From Changed Hearts to Changed Nations | A Christian’s Purpose

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You told us all the time, Dad, when we were growing up, you've been blessed to be a blessing.
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You're not a reservoir, you're a river.
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And that blessing should flow out to your family and your closest relationships first, but then it's supposed to go beyond that.
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It's supposed to affect this world.
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It's the Great Commission again, Disciple the Nations.
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There's no sustainable transformation without going through the door of redemption of what Christ did on the cross for us.
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But that is the beginning, really, right?
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Of transformation inside heart.
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And then it moves outside, and then we become this with a renewed mind with a biblical review, then we become these individuals in our marriages and families and neighborhoods and communities and society that will be able to understand what God's ways are and what our ways are.
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And now, unlike the Old Testament, we have the freedom to actually enact God's theory of change to do what?
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Bless the nations, disciple the nations.
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That's just the same thing, but different words in the New Testament.
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But now our hearts are changed.
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What an opportunity that I hope we don't miss to go and bless the nations.
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We all have a role to play, a calling, and that calling encompasses every area of society.
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So you can be an actor in Hollywood or you can be a bank or plumber, whatever it is that God's called you to do and have a significant impact.
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When we've taught that around the world, I have seen people literally be brought to tears because they feel for the first time affirmed.
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Like what I do matters.
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You know, matters beyond just earning a living to support my family and tithe to the church, but something about it actually is redemptive and it can make an impact.
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I can change the world.
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Kuipers, you know, every square inch, Jesus says it's mine and it's going to be changed when we apply the truths of the Bible and the biblical story to it.
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And uh any good that we see in the West, by the way, it's not because the Western people, it's not because we're somehow superior.
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We are not.
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It's because faithful Christians over millennia now have applied the principles of the Bible faithfully and they've lived them out in a way that has brought positive change and blessing.
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It's purely because of that.
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We're just the recipients of that.
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And that can go away, and it is going away.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Ideas Have Consequences.
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This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
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As Christians, we all know that our mission is to spread the gospel around the world to all the nations.
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However, our mission, the Great Co-Mission, also involves working to transform our cultures so that they increasingly reflect the truth, the goodness, and the beauty of God's kingdom.
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Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission, and today most Christians are having little influence on their surrounding cultures.
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Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
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Hey guys, thanks for joining us today.
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My name is Luke Allen.
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I'm one of the co-hosts here on the show, and I'm joined by my dad and our host, Scott Allen.
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Howdy, Dad.
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Hey, Luke.
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Hey.
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We just hopped off a uh a fun, pretty long episode, which I'm sure after editing will become much shorter, uh, because uh this was a little bit of one of those technical episodes where we were reviewing one of our videos here at the Disciple Nations Alliance, kind of walking through it with you guys, so just using that as the format.
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This video gets directly into uh that mission that we say at the beginning of every episode of this podcast.
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How us as Christians can fulfill our great commission to go and make disciples of all nations.
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So really great episode.
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This is one of those episodes that's just right at the heart of what we do here at the Disciple Nations Alliance.
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So if you guys are new to the ministry, we are the Disciple Nations Alliance.
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That's the ministry behind this podcast, and we exist to kind of do exactly what that title says Disciple Nations via a movement, an alliance.
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And um today is going to be a great intro episode for any of you guys who are new to what we do here at Ideas Have Consequences, and for anyone of uh who has been aw uh around for a while, um, this year, here on season three of the podcast, we've had a lot of guests on.
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We've really enjoyed all the fun conversations we've had, but some of these episodes where we just have internal discussions are a great time to really uh ground ourselves and hopefully you guys back in really the heart of what we do here at uh Ideas Have Consequences, uh, which is the podcast again of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
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So, Dad, would you mind just kind of quickly getting into what we covered today and really just could could you address the problem that we're trying to solve in this podcast?
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Yeah, the the video that um that we're going to be discussing today, the title of it is From Changed Hearts to Changed Nations, The Christian's Mission.
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And so this is really what we believe the Bible's theory of change is.
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How does the Bible bring about change in this process of redemption that's happening right now in the world?
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Um, it's unique, it's different from uh worldly ways.
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We're going to critique worldly ways of change.
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You can think of um secular progressives, Marxists, you know, they're always trying to bring change from the outside in.
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The Bible always goes from the inside out.
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It starts with the human heart, and it has to be done divinely by God's power through salvation.
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Christians understand this.
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Most Bible-believing Christians believe this deeply.
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And yet we're going to critique uh many of Bible-believing Christians because that's where they end.
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They say, you know, the process of change ends once people come to faith and maybe have some basic level of discipleship.
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And we're going to argue, no, that's where it begins.
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Um, from there, it's got to ripple out into society.
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And we're going to talk about what does that look like, what's being neglected.
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Um, and really that, as you said, Luke, this is this is such a great episode because it really is probably the best episode I can think of of all that we've recorded over the years in getting right to the heart of what the DNA exists to do.
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What is, what does it mean to disciple nations?
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How does God bring about change in this world, and what's my role in it?
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All of these really basic, really fundamental, important questions are going to be addressed in this podcast.
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All right.
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Yeah, I'm excited.
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Let's get into it.
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Well, welcome back to the podcast.
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Uh, we're really excited today to be able to talk about a new uh video that we have posted up on YouTube.
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You can find it on our website.
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Um, these are a set of a series of videos that get to the heart or the core of the message that God has given the DNA, our ministry, to share with the world.
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Uh they're at the center of our training.
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And this particular video's title is From Changed Hearts to Changed Nations.
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And what it does is it sets out what we what some call our theory of change.
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You know, how how do we see change, transformation, if you will, in this world?
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And we're trying to answer that question as biblically as we can.
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And uh it's ironic in some ways that uh that when we share this video often with people, they'll go, oh, yeah, that I agree with that.
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And yet, um, as we get into the topic today, you're gonna see that this is an area that's been dividing the church for at least a hundred years, if not more.
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Um and on one side of that divide are people that uh put the emphasis, and here I'm I'm speaking specifically to evangelicals, Pentecostals, people that are kind of more or less Bible-believing, um, but they've had this idea that change, the the Christian's role for change in this world, this fallen world, is to preach the gospel, to do evangelism, proclaim the truth about salvation.
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Um, and that in a sense, what's that once that's done and people are saved, and maybe with adding you know some minimal discipleship, everything just ripples from there.
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There's really nothing more beyond that that we need to do.
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That is the sum total of our mission in the world is to proclaim the gospel, see people saved, one to one to faith.
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I would add to that that I think behind this it in a sense is often a kind of a pessimism that actually often goes unspoken, but um the pessimism is it goes something like this that in this fallen world, we can't really expect to see much change.
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Uh you know, things probably are gonna get worse and worse.
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When they get really bad, Jesus is gonna come back, you know, there's gonna be the great tribulation, he comes back.
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But what we can expect is things to get worse.
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And what we should do is try to rescue people, you know, out of the sinking ship, so to speak, uh get them into the lifeboat.
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In fact, different evangelists over the years have used these analogies uh and get them to heaven.
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Uh, we're gonna make the argument that this mindset of escape, of a kind of lifeboat, abandoned ship, the ship being this fallen world, uh isn't isn't biblical nor is it accurate to historic Christianity.
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It's kind of a new way of thinking that probably came about in the last hundred years or so.
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But the emphasis to the great credit of these folks is on salvation.
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They need that we've and amen to that.
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People need to be saved.
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But um, but that that's where it kind of is the beginning and the end of the theory of change, if you will.
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Now, in reaction to that, uh, you have another group, and this would be represented more by the mainline, a lot of the mainline denominations.
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And uh I I often think of the Episcopal Church uh or uh in the United States here.
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If you go to an Episcopal service, try a typical Episcopal service, and I've been to many, uh, you don't hear the gospel preached.
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Um there is no invitation to accept Christ as your Lord and Savior.
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It's just not done, it's not believed.
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Uh rather, the emphasis is on uh kind of what I would call social justice, or we need to be you know doing what's right.
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Often that is political, and it's you know, in the area of um, yeah, it involves good works on our part, but often it involves structural change through government, policies, programs.
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And the idea is that our theory of change is if we can do what's right, what's good, um then, you know, kind of at a structural political level, then the world will become a better place.
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But what's neglected is the gospel.
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It's just kind of given up on, if you will.
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Um again, not true to historic Christianity um at all.
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Um it it kind of borrows from the Enlightenment progressive idea that human beings are basically good and that they're perfectible, and if they just have the right conditions, then we can kind of create the kingdom of God here on earth, so to speak.
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Um and so the DNA isn't going to critique both of these, and we're going to say they're both in a sense wrong.
