a guide to bring courage and hope for you, the Christian, wherever Christian books are sold. So speak light, speak light to the deadest, darkest night. Welcome back to the program.

Alex McFarland here with Dylan Burrows. You're listening to TNG Radio, Truth for a New Generation. And stay tuned to TNG Radio because we've got two exciting developments regarding the next TNG conferences, one in September, one in October.

I also do want to remind you that we have a TNG app. Whatever your mobile device is, if you go to the app store, you can find a Truth for a New Generation app, and we've got really hundreds of articles that I've written, and kind of an apologetics A to Z, and so we invite you to follow that, and we pray it's a benefit to you. But right now I want to get back to Ephesians chapter 4, and we're talking about the fact that the culture, we know the culture is growing dark, we know that there's violence tragically, there's just a lot of indicators of our culture in desperate need of Christ, the new life that Jesus offers, forgiveness of sin, a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of life, definitely a change of outcomes and destiny.

And one of the verses in Ephesians chapter 4 says that we would no longer, Ephesians 4.14, be tossed about by every wind of doctrine. You know, Dylan, in a world without truth, all we've got is subjective opinion, preference, bias, attitude. And so much of social media and the internet now is really just this white noise, just this white noise of everybody shouting their opinion, just spouting off their ideas.

And you know, into that milieu, we might ask ourselves, what can make a difference? What can be heard above the noise of culture? And it's the voice of God. And the voice of God is His Word, scripture. Now, much of preaching today is pragmatic. In other words, if it works, it must be something I ought to preach. Whereas oftentimes, the most pragmatic thing of all is that thing which, to our human eyes, doesn't look all that beneficial. Five minutes of the Word of God is more beneficial than two hours of the greatest motivational speaker the human race could offer up, am I right?

Oh, certainly. There's no comparison. Because think about this. Pragmatism leads to narcissism. Narcissism leads to hedonism. Now hedonism is going to lead to something more we'll mention in a minute, but narcissism is the mindset that it's all about me.

What's in it for me? And listen, as much as I love young people, and I work a lot with, you know, millennials and younger, late 20s and younger, but I will tell you the idea that it's all about me, me, me, which is just pandemic. I mean, so many people think that way. It's one thing when a ninth grader is like, I don't want to go to church, because it's boring, it's no fun, it's got to be, you know, serving me, me, me.

It's one thing when a middle schooler or high schooler has a me, me, me attitude. But when adults, some of whom have named the name of Christ for two decades plus, when we have the mindset of a child rather than a seasoned, mature, willing, obedient saint of God, we've got a problem, because the church is not fulfilling what it was called to do. Yes, and historically we saw this in the nation of Israel. The very final words in Judges 21, 25 talked about the summary of what was wrong in that time. It said, everyone did as they saw fit. And if there was any parallel that you could look at in the Bible with our time today, I would say it's right there in Judges 21, 25.

Everyone did as they saw fit. But what were the consequences of that? We saw a divided kingdom, we saw a kingdom where there was rampant sin, where there was rampant immorality, and like you said, hedonism, where people do what feels good to them, what feels right to them. And because of that attitude, there are moral consequences, there are physical consequences, and what results from that are lives that are suffering, lives that are breaking down, marriages that are falling apart. It used to be that you would talk about a high schooler who might be playing video games too much, and they would get in trouble at school or with their parents.

Now I'm running into men who are in their 30s and 40s, and they're running into situations where they're divorcing with a spouse because they can't quit playing video games. These are the issues that we are facing in our day and age here in America. You know, in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 1, Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, which was a very carnal church. And he says, there are sins named among you, even some types of sins that even the pagans don't do. And so, think about it folks, hedonism, to be hedonistic, is pleasure at any cost.

My highest good, my summum bonum in life, is just to seek pleasure. But there's a downward slide as we turn away from Christ. Pragmatism, narcissism, hedonism, and finally, paganism. A darkened culture without God. Now, I want to throw a word out here that it might sound like just a pejorative, you know, slam on somebody, but it's really a technical word with a very precise meaning. And the word is heathen. You know, you might have heard people jokingly say, well, you know, so-and-so is just a heathen, as if that's just kind of a slang word. But the word heathen really means a people group that is utterly without God.