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I would say the first one is less wrong because it holds on to the truth, the fundamental truth, that people are sinners and need to be saved.
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But what it's neglecting is significant, and that's where we're going to kind of critique that first one.
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So that's what we're setting out to do in this video, and um, we're trying to offer what we consider to be a really biblical, basic biblical theory of change, um, again, from changed hearts to changed nations.
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The gospel changes people, and changed people can change society, said the great theologian John Stott.
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God's kingdom advances from the inside out.
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It starts with an inward revolution in the hearts and minds of people before it begins to transform society.
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All genuine social change starts with inward transformation, not with political revolutions, policy changes, or any other form of social engineering.
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Jesus spoke about this inward to outward revolution in his parables.
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He said, His kingdom is like a mustard seed.
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It is tiny, almost invisible, and hidden beneath the ground.
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But it has the power to grow into a mighty tree that impacts everything around it.
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It begins in the human heart, the great beachhead in the advancement of God's kingdom.
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The heart must be transformed before anything else, for it is the wellspring of life.
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Through faith in Christ, our rebellious hearts of stone are replaced with hearts of flesh that beat for God and desire to do his will.
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God's kingdom advances by means of God's power working in and through us.
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The next step in the advancement of God's kingdom is the mind.
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We must be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
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We must take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
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We must think biblically about God.
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The lies of the dark kingdom must be discerned, rejected, and replaced with the truth.
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From these divinely renovated depths, our whole life is progressively transformed to increasingly reflect the character of the king.
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From here, the kingdom of God moves outward, impacting society and culture, starting with the family.
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The family is the most basic social institution, ordained and structured by God for the purpose of advancing his kingdom.
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As servants of the king, we are to carefully obey his commands regarding sexuality, procreation, and the way we nurture, discipline, and educate our children.
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With families won over to God's kingdom, and with children trained to love the king and to walk in obedience to his ways, the kingdom advances into every sphere of society.
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For in the words of the famous Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper, there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, mine.
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Therefore, wherever we may stand, and whatever God calls us to do, or in whatever it may be, we are constantly standing in the presence of our King, employed in his service, and determined to strictly to obey him and seek his glory.
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A culture where people are treated as precious image-bearers of God, a culture of order and beauty, of creativity and excellence.
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Until our King returns, God has called each of us to push back the domain of darkness.
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This is a privileged task for all Christians.
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Our King has a unique task that he has prepared for you to carry out.
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Make it your life's purpose to faithfully accomplish this task, so that in the end you may hear him speak these words.
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Well done, good and faithful servant.
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All right.
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As Christians, that can be a very, very broad question.
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It can also be simple for our lives.
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Dad, you wrote the script to this video.
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When you wrote this script, what was, I mean, you addressed this a second ago in the intro, but a little bit more concisely, what is the what is the problem we're seeking to solve at the Disciple Nations Alliance when we create a video like this?
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What is that question mark we're trying to uh help people answer?
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Yeah, thanks, Luke.
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I think the biggest one is, yeah, what I already mentioned that um for a lot of evangelical Christians, which is our primary audience, Bible-believing Christians, they fully understand, you know, when I talk about a theory of change in the world, uh, they fully understand that beginning part, that part about being born again uh through faith in Jesus Christ and having renewed hearts.
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Um what what the problem is, isn't that.
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The problem is that it tends to end there.
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And so when we talk about the renewed minds, the putting on the biblical worldview and living it out in society, uh starting with our families and going outward from there, that's almost entirely neglected.
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And again, I have my beliefs on that.
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I think one is that people just assume that once people are saved, everything begins to change.
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But probably more than that, there's this this kind of honestly, if I'm honest, it's it's the the theory of change is kind of an anti-theory in the sense that things really aren't going to change in this world, that things are gonna get worse and worse.
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So I'm trying to push back on that as well.
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Now, let me clarify that when I say that things um aren't gonna get, you know, that things can improve and change, some people uh will c kind of assume that I'm talking about creating some kind of perfect utopia, kingdom of God, on this side of Christ's return.
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No, I don't believe that.
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Uh Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble.
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Uh we live in a fallen world.
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That's not gonna uh that's not gonna be done away with until he comes back and sets things in order.
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Okay, but what that doesn't mean that is is this kind of typical evangelical mindset that things are just gonna get worse.
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And we don't see it that way in uh history.
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You know, we don't see things just getting worse and worse.
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What we see is uh both.
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We see uh improvement, change, positive change, as well as the continuation of sin, brokenness, and evil.
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Uh but uh so uh the pessimistic view I think is honestly dishonest and not correct to the Bible.
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We wouldn't apply that, like for example, to our own family.
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Well, I'm supposed to live out the truth of the Bible in my family, but I really don't think it's gonna make much of a difference.
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My family's just gonna get worse and worse and become, you know, break break down and become, you know.
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No, we don't typically think that way or act that way.
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We tend to think if we apply God's principles in our families, that's the most basic social sphere, uh, then there's gonna be some good fruit that's gonna come from that.
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And that's actually what happens.
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It doesn't mean that our families are gonna become perfect, they're not, but there's gonna be good fruit for obedience to God's word.
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That's what we're saying.
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And that doesn't just apply to families, that applies to communities, and that applies to nations as well.
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And that's what we see in history.
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So it's it's simple, it's as simple as that.
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Again, there is that side of the church.
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Honestly, this side doesn't really represent our core audience, kind of the side that's really abandoned the gospel.
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Um, but in a sense, this video is critiquing that as well.
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And it's saying, hey, listen, if you put your hope in some kind of social revolution um or some kind of government program or something other than the internal transformation of the human heart, you know, give it up.
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Nothing's gonna happen.
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And the history's proven that over and over again as well.
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Like we are fallen people dead in our sins.
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We're not gonna see any kind of change without the gospel.
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So that's that's our critique as well.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, we'll get into that in the video.
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Uh Nelson, before you give some just kind of general setup points, um, I mean, I like the title of this video, pat on the back there.
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I named it, but From Changed Hearts to Changed Nations, a Christian's mission.
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I mean, what is the Christian's mission?
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Uh, the way we answer that here at the Disciple Nations Alliance is by just quoting the Great Commission.
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Jesus' call to us right before he left Earth.
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Go and make disciples of all nations.
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That's the Christian mission.
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From changed hearts to change nations.
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So this video really is kind of what how how do I fulfill the Great Commission?
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This video is trying to answer that question for you in the simplest way as possible.
00:18:52.319 --> 00:18:56.400
I love the quote uh by Leslie Nubigen that we quote all the time here at the Disciple Nations.
00:18:56.400 --> 00:18:58.799
Leslie Nubigan, sorry.
00:18:58.799 --> 00:18:59.839
Sorry, Leslie.
00:18:59.839 --> 00:19:10.559
Uh that we quote all the time here on the team uh when it's talking about kind of this this wrong view of the Great Commission, where we take out the word disciple and we just switch it out for convert.
00:19:10.559 --> 00:19:13.680
Um but Nubi Nubegin, Nubigin?
00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:14.480
Nubegin.
00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:28.640
Nubegin says, quote The church is not meant to call men and women out of this world into safe religious enclaves, but to send them back into the world to bear witness to the reign of God.
00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:31.519
So there's something for us to do here in this world.
00:19:31.519 --> 00:19:35.119
It's not about just a safe ticket to heaven, it's about something to do here and now.
00:19:35.119 --> 00:19:38.799
Uh Nelson, for you when you watch that video, what are some of the first thoughts that pop to mind?
00:19:40.240 --> 00:19:48.480
Yeah, I think I I like what they just said that because um I remember I remember Denis Dongoy, our good friend in Africa there, right?
00:19:48.480 --> 00:20:05.519
Um one of our DNA videos, one of the first NA videos, he was part of it, and he he said something like We are good at preparing people to go to heaven, but we're not but we're kind of failing in preparing them to live on earth as we wait for heaven.
00:20:05.519 --> 00:20:12.160
Um and I think that's one of the main points, and the back to the point of making converts, making disciples, right?
00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:16.960
Uh the great commission about the command is to make disciples.
00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:23.200
Um and we have in some ways turned it into making converts.
00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:27.200
And as again, back to the conversational metrics, that's much easier to measure.
00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:29.599
Also, talk about missionary work, right?
00:20:29.599 --> 00:20:34.319
And and how we report back to our missions, organizations, and to our partners back home.
00:20:34.319 --> 00:21:00.079
It's so much easier to have a number where we say there's this is the number of converts, these are the number of churches that have been planted, and people um and as Vishal Mangaladi says the last hundred, two hundred years, the church has believed in this lie that the realm of the spiritual and religious belongs within the walls of the church on a particular day of the week, and the church has nothing to say to society and to culture outside.
00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:03.359
So this is all part of what we're talking about here, right?
00:21:03.359 --> 00:21:13.359
We have done something with this that has really uh uh robbed us, uh robbed us from flourishing in our mission.
00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:19.759
That includes, of course, the individual, the heart, the the mind that needs to be renewed, right?
00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:31.440
Because we come with our minds filled with uh Satan is a liar, he's the father of lies, and we live before and he's he's our he's the Lord, he's he's the master before you come to Christ.
00:21:31.440 --> 00:21:38.319
And once we come to Christ, all those lies need to be washed out, and and that's what God's truth does.
00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:43.440
The the heart is converted, but then the mind needs to be renewed, purified with truth.
00:21:43.440 --> 00:21:59.680
And then as that happens, it's so natural that we become these witnesses outside, not only in terms of proclamation of the gospel, which is key for conversion, there is no sustainable transformation without going through the door of redemption of what God.
00:21:59.680 --> 00:22:01.839
Christ did on the cross for us.
00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:05.680
But that is, as we say, there is the beginning really, right?
00:22:05.680 --> 00:22:08.400
Of transformation inside heart.
00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:33.039
And then it moves outside, and then we become this with our renewed mind with a biblical this idea of a biblical review, then we become these individuals in our marriages and families and neighborhoods and communities and society that will uh being being well discipled, we will be able to understand what God's ways are and what our ways are.
00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:52.400
And instead of running our ways, we start to say, God's ways actually they they they make my life and my society to flourish, and that discipleship of culture to align culture and society to God's ways that He gave to us from design, from creation, for us as individuals and for us as societies to flourish, right?
00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:59.200
So those are the first thoughts that come to my mind when I when I when I think about this whole challenge that we have, right?
00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:00.559
Yep.
00:23:00.559 --> 00:23:03.119
That was a great summary of the entire video.
00:23:03.119 --> 00:23:11.599
But now let's now let's break it down a little bit into a little bit more small bite-sized pieces, just getting into each one of those ideas.
00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:21.519
Uh so I'll play the video here and then we'll we'll pause it throughout the video, take a second to respond, and hopefully pull as many practical application steps as possible from this.
00:23:21.519 --> 00:23:23.119
So let's get into it.
00:23:23.519 --> 00:23:29.759
The gospel changes people, and changed people can change society, said the great theologian John Stott.
00:23:29.759 --> 00:23:32.880
God's kingdom advances from the inside out.
00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:39.680
It starts with an inward revolution in the hearts and minds of people before it begins to transform society.
00:23:39.680 --> 00:23:49.039
All genuine social change starts with inward transformation, not with political revolutions, policy changes, or any other form of social engineering.
00:23:49.039 --> 00:23:53.359
Jesus spoke about this inward to outward revolution in his parables.
00:23:53.359 --> 00:23:56.559
He said, His kingdom is like a mustard seed.
00:23:56.559 --> 00:24:00.480
It is tiny, almost invisible, and hidden beneath the ground.
00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:05.599
But it has the power to grow into a mighty tree that impacts everything around it.
00:24:05.599 --> 00:24:10.640
It begins in the human heart, the great beachhead in the advancement of God's kingdom.
00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:15.599
The heart must be transformed before anything else, for it is the wellspring of life.
00:24:15.599 --> 00:24:24.160
Through faith in Christ, our rebellious hearts of stone are replaced with hearts of flesh that beat for God and desire to do his will.
00:24:24.160 --> 00:24:29.279
God's kingdom advances by means of God's power working in and through us.
00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:46.880
I mean, we've already been talking about this, but really practically, why do you think when you meet Christians who don't connect their faith to everyday life, to every part of life, where does that come from?
00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:49.119
I know some of it's from a lack of teaching.
00:24:49.119 --> 00:24:51.039
Um I would say probably most of it.
00:24:51.039 --> 00:24:53.279
Let's just go around the horn and answer this question.
00:24:53.599 --> 00:25:00.960
Well, I I want to go, Luke, we're talking about the segment that we just watched, which I think in some ways you're jumping ahead to the next segment about worldview.
00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:04.799
This one is uh really about our our theory of change.
00:25:04.799 --> 00:25:13.599
And the big point that we make here in the beginning of the video is that it has to become, it has to begin inwardly, uh, that human beings need to be born again.
00:25:13.599 --> 00:25:23.039
They are fallen, they are sinful, um, they uh cannot bring positive change into the world um without an inward revolution.
00:25:23.039 --> 00:25:31.440
That word revolution was purposely chosen here, that God wants to see a revolution in a sense, a kingdom revolution, but that has to begin with a revolution in our hearts.
00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:35.839
And this is where I think evangelical Christians, uh, we certainly would agree, would agree with us.
00:25:35.839 --> 00:25:37.359
Yes, that's true.
00:25:37.359 --> 00:25:52.079
But I I uh the reason that I want to start there is because we still live in a world, especially in the West, since the progressive era of the of the mid to late 1800s, where this idea hasn't been affirmed in the culture.
00:25:52.079 --> 00:26:02.480
It's been just the opposite that um if you want to see change in the world, um you begin outside of the person in the society itself.
00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:04.559
You have some kind of like the French Revolution.
00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:05.440
We've got to overthrow.
00:26:05.440 --> 00:26:11.519
If we overthrow that king, if we overthrow the ecclesiastical rulers, we can create a utopia.
00:26:11.519 --> 00:26:15.440
Uh we see the same exact thing in New York City today, right?
00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:18.720
All of Marxism and communism is based on this idea.
00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:24.559
It's an overthrow, a reworking, a deconstruction at the level of society, and not just Marxists.
00:26:24.559 --> 00:26:34.559
I mean, a lot of enlightened liberals and progressives would say if we just got the right policy, if we got the right politician, this mindset puts our hope in politicians, politics, the state.
00:26:34.559 --> 00:26:40.319
If we just can tweak things, get things right at that level of politics and policy, everything's gonna be great.
00:26:40.319 --> 00:26:43.759
Um, that's the that's the modernist progressive mindset.
00:26:43.759 --> 00:26:46.720
It's been around for now 150 years.
00:26:46.720 --> 00:26:48.720
It hasn't completely gone away.
00:26:48.720 --> 00:26:53.440
I think there's been a lot of, now there's, I mean, certainly there's a lot of skepticism towards it, certainly.
00:26:53.440 --> 00:27:00.160
But but what the Bible does is the Bible says something radical that needs to just be really affirmed and underscored.
00:27:00.160 --> 00:27:02.640
God wants to see change in this broken world, okay?
00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:03.359
That's for sure.
00:27:03.359 --> 00:27:06.240
Okay, again, we may disagree with a lot of evangelical friends here.
00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:10.720
God does want us, he's not content with the brokenness and the injustice of this fallen world.
00:27:10.720 --> 00:27:12.640
He wants to see change, all right?
00:27:12.640 --> 00:27:15.519
And it's not just a change that he's gonna bring about when he comes back.
00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:17.039
He wants to see it now.
00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:19.279
But that change isn't gonna happen.
00:27:19.279 --> 00:27:23.599
This is the critique of the church, the truth to this modernist idea.
00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:25.440
It's not gonna happen unless people are born again.
00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:26.160
They're sinful.
00:27:26.160 --> 00:27:27.680
Like it's just not gonna happen.
00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:32.880
There has to be a revolution in the heart before there can be any kind of change in the society.
00:27:32.880 --> 00:27:36.319
So that's the simple point that we're trying to make here at the beginning of the video.
00:27:36.319 --> 00:27:38.160
I would just add one more thing.
00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:43.359
I think the the Bible does talk about this change, this process of change is something that's small.
00:27:43.359 --> 00:27:45.920
It's organic, it's small and grows.
00:27:45.920 --> 00:27:50.480
So it's the imagery is Jesus all uses this all the time, the growth, the seed.
00:27:50.480 --> 00:27:52.960
It's it's tiny, it's small, it's going to grow.
00:27:52.960 --> 00:27:53.440
Okay.
00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:55.759
And I think that's so important for us to realize.
00:27:55.759 --> 00:27:57.200
He used that imagery.
00:27:57.200 --> 00:27:59.920
Something that's small, it begins inwardly.
00:27:59.920 --> 00:28:00.799
We don't see it.
00:28:00.799 --> 00:28:03.680
You know, you can't see inside somebody's heart.
00:28:03.680 --> 00:28:04.799
But God does.
00:28:04.799 --> 00:28:07.440
And God, by the way, God is the one that changes human hearts.
00:28:07.440 --> 00:28:10.079
That's another really important point to bring about here.
00:28:10.079 --> 00:28:13.200
When we talk about a theory of change, it has to begin with God.