Unevangelized, unreached, or heathen. Now in 1908, Chesterton, that we referenced before, Chesterton observed in 1908, he said, as much as we need to win the heathen to Christianity, more and more increasingly, Chesterton wrote, we need to win the Christians to Christianity. Now when he said win the heathen, some people nowadays, when I share that quote, I'll be in a grad class teaching graduate students, they'll say, well how rude, I mean, how insensitive to call somebody heathen.

But what Chesterton meant was, he was using the word really in a scholarly sense, it meant a people group without the true and living God. Dylan, do you think that even in the Christian West, increasingly we're becoming a heathen culture? And I don't mean that sarcastically, I'm talking, are we becoming a culture without knowledge of the true and living God? Well, we're seeing aspects of that more and more, where people in the church lack discernment about right and wrong issues and morality, and so you see aspects of it to the degree that we say, oh, it's no big deal, you know, people see this all the time, it shouldn't hurt you.

But the reality is, when we call what is evil good, we are falling into this category of paganism. And when we looked at ancient Israel, when they started to worship other gods, eventually when God called them to repentance, and they did not, there was a time of judgment. And that's what I fear, that we do not change as a culture, if we do not turn back to God individually in His families, there will be a time of judgment upon those who fail to turn back to God. For centuries, the Bible has inspired humanity and shaped the very world we live in. But how do we know this book is the Word of God, and not merely the words of men? What we believe about the Bible is based on what we believe about its source. The God Who Speaks explores the evidence of the Bible's inspiration and authority through some of the world's most respected biblical scholars. We have essentially a dual authorship, so it's true to say that Paul wrote Romans. It's equally true to say that God wrote Romans.

He says, we saw this. And that sets the Bible apart from almost everything else in the ancient world and its religious pantheon of gods and goddesses. The God Who Speaks is a feature-length documentary from the American Family Association. Available now at thegodwhospeaks.org. First Peter 3.15 tells us to be ready always to give an answer for the hope we have. We're instructed to be prepared to defend our faith. This is Alex McFarland for the Life Answers Teams, students we train at North Greenville University, a leading Christian college in South Carolina. The Life Answers Teams are made up of students who will inspire and equip your congregation. These apologetics teams we train speak in churches to youth groups and train Christians of all ages to address key issues of our times from a biblical perspective. Like is there a God? Is the Bible true?

What about gender and moral issues? Call me at 864-977-2008 and we will arrange for the Life Answers Team to come to your church and give a presentation that will benefit your people for years to come. 864-977-2008 and always be ready. Come ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore, Jesus ready stands to save you for of any love and power. Welcome back to TNG Radio, and as we get back into our talk about pragmatism versus biblicism, being scripturally faithful, I do want to remind people that I will be at the Cove, July 16-18, 2018, the Billy Graham Training Center in western North Carolina, really in Asheville, the most beautiful retreat you've ever seen. It's amazing. Their website is thecove.org, C-O-V-E, The Cove, and I'll be teaching the book of Amos, Pathways to Spiritual Revival and Awakening, Is it Possible? What Can I Do to Play a Role? I hope to see you at the Cove, July 16, 17, and 18.

I would encourage you to register and attend. Well Dylan, as we record this, the country is reeling from the news of the shooting at YouTube. It's almost like there's the bloodbath de jour. There's so much violence and shooting. And here's a lady that had put up some very horrible videos, cruel videos of abuse of animals live on video, and hate, just terrible hateful messages. And YouTube took her videos down because they didn't conform to their standards of what was appropriate material. And she was angry and she went in and she fired a weapon in the offices at YouTube. The police responded. Either she killed herself or she was shot.

As we record this, the news is a little bit inconclusive. But this, I mean it's sad, our hearts grieve for any type of violence, bloodshed, and death. But this is what happens when we become a culture that has cut itself loose from God. And as you read from the Old Testament scriptures, everyone is doing that which is right in their own estimation.

Every man for himself, every opinion is law, and we're just living as a culture without God or truth, aren't we? Yes, and this particular episode gives lots of the aspects we've been talking about. You see the narcissism where there's a focus on self and vlogging and blogging and writing and performing videos that are all about yourself and your own interests, which we see very commonly. That's only one aspect of the problem here.