00:28:13.200 --> 00:28:16.079
It has to begin with something supernatural, not something I can do.
00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:17.920
I can't change your heart.
00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:23.039
God can, and he does that through the power of the Holy Spirit, through regeneration.
00:28:23.039 --> 00:28:25.359
Um, that's what that's the work of God.
00:28:25.359 --> 00:28:27.680
And that's where change begins.
00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:31.039
It has to begin with God, with this miracle of the changed heart.
00:28:31.039 --> 00:28:32.000
But then it's got to grow.
00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:35.839
It's got to be, it's got to this organic growth, and we'll talk about that next.
00:28:36.160 --> 00:28:41.359
Yeah, I mean, it that that final point of how this is really God's work is so important to keep in mind.
00:28:41.359 --> 00:28:47.680
You mentioned a couple examples of how people try to enact change in this world that are ineffective and very harmful.
00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:49.440
Marxism's the perfect example of that.
00:28:49.440 --> 00:28:53.200
What they tried doing there with the French Revolution, another good example.
00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:59.680
Um, what a lot of people try to do when they see countries in poverty, they try to fix it without actually affecting the human heart.
00:28:59.680 --> 00:29:09.279
They just try to slap a, you know, a bureaucratic solution on it, which is usually a bunch of food or a bunch of money, but without actually addressing the hearts that are involved there.
00:29:09.279 --> 00:29:14.160
Christianity is unique in the sense that it's not forcing, it's only offering.
00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:17.599
It's offering a better way, it's offering salvation, the free gift of salvation.
00:29:17.599 --> 00:29:21.279
God's offering it to us, respecting our freedom that He gave us.
00:29:21.279 --> 00:29:30.400
I think of a lot of other religions, you know, Islam's the perfect example of they're trying to force by the sword a lot of times um their their their belief system on people.
00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:31.359
That doesn't work.
00:29:31.359 --> 00:29:39.359
That doesn't have long-term uh impacting changes because it's not actually it's it it hasn't captured the hearts and minds of the people.
00:29:39.519 --> 00:29:47.599
It's yeah, I mean, I think what you're saying is so important right now, Luke, and I just want to underscore it because I think, you know, this is kind of we're talking about theory of change.
00:29:47.599 --> 00:29:51.039
Uh, and the Christians' theory of change is completely different.
00:29:51.039 --> 00:30:04.000
The the way that it happens is completely different than let's say a Marxist revolutionary or a Muslim or any other religion, which which tends to uh focus on force, coercion, uh, you know, censorship.
00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:10.160
We're gonna, we're gonna tweak things, we're gonna silence our critics, we're gonna create the false narrative, whatever it is.
00:30:10.160 --> 00:30:15.599
We're gonna we're gonna somehow figure out a way of turning the dials and switches so that we can impose.
00:30:15.599 --> 00:30:18.720
Christianity never is about imposing.
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Never.
00:30:20.480 --> 00:30:23.759
And if it is, if you ever see it, it means it's it's it's a wrong form.
00:30:23.759 --> 00:30:24.960
It's the wrong vision.
00:30:25.279 --> 00:30:28.480
It's being well, it's being untrue to the Bible and the and the model of Jesus Christ.
00:30:28.480 --> 00:30:31.920
It's always about showing, look, this is true.
00:30:31.920 --> 00:30:33.839
It's better, it's good.
00:30:33.839 --> 00:30:40.640
And there's something so powerful about that because when people are changed by seeing something like that that they want, I want that.
00:30:40.640 --> 00:30:44.240
Um, then they're changed from the inside, right?
00:30:44.240 --> 00:30:51.039
When people are changed through external force or coercion or fear, it doesn't actually touch their inside.
00:30:51.039 --> 00:30:55.359
You know, it's like, okay, I got to keep my mouth shut or I'm gonna get thrown in jail or whatever it is.
00:30:55.359 --> 00:31:02.319
Um that doesn't really change society, but Christianity has the power to change people from the inside through the power of God.
00:31:02.319 --> 00:31:04.079
It changes their affections.
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I love God.
00:31:05.279 --> 00:31:08.000
I want to please him, I want to do his will.
00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:13.119
So it's always about showing, showing a better way, showing a true way, a beautiful way.
00:31:13.119 --> 00:31:15.920
It's very powerful because it draws people.
00:31:15.920 --> 00:31:17.200
That's how I became a Christian.
00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:21.279
I saw a group of Christians praying in the morning, having devotions.
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They had joy in their face, they had true community, and I wanted it.
00:31:25.279 --> 00:31:27.119
I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm missing out.
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I want that.
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Whatever they have, I want that.
00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:31.680
That's the way Christianity changes and grows.
00:31:31.680 --> 00:31:33.839
Nelson, what are your thoughts on this?
00:31:34.480 --> 00:31:40.960
Yeah, uh, a few things, so many things that we you you good things there, um, Scott.
00:31:40.960 --> 00:31:47.440
One of the first things I think is we talk about this idea of the kingdom coming uh on earth as it is in heaven.
00:31:47.440 --> 00:31:49.279
Jesus, the Lord's prayer, right?
00:31:49.279 --> 00:31:58.799
And even this language of kingdoms, some people should say, well, I can't even relate to that because there's no no system of government these days that uh is is a kingdom.
00:31:58.799 --> 00:32:04.079
Jesus is using a word that's very appropriate to the times that he was living in.
00:32:04.079 --> 00:32:09.599
And to bring it to these days, uh, this idea of kingdom is really has to do with the idea of government.
00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:23.519
Rule, of God's rule and God's government being brought to our lives as individuals and to our societies so that they can flourish as it was God's original design from the beginning.
00:32:23.519 --> 00:32:32.640
Uh the other thing is uh um we talk about this life of faith as evangelicals, Pentecostals, and as I said, most of our audience comes from those two two sides.
00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:41.200
And uh uh I I remember John White, he's a Canadian actually, uh, lived close to the uh seminary that I think when I started studying Canada many, many years ago.
00:32:41.200 --> 00:32:50.160
John White, he's a psychiatrist too, and he used to say faith is a human response to a divine initiative.
00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:53.680
As Luke was saying, there is God's partner is our part.
00:32:53.680 --> 00:33:00.480
And this life of faith, we are responding to God, I mean to God's design, to God's revelation.
00:33:00.480 --> 00:33:04.640
Uh that that's the life of faith that he calls us to live by.
00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:06.319
And and so we are agents.
00:33:06.319 --> 00:33:16.799
So I think this whole idea of the when we talk about transformation, there is the individual, the agency that the individual has to open the heart, for the heart to be transformed.
00:33:16.799 --> 00:33:22.640
That's the that that's what we're saying here, the theory of change, it starts inside, it starts with the heart.
00:33:22.640 --> 00:33:34.400
If the heart is not transformed, as you said, Scott, you can go to the idea of revolution or whatever it is that we we uh if it starts in us, it it didn't start.
00:33:34.400 --> 00:33:36.640
At least it's not gonna be sustainable, right?
00:33:37.039 --> 00:33:39.039
And boy, isn't that a lesson we should have been learned?
00:33:39.039 --> 00:33:41.200
We have learned by now, but we haven't learned that lesson.
00:33:41.200 --> 00:33:45.440
We keep trying to impose it from the outside in, and it never works.
00:33:47.200 --> 00:33:49.200
And then back to the DNA teachings, right?
00:33:49.200 --> 00:33:50.319
Roots and fruits.
00:33:50.319 --> 00:33:57.599
Well, you want to start with the fruits, but you never if you never deal with the roots, you're not changing the truth, right?
00:33:57.599 --> 00:34:00.480
Um so so we have agency, the individual.
00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:06.160
So so talk talk about uh the struggle to connect uh our faith with with everyday life.
00:34:06.160 --> 00:34:08.719
It has to start with transformation of the heart.
00:34:08.719 --> 00:34:14.000
Uh this human response to God's initiative of salvation of the heart.
00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:17.440
But salvation is so much broader than that, then it starts to go, right?
00:34:17.440 --> 00:34:24.639
But but the struggle also comes, I think, because of uh of course, of course, the culture discipline the church.
00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:31.840
The struggle that we have to connect our faith to everyday life, it has to do with how our culture has been pressing us, right?
00:34:31.840 --> 00:34:35.760
And saying to us that our faith has nothing to say.
00:34:35.760 --> 00:34:38.559
That's a private issue.
00:34:38.559 --> 00:34:44.400
It's it's right, and again, back to what we said, uh Christianity is not a private faith, it's a public truth.
00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:47.519
But we keep believing this life that it's a private faith.
00:34:47.519 --> 00:34:56.800
So so the culture keeps keeps adding to this struggle between uh to engage our faith with everyday life.
00:34:56.800 --> 00:35:03.119
Culture keeps feeding that to keep us believing that it is a private faith.
00:35:03.119 --> 00:35:05.039
And then there's the church, right?
00:35:05.039 --> 00:35:16.480
The church has because of that also, because culture has been pressing so much in the last century or two centuries, like you said, even from mid-19th, 18th century.
00:35:16.480 --> 00:35:21.920
Um there's the church, the church has reduced the mission to inside, right?
00:35:21.920 --> 00:35:24.400
Okay, this uh it's too much.
00:35:24.400 --> 00:35:34.960
That's not our arena to deal with society and the struggles and the evils, so we deal with what is inside, we withdraw in a sense, right?
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:45.199
Um and we are inside and and so so the the I I think to put all this together, as Stephen Garber says, we are all implicated as Christians.
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:47.599
We are all implicated.
00:35:47.599 --> 00:36:06.480
How to how to look and see the brokenness, um and knowing what we know, still love God's people, the people that God created in his image and societies and nations, so that we what am I what am I gonna do about it?
00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:08.000
I am implicated.
00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:10.159
We are all, you all have agencies, right?
00:36:10.159 --> 00:36:21.360
We are implicated with that, and as and as Eugenie Peterson, a professor at Region College, to say too, there's no private uh uh belief or action.
00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:26.239
Everything we do, right, it has implications.
00:36:26.239 --> 00:36:27.760
We are implicated.
00:36:27.760 --> 00:36:39.039
So so this idea of us as individuals, the culture pressing us, the the how the church has reduced emission, all of this feeds to that struggle of connecting our faith with everyday life.
00:36:39.039 --> 00:36:40.400
It starts with our agency.
00:36:40.400 --> 00:36:41.360
Yes, we have agency.
00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:46.400
I hear you bringing up kind of a new point here, Nelson, but I also think it's really important.
00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:50.320
It's an area where I continue to hear a lot of misunderstanding in the church.
00:36:50.320 --> 00:36:54.719
When you talk about our part or agency, the the role that we play.
00:36:54.719 --> 00:36:59.280
I, you know, I think it's I mentioned that salvation ultimately is God's doing.
00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:00.880
You know, He's the one that saves us.
00:37:00.880 --> 00:37:02.960
He I cannot change your heart.
00:37:02.960 --> 00:37:03.840
God can.
00:37:03.840 --> 00:37:15.199
Um, and um but then that can lead to this idea that uh anything that uh contributes to positive change in the world really has to be done by God.
00:37:15.199 --> 00:37:28.559
And that idea gets carried too far, and the idea that I have a role to play is kind of diminished, you know, that that no, the kingdom advancing, uh I, you know, the idea is that I have nothing to do with that.
00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:29.360
That's all God.
00:37:29.360 --> 00:37:32.000
God brings his kingdom, I don't do anything.
00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:44.159
And then you can, you know, on the opposite side, you could you could kind of have this deistic idea or this kind of social gospel idea that it's all up to me, it's up to up to society, government, whatever.
00:37:44.159 --> 00:37:46.480
God doesn't really have a role to play in it.
00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:49.840
Um I think that both of these are incorrect.
00:37:49.840 --> 00:38:01.679
I think that the the correct ideas that uh biblical ideas that um and we see this by the way all the way back in the Garden of Eden, when God creates human beings in his image and gives them dominion, gives them rule.
00:38:01.679 --> 00:38:07.119
So God, the king, is going to choose to share his rule with human beings.
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:13.599
And I feel like that same thing can be carried over into the process of uh reconciliation and redemption in the New Testament.
00:38:13.599 --> 00:38:17.039
God is the lead, he's the one who leads the whole process.
00:38:17.039 --> 00:38:27.599
It's it's him in the lead, it's his power, but he calls us, he gives us the privilege of joining with him, and we have a responsibility therefore to join with him and to do what we can.
00:38:27.599 --> 00:38:30.079
That's the agency part uh as well.
00:38:30.079 --> 00:38:32.960
So it's not good if we say, Oh, it's all up to God.
00:38:32.960 --> 00:38:35.440
I just kind of I don't have a role to play in this.
00:38:35.440 --> 00:38:37.039
No, that's not biblical.
00:38:37.039 --> 00:38:41.360
That would be unbiblical and unfaithful to your calling.
00:38:41.360 --> 00:38:42.320
God has called you.
00:38:42.320 --> 00:38:44.000
We're gonna get into that later.
00:38:44.480 --> 00:38:48.639
And that's why I like John White when he says it's the it's a human faith, right?
00:38:48.639 --> 00:38:50.639
It's a human response.
00:38:50.639 --> 00:38:51.679
That is our partners.
00:38:51.679 --> 00:38:52.320
That's right.
00:38:52.320 --> 00:38:53.599
But it is a divine initiative.
00:38:54.079 --> 00:38:57.039
God takes the initiative, he's in the lead, he's the lead partner, right?
00:38:57.039 --> 00:38:58.239
Yeah, absolutely.
00:38:58.559 --> 00:38:59.199
Yeah, yeah.
00:38:59.199 --> 00:39:01.840
And also I like you, you remember Bob Osborne.
00:39:01.840 --> 00:39:09.039
I like what Bob Osborne says about he puts these two with his students, he puts these two things together, freedom and order.
00:39:09.039 --> 00:39:11.679
And he asks the question, right?
00:39:11.679 --> 00:39:17.599
Uh uh, how how would you like to deal with both of those together?
00:39:17.599 --> 00:39:24.719
And then they have the discussions, and they always come to this too much freedom without order leads to anarchy.
00:39:24.719 --> 00:39:29.280
Too much order without freedom leads to totalitarianism.
00:39:29.280 --> 00:39:38.480
So he ends up saying the only way to put those together for for you to flourish is to come under the lordship of Christ.
00:39:38.719 --> 00:39:39.280
Where there is both.
00:39:39.519 --> 00:39:40.239
Because that's right.
00:39:40.239 --> 00:39:49.599
Where it is both, both freedom and order, maximum freedom, as much as a human being can take, maximum order, because we need to work with that, right?
00:39:49.599 --> 00:39:54.719
So so it it is, it is our part, of course, and but it is a divine initiative.
00:39:54.719 --> 00:39:56.960
It's got God is the great initiator.
00:39:57.440 --> 00:39:58.559
Yeah, no, that's right.
00:39:58.559 --> 00:40:07.199
Yeah, and that's why I think at the end, when we stand before Christ, you know, um, there's the image of well done, good and faithful servant.
00:40:07.199 --> 00:40:11.519
If we if we do our part and if we're faithful, you know, that's kind of the reward.
00:40:11.519 --> 00:40:14.960
And our response to that isn't, yep, I did it.
00:40:14.960 --> 00:40:22.320
No, our response to that is I could have done nothing without you, Lord Jesus.
00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:25.679
You get all the honor, a hundred percent of the glory.
00:40:25.679 --> 00:40:27.679
That's the that's the Christian picture.
00:40:27.840 --> 00:40:28.079
Yeah.
00:40:28.079 --> 00:40:28.559
Yeah.
00:40:28.559 --> 00:40:29.760
But the privilege, right?
00:40:29.760 --> 00:40:33.280
The privilege God that He calls us to work with.
00:40:33.280 --> 00:40:34.239
It's the privilege.
00:40:34.239 --> 00:40:36.239
That's the way we need to see every day.
00:40:36.559 --> 00:40:36.800
Yes.
00:40:36.800 --> 00:40:37.519
That's right.
00:40:37.519 --> 00:40:38.239
As a privilege.
00:40:38.239 --> 00:40:39.599
He's gonna do something.
00:40:39.599 --> 00:40:43.920
And we're gonna get into this later in the video, but that you have a role to play, that you have a providential role.
00:40:43.920 --> 00:40:52.400
You actually, God has a part for you to play, as it says in Ephesians, He's prepared good works in advance for you to walk in.
00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:55.119
And so, anyways, I'm getting ahead of the video.
00:40:55.119 --> 00:40:56.079
Yeah, sorry.
00:40:56.320 --> 00:40:57.760
This is such a fun discussion.
00:40:57.760 --> 00:41:04.400
Um, I mean, and and back to just this basic theory of change we have as Christians, this is the narrative of the entire Bible.
00:41:04.400 --> 00:41:10.000
A lot of people break it down to the four big chapters creation, fall, redemption, consummation.
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:13.760
After the fall, though, God institutes a theory of change.
00:41:13.760 --> 00:41:19.920
So creation, fall, and then God says to Abraham, here's my theory of change to help this world that's broken and fallen.
00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:23.360
You are gonna, I'm gonna raise up your family to go and bless the nations.