But there's also a hedonism, what feels good. When she felt offended that YouTube took down her videos inappropriately, what did she do? She took matters into her own hands and went to that extreme step of going to their location to kill other people. And then of course, paganism. I don't know her spiritual background, but she did come from the Baha'i faith, which is a non-Christian faith that has very different beliefs. And so we see someone who's worshipping another god, and so she has all these elements of paganism, hedonism, and narcissism, and it led to this extreme situation where she thought the best thing in her life to do was to go after someone who had offended her. And you may not be at that position in your life today, but I think if we were to evaluate ourselves, we would see aspects of that in our own lives where we feel offended too easily, or we get something that we don't like, and we want to do something vengeful against the other person.

When we see this, we don't need to act upon it. We need to reflect upon it and see what God's Word says in response to that is godly and honors him. You know, for those who may not be aware of the Baha'i faith, it really is an offshoot of Islam, and there was a man in the 19th century. He was called the great BAB, B-A-B, and he presented himself as a Messiah. But this Messiah figure that the BAB presented himself as didn't rise from the dead, didn't do miracles, was not prophesied in Scripture as Jesus was. And it boils down to what Christ said, that there was He and all others were a thief and a robber and a liar. In John 8 verse 24, Christ said of His messiahship, and remember, He was prophesied in the Old Testament, fulfilled all of the criteria for messiahship, died on the cross, rose from the dead, in so many ways His own deity and His messiahship was validated. But Jesus said in John 8 24, if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.

Now Baha'i and other faith systems, other worldviews, talk about morality or being good somehow and avoid that which is evil and pursue that which is good, quote unquote. But only Jesus offers you atonement, that is the payment of your sins, your standing before God can be secure, and what Christ did that sets Himself apart is He rose from the dead. Yesterday, Dylan and I was with Gary Habermas, and Habermas is a highly respected scholar, known the world over as the expert on Christ's resurrection, and Gary Habermas was sharing with me yesterday a conversation he had with an Islamic apologist, someone trying to defend Islam, and the person said, you know, well, all religions say I'm right, you're wrong. He said, but you Christians have an unfair advantage because you have something the rest of us don't have. You have the resurrection.

And Habermas kind of chuckled and he said yes, that is what makes us different. Our Savior, our figurehead, was able to do what nobody else could do. He beat death. A risen Jesus is a game changer. Why should I preach the Word of God and heed it rather than just doing my own pragmatic, narcissistic thing? Because Jesus said this in John 5, search the scriptures for they testify of me and in them you find life. That's John 539. Psalm 119, 93, I will never forget God's words, for through them I found life.

Yes, in a world of opinions there is truth, and the personification of that truth, who can give you eternal life, is Jesus. So well said, Alex, and as we wrap up our time together, I'm reminded of recently talking with my own son, we're going through the youth version of Henry Blackaby's Experiencing God, and it talks about knowing the will of God for your life. And one of the steps I remember vividly it says, following the will of God will cause you to make major changes in your life.

And we both looked at that and smiled and we said, isn't that so true? If you really want to follow Jesus, like the Bible says, it's not about what works, what helps you look better, what makes you feel better, or any other gods or any other ways. Only Jesus satisfies but it requires all of your life. He wants us to commit every part of our life to Him, and He told us not only that He came to give us eternal life, but abundant life. In John 10, 10 I came to give them life and life abundantly. So we pray you've been blessed today as we've been together on Truth For A New Generation.

Stick with us and hear a final word. Truth For A New Generation, in association with Alex McFarland Evangelistic Ministries, exists to equip Christians with a biblical worldview through conferences and camps. For information about upcoming events, visit truthforanewgeneration.com or give us a call at 877-YES-GOD-1. That's 877-YES-GOD and the number 1. TNG radio is made possible by the friends of Alex McFarland Evangelistic Ministries, P.O. Box 485, Pleasant Garden, North Carolina, 27313. That's P.O. Box 485, Pleasant Garden, North Carolina, 27313. Or give online at alexmcfarland.com or truthforanewgeneration.com. Thanks for listening and join us again next time as we bring you more truth for a new generation on TNG radio.