00:41:23.360 --> 00:41:24.000
That's right.
00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:28.960
But unfortunately, because there is not that heart change available through the saving work of Jesus.
00:41:28.960 --> 00:41:30.480
That's gonna come later, right?
00:41:30.480 --> 00:41:30.880
Yep.
00:41:30.880 --> 00:41:38.960
The the the people of Abraham, Israel tries to bless the nations, but they can't do it because without changed hearts, you can't change nations.
00:41:38.960 --> 00:41:39.599
That's right.
00:41:39.599 --> 00:41:42.559
But then Jesus comes, he saves us, that's the redemption.
00:41:42.559 --> 00:41:48.400
And now, unlike the Old Testament, we have the freedom to actually enact God's theory of change to do what?
00:41:48.400 --> 00:41:49.519
Bless the nations.
00:41:49.519 --> 00:41:51.360
Same same same mission.
00:41:51.360 --> 00:41:52.960
Disciple the nations.
00:41:52.960 --> 00:41:56.719
You know, that's just the same thing, different words in the New Testament.
00:41:56.719 --> 00:41:58.800
But now our hearts are changed.
00:41:58.800 --> 00:41:59.360
That's right.
00:41:59.360 --> 00:42:00.239
So that's the change.
00:42:00.239 --> 00:42:01.760
This is where we live now.
00:42:01.760 --> 00:42:06.159
What an opportunity that I hope we don't miss to go and bless the nations.
00:42:06.159 --> 00:42:06.559
Amen.
00:42:06.559 --> 00:42:11.519
And just this is the basic story of the entire Bible until the consummation when all things are made right.
00:42:11.519 --> 00:42:18.239
But during this time we have the changed hearts, we have the ability to have our hearts changed because of Jesus, and now we're called to go and change the nations.
00:42:18.239 --> 00:42:26.800
So it's this is just the basic story of the whole thing, and missing that is just such a such a small vision.
00:42:26.800 --> 00:42:28.639
Anyways, let's hop back into the video real quick.
00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:32.079
The next step in the advancement of God's kingdom is the mind.
00:42:32.079 --> 00:42:35.119
We must be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
00:42:35.119 --> 00:42:38.960
We must take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
00:42:38.960 --> 00:42:41.199
We must think biblically about God.
00:42:41.199 --> 00:42:46.719
The lies of the dark kingdom must be discerned, rejected, and replaced with the truth.
00:42:46.719 --> 00:42:55.119
From these divinely renovated depths, our whole life is progressively transformed to increasingly reflect the character of the king.
00:42:55.440 --> 00:42:55.920
All right.
00:42:55.920 --> 00:43:00.400
So now we're moving from the idea of from changed hearts to changed minds.
00:43:00.400 --> 00:43:03.840
Uh, I guess my my basic question here is why why is there an order there?
00:43:03.840 --> 00:43:05.199
Hearts first, then minds.
00:43:05.199 --> 00:43:06.880
Is there supposed to be an order?
00:43:06.880 --> 00:43:08.719
And if there is, why?
00:43:09.199 --> 00:43:10.639
Yeah, that's a good question, Luke.
00:43:10.639 --> 00:43:12.639
I think there is an order to that.
00:43:12.639 --> 00:43:19.119
Um the renewal of the heart, I think, is is a is a divine work of God.
00:43:19.119 --> 00:43:27.920
But it's interesting when people come to faith in Christ, their hearts are renewed, they are saved, they're regenerated, brought from death to life.
00:43:27.920 --> 00:43:36.639
But what I've noticed is that there, while their minds begin to be changed, uh, it's only the beginning.
00:43:36.639 --> 00:43:49.360
It's not like new believers immediately put off whatever cultural beliefs or ideas or philosophies that they've held all their lives, and then immediately have this complete, full biblical worldview, this biblical understanding of things.
00:43:49.360 --> 00:43:50.880
That's not the case.
00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:54.480
Um, that part actually has to be worked at.
00:43:54.480 --> 00:43:56.159
Uh, it has to be taught.
00:43:56.159 --> 00:43:58.320
This is in the realm of discipleship.
00:43:58.320 --> 00:43:59.760
And by the way, I think this is.
00:43:59.760 --> 00:44:04.159
This is for most evangelical Pentecostal Bible believing churches.
00:44:04.159 --> 00:44:08.880
This is where we get into error because this is where neglect begins to happen.
00:44:08.880 --> 00:44:09.199
Okay.
00:44:09.199 --> 00:44:17.440
Again, as you've said, Nelson, kind of the metrics of success end with people raising their hand and saying that they've been saved.
00:44:17.440 --> 00:44:19.599
Uh, that's where we rejoice, success.
00:44:19.599 --> 00:44:22.000
You know, we've done our work, it's great.
00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:25.920
But uh what getting what's what gets neglected is discipleship.
00:44:25.920 --> 00:44:41.199
And we're talking here about n, you know, again, not any kind of discipleship, but a very specific kind of discipleship, a discipleship of the mind in a biblical worldview, a bib the full biblical story of God, creation, fall, redemption, consummation.
00:44:41.199 --> 00:44:42.639
And I think that's so important.
00:44:42.639 --> 00:44:47.760
Again, so much of our discipleship is about concepts and ideas, theological ideas.
00:44:47.760 --> 00:44:59.199
That's all good and true, but it's not ever taught, or it's uh usually not taught in the context of the broad story of reality, the story of reality, the biblical story of reality.
00:44:59.199 --> 00:45:04.960
And as Christians, as people, people before they become Christians, they live in a story.
00:45:04.960 --> 00:45:08.800
They live in an animistic story, a secular story, postmodern, you name it.
00:45:08.800 --> 00:45:10.239
They live in a story.
00:45:10.239 --> 00:45:14.559
And that story, that worldview, that mindset has to change.
00:45:14.559 --> 00:45:16.960
I've noticed it doesn't change automatically.
00:45:16.960 --> 00:45:23.119
God doesn't do it like divinely, like boom, now you you fully have a Christian mind.
00:45:23.119 --> 00:45:24.880
That's a lifelong process.
00:45:24.880 --> 00:45:26.400
It has to be done intentionally.
00:45:26.400 --> 00:45:29.199
The church has a role to play in discipleship.
00:45:29.199 --> 00:45:30.480
We have a role to play.
00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:32.639
This is highly neglected.
00:45:32.639 --> 00:45:36.239
In my, this is my critique of a lot of evangelicalism.
00:45:36.239 --> 00:45:37.599
Is this part's neglected?
00:45:37.599 --> 00:45:41.440
Nelson, you've used the imagery of gears, and I think that's really helpful.
00:45:41.440 --> 00:45:46.159
The kind of the driving gear, if you will, kind of this mechanistic idea, but I think it's still very helpful.
00:45:46.159 --> 00:45:48.239
This driving gear is the changed heart.
00:45:48.239 --> 00:45:52.159
That's the, that's the one, that's the that's where all the power comes from.
00:45:52.159 --> 00:45:54.480
That's where it begins, the changed heart.
00:45:54.480 --> 00:46:05.679
But that's to connect to another gear, that's the changed mind, and yet that's to connect to yet a third gear, and that's the the obedience to that, the living out of that in a way that brings change in society.
00:46:05.679 --> 00:46:09.679
Those three gears are meant to be going moving together.
00:46:09.679 --> 00:46:13.920
And yet we've disconnected the first and the second gear.
00:46:13.920 --> 00:46:18.880
And this is really kind of the DNA's critique and challenge to the church.
00:46:18.880 --> 00:46:20.320
This needs to be done.
00:46:20.320 --> 00:46:40.800
We need to disciple people in a biblical worldview, uh so that their false understandings about what does it mean to be human, about ultimate reality, a human nature, about the source of resources, or whatever it may be, that false understanding is replaced by the by a true one.
00:46:42.559 --> 00:46:47.360
Yeah, and and I and the one of the reasons I I and that comes from Discipline Nations, the book, right?
00:46:47.360 --> 00:47:02.239
And and all these images that I I like, these images and images that that portray this kind of idea, uh Scott, because for me one of the centers, one of the centers is integration.
00:47:02.239 --> 00:47:14.079
We are so we we have in many ways followed our postmodern culture so much, and one of the words that best describe our postmodern culture is fragmentation.
00:47:14.079 --> 00:47:22.800
We fragment, we separate, as we said, we separate with the and we put in a sequence novel at first.
00:47:22.800 --> 00:47:26.960
I need to evangelize and the the person needs to say yes to Christ.
00:47:26.960 --> 00:47:29.199
Then I start to decide with that person.
00:47:29.199 --> 00:47:39.360
And and and sometimes if they uh they acknowledge that we need to be witnessing society and for the transformation of society, then that comes next.
00:47:39.360 --> 00:47:41.440
And it is not it is an integration.
00:47:41.440 --> 00:47:44.159
I mean, God planned for all of this to be an integration.
00:47:44.159 --> 00:47:46.000
That's what being human actually is.
00:47:46.320 --> 00:47:47.440
Yes, we're integrated being human.
00:47:47.679 --> 00:47:50.159
That's back to being truly and fully human, right?
00:47:50.159 --> 00:47:52.239
All these things are going together.
00:47:52.239 --> 00:48:08.239
The the in a in in in in in the original design and ultimate design from God, the mind, the heart, everything was working out, and that and we are creating, we are creating culture, we are creating artifacts, we're making life work and flourish.
00:48:08.239 --> 00:48:11.280
But we live in a broken uh fall is a reality.
00:48:11.280 --> 00:48:14.719
But redemption brings this integration back, right?
00:48:14.719 --> 00:48:18.880
That now the heart, the mind, the service in society, and discipleship.
00:48:18.880 --> 00:48:21.519
We talk about discipleship, and we add the word again.
00:48:21.519 --> 00:48:23.119
We say holistic discipleship.
00:48:23.119 --> 00:48:25.519
That's getting at that point of the job.
00:48:25.519 --> 00:48:30.880
Integration, and that's just to remind us because we have abandoned it is discipleship period.
00:48:30.880 --> 00:48:34.639
But we need to add we need to qualify, yeah.
00:48:34.639 --> 00:48:39.920
We need to qualify, not to remind ourselves that it is an integration of things, right?
00:48:39.920 --> 00:48:40.719
The heart.
00:48:40.719 --> 00:48:42.880
Again, the three cogs together, right?
00:48:42.880 --> 00:48:56.719
As the heart is changed, the mind needs to needs to be renewed, and and we need to be servants in society to see our society discipled to align with God's ways and flourish, right?
00:48:56.719 --> 00:48:58.159
So individuals change hearts.
00:48:58.159 --> 00:49:06.719
So it is this integration of things that I really sometimes we miss or you want to break and put in a sequence.
00:49:06.719 --> 00:49:09.119
Um, and then we do a disservice into our mission.
00:49:09.119 --> 00:49:09.920
That's correct.
00:49:09.920 --> 00:49:10.239
Yeah.
00:49:10.719 --> 00:49:10.880
Yeah.
00:49:10.880 --> 00:49:22.079
I think of uh Nelson, the disciples of Jesus, often when we talk this way about you know the changed hearts and changed minds, because you think about the followers of Jesus who walked with him, they had changed hearts.
00:49:22.079 --> 00:49:37.840
They had hearts that beat for Christ and loved Christ, but they still had kind of false ideas about who he was all the way up until the res, you know, the uh crucifixion, resurrection, until he appeared to them, you know, and said, you know, he Jesus often made the comment, do you still not understand, right?
00:49:37.840 --> 00:49:42.000
Do you still think in this false worldly way, you know, even after you've been with me?
00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:52.960
So, you know, if if the people that walked with him, you know, in in the flesh kind of were prone to having false ideas about reality, uh, how much more us, right?
00:49:53.119 --> 00:49:54.400
So but Yeah.
00:49:54.400 --> 00:49:57.519
Yeah, this this may be a little bit off the topic, but maybe not.
00:49:57.519 --> 00:50:01.440
Some people talk about Peter and his three conversions, right?
00:50:01.440 --> 00:50:04.480
I mean, he met Jesus, and here's a conversion, right?
00:50:04.480 --> 00:50:07.840
But then he he betrays, he denies Jesus.
00:50:07.840 --> 00:50:09.599
So Jesus asks him, Do you love me?
00:50:09.599 --> 00:50:11.440
They say second conversion.
00:50:11.440 --> 00:50:18.159
And then he's at Cornelio's house, uh, and and and God converts him to the nations.
00:50:18.159 --> 00:50:20.960
Uh, so there's all these conversions going to be like.
00:50:22.960 --> 00:50:24.079
You're thinking wrongly.
00:50:24.079 --> 00:50:31.440
My my plan of redemption is going to extend beyond the Jewish people to the to all the nations.
00:50:31.440 --> 00:50:33.920
Uh, and and he had to he had to understand that.
00:50:33.920 --> 00:50:41.360
And I take heart in that because for me, in my own life, this process of worldview transformation has been like that.
00:50:41.360 --> 00:50:43.440
It's not something that happens overnight.
00:50:43.440 --> 00:50:45.199
That can happen through redemption.
00:50:45.199 --> 00:50:48.880
You know, Lord Jesus, forgive me a sinner, have mercy on me.
00:50:48.880 --> 00:50:50.559
I accept you as my Lord and Savior.
00:50:50.559 --> 00:50:57.119
There's a true immediate uh result to that, the justification, born again, new heart.
00:50:57.119 --> 00:51:01.440
And it, you know, many things happen almost instantaneously with that.
00:51:01.440 --> 00:51:17.440
The renewal of the mind in my own experience is this kind of drip, drip, drip little by little, you know, where I'm changing my mind by God's grace and strength and the help of fellow believers and um through the truth of the Bible, just renewing my mind with the truth of the Bible.
00:51:17.440 --> 00:51:28.000
You know, it's it's this drip, drip, drip change from what I used to have, which was a very secular, materialistic, individualistic mindset common in the West, to now much more of a biblical mind, you know.
00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:29.360
And I I'm not there yet, right?
00:51:29.360 --> 00:51:30.960
I mean, it's still changing, right?
00:51:30.960 --> 00:51:33.199
There's still this work that needs to be done.
00:51:33.199 --> 00:51:39.920
But but the idea that I want to get across in this video is that has to be understood and has to be very intentional.
00:51:39.920 --> 00:51:48.400
And churches have to disciple at the level of worldview, not just at the level of theological truths, but at the level of worldview.
00:51:48.400 --> 00:51:50.000
And that has to be done intentionally.
00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:51.280
And I think we're neglecting that.
00:51:51.280 --> 00:51:58.639
And Barnes says as much, you know, in his research, you know, we can see that people love Christ and are in church, but they don't have a biblical mind.
00:51:58.639 --> 00:52:01.280
That's basically the thrust of his research.
00:52:02.239 --> 00:52:02.559
Yeah.
00:52:02.559 --> 00:52:11.199
And I like what our the DNA friend aturokuba he keeps reminding us that this is a this change of mind, right?
00:52:11.199 --> 00:52:14.400
Worldview is a lifelong ongoing process.
00:52:14.400 --> 00:52:18.719
Really, he says it's it's so it's keeps like you said, Scott.
00:52:18.719 --> 00:52:27.280
And and the other thing that he's he uh that Barna says, you mentioned Barna, he he said the the the need for us to start early with two.
00:52:27.840 --> 00:52:28.719
Absolutely, yes.
00:52:28.960 --> 00:52:29.280
Right?
00:52:29.280 --> 00:52:32.480
Because if you think an auto, he already comes.
00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:33.440
I already kidnapped.
00:52:33.440 --> 00:52:34.079
It's really hard to do that.
00:52:34.239 --> 00:52:36.079
That room is deeply established, right?
00:52:36.079 --> 00:52:36.800
Yeah, that falls.
00:52:36.800 --> 00:52:39.599
All right.
00:52:39.599 --> 00:52:40.000
Okay.
00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:41.039
Luke, what do you think?
00:52:41.039 --> 00:52:43.519
What are your thoughts on this section?
00:52:43.840 --> 00:52:45.679
Oh, I'm enjoying the discussion here.
00:52:45.679 --> 00:52:54.800
It's it's it's interesting to see how many times we make this mistake of trying to separate these though, into you know, focusing on the heart only or the mind only.
00:52:54.800 --> 00:52:55.119
Right.
00:52:55.119 --> 00:52:56.639
And it you we can never do that.
00:52:56.639 --> 00:52:58.239
There's there's pitfalls on both sides.
00:52:58.239 --> 00:53:03.280
I think of how many people though try to find wisdom without a regenerate heart.
00:53:03.280 --> 00:53:06.559
It's a story of every most philosophers throughout history, right?
00:53:06.559 --> 00:53:07.039
Yep.
00:53:07.039 --> 00:53:12.800
They'll they'll look at like the book of Proverbs and they'll say, Oh, what a lovely resource of principles that I can apply into my life.
00:53:12.800 --> 00:53:18.719
I'm gonna try to do all these through grit and willpower, and if I can do them all, then I'll be a wise man.
00:53:18.719 --> 00:53:21.760
It's like, no, you're forgetting the first chapter of Proverbs.
00:53:21.760 --> 00:53:30.000
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the regenerate heart, the soft heart towards the Lord, the respect for the Lord, the love of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
00:53:30.320 --> 00:53:35.679
And I think it was Solomon himself that said the heart is the, you know, the um, what is oh shoot, that famous verse.
00:53:35.679 --> 00:53:37.599
The heart is the wellspring, right?
00:53:37.599 --> 00:53:41.199
He he he talked about the heart being the wellspring, it's the source, yeah.
00:53:41.199 --> 00:53:41.760
Uh-huh.
00:53:41.760 --> 00:53:42.800
Yeah, exactly.
00:53:42.800 --> 00:53:45.440
Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of your life.
00:53:45.440 --> 00:53:50.079
I think that was the verse, and I I don't have the reference, but it's guard your heart because it's the wellspring.
00:53:52.079 --> 00:54:06.719
Um, or even as Christians, sometimes we do this, we kind of separate like head knowledge from our heart, and we we we almost treat you know orthodoxy or theology like just a list of principles that if we can memorize these all, then I'm a good Christian.
00:54:06.719 --> 00:54:11.599
And it's it would but without the soft heart towards the Lord and the the relationship with the Lord.
00:54:11.599 --> 00:54:18.320
Francis Schaefer once said, biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world.
00:54:18.320 --> 00:54:34.880
And kind of in drawing that that parallel there is the compassion, that soft heart for the world and for the Lord needs to be tied to our orthodoxy, otherwise you're gonna end up with this kind of like pharisaical, you know, uh whitewashed wall or whitewashed tombs kind of kind of person.
00:54:34.880 --> 00:54:37.360
So you just connecting this is so important.
00:54:37.360 --> 00:54:38.480
It's a one-two step.
00:54:38.719 --> 00:54:45.760
And you can never yeah, and if I could add, Luke, I think this is something that Jordan Peterson has said that I really agree with, just fully agree with.
00:54:45.760 --> 00:54:52.400
He said, you know, that we all people live by and civilizations live by stories.
00:54:52.400 --> 00:54:56.719
Um they have a story of reality and they live by that.
00:54:56.719 --> 00:55:01.360
Uh we're God made us in a sense this way, you know, we are storied people.
00:55:01.360 --> 00:55:18.239
Um and yet I think a lot of our discipleship neglects that story aspect and it assumes that if we just uh kind of deal with principles, as you were saying, or truths and memorize those, um, then we then kind of job is done.
00:55:18.239 --> 00:55:26.000
But the st my observation is that you can actually memorize some of these truths and principles, but you still may be living in the false story.
00:55:26.000 --> 00:55:31.760
In other words, you have to change the story, you have to tell the true story as a story.
00:55:31.760 --> 00:55:35.679
Again, Jordan Peterson's point, but I think it's also just true of the Bible.
00:55:35.679 --> 00:55:37.840
The Bible itself is a story.
00:55:37.840 --> 00:55:51.280
So um I th I think biblical worldview discipleship is in some ways what I'm arguing here is the is the process of changing the story from a false story to a new story, not just memorizing truths or principles.
00:55:51.280 --> 00:55:56.960
Um the the you can do that, and that's not bad, but it's something we're talking about something deeper here.
00:55:56.960 --> 00:55:58.000
Go ahead, Nelson.
00:55:58.400 --> 00:55:58.559
Yeah.
00:55:58.559 --> 00:56:06.559
Yeah, I was gonna say, and when there's I mean it be it's so deep for me that when you look to the Bible to the and to the grand story of the Bible.
00:56:06.559 --> 00:56:07.280
That's the thing.
00:56:07.280 --> 00:56:16.079
I mean I you you can go to different uh theological institutions and come out of them with this whole all the systematic theology.
00:56:16.079 --> 00:56:17.920
Let's let's talk about systematic theology.
00:56:17.920 --> 00:56:22.239
We have all these blocks where you study God, but where do you integrate those things?
00:56:22.239 --> 00:56:22.800
Exactly.
00:56:22.880 --> 00:56:25.119
That's what that's what the story does, is integrate them.
00:56:25.760 --> 00:56:33.920
That's the story, and that's what we the DNA does as well, is to bring us back to this grand story of the Bible, the grand story of God in the Bible, right?
00:56:33.920 --> 00:56:37.760
That and and and the grand story of God in the Bible is God Himself.
00:56:38.159 --> 00:56:39.119
The story of God, that's right.
00:56:39.119 --> 00:56:39.360
Yeah.
00:56:39.679 --> 00:56:51.360
The the written word, the revelation is nothing more, nothing less than God Himself putting it in a written form, who he is, and revealing, that's what we believe in revelation.
00:56:51.360 --> 00:56:53.840
He reveals himself to us, right?
00:56:53.840 --> 00:57:05.360
And and so the whole idea of the written word, the grand story of the Bible, and then we have this logos that he manifests himself in Jesus, his presence among us, he incarnates, right?
00:57:05.360 --> 00:57:07.039
And then there's the Holy Spirit.
00:57:07.039 --> 00:57:09.920
We talk about changed hearts, renewed minds.
00:57:09.920 --> 00:57:17.760
That God is present right now within us, working this changed heart, working this renewed mind.
00:57:17.760 --> 00:57:21.840
That's not it again, it's uh ours is a response.
00:57:21.840 --> 00:57:40.079
But it is God's work, and and there are two parts God's part and our part, but it is it is to God taking the initiative, and that and that's why uh we mess it up by by isolating ourselves and trying sometimes to think that we are the ones who are gonna do these things, change hearts, that's right.
00:57:40.079 --> 00:57:43.119
Uh uh right, uh renewed mind.
00:57:43.119 --> 00:57:56.079
Uh it is our response, it it is our part, and such necessary, and those things have to be moving together so that our societies can flourish based on God's ways, God's look at Psalm 19, 119, right?
00:57:56.079 --> 00:57:58.559
Look at Psalm 119, it's full.
00:57:58.559 --> 00:58:12.639
Uh I I I like I I I I like to read Psalm 19 and the verse of the message, and the Eugenie Peter says, How can a young person live a clean life by uh carefully reading the map of your word?
00:58:12.639 --> 00:58:17.760
Uh so there's a map that God has established for us to flourish, right?
00:58:17.760 --> 00:58:29.199
Um so so the whole Trinity involved, the grand story of the Bible, the Bible written the Revelation, the incarnation, Jesus, the Holy Spirit now uh coming and being with us, right?
00:58:29.199 --> 00:58:30.800
So we are not alone in this.
00:58:30.800 --> 00:58:32.960
And I will I have not left you alone.
00:58:33.039 --> 00:58:37.599
And Nelson, uh, for our listeners who are not aware, Nelson is our team Pentecostal.
00:58:37.599 --> 00:58:44.880
And when he when he gets onto the Holy Spirit, you know, because because Luke and I are not Pentecostals, he always dials it down and tries to be nice to us.
00:58:44.880 --> 00:58:47.679
But I I just want you to dial it back up, Nelson.
00:58:47.679 --> 00:58:50.159
You know, we're talking about the power of God, right?
00:58:50.159 --> 00:58:51.599
We're talking about the very powerful.
00:58:51.599 --> 00:58:55.519
So just be full Pentecostal here, Nelson, when you talk about the Holy Ghost.
00:58:55.840 --> 00:59:06.960
That's that's another discussion that as Pentecostal have taken that word power, and we have been we have been saying for so long, it's power for sanctification personal and it's power for evangelist proclamation.
00:59:06.960 --> 00:59:09.679
But power is a dynamic, the word dunamis.
00:59:09.679 --> 00:59:12.639
I I'm I'm still trying to unpack that.
00:59:12.639 --> 00:59:19.599
There is a dunamis, there's a whole dynamic talk of forces that comes from heaven to earth to know.
00:59:19.599 --> 00:59:22.079
Anyway, that's another discussion.
00:59:22.719 --> 00:59:23.280
Preach, man.
00:59:23.280 --> 00:59:24.000
There you go.
00:59:25.599 --> 00:59:26.800
Preacher Pentecostal.
00:59:28.960 --> 00:59:33.519
All right, let's let's get into the the let's just go through the final segment of the video here.
00:59:33.519 --> 00:59:38.400
This is where we're really gonna dive into what this looks like, how to live this out in practical ways.
00:59:38.400 --> 00:59:40.239
This is the theory of change lived out.
00:59:40.239 --> 00:59:42.480
We we unpacked in a few steps.
00:59:42.480 --> 00:59:46.559
And uh for you guys listening, I know this is an audio-only podcast.
00:59:46.559 --> 00:59:50.880
On episodes like this, I do feel bad that it is because this is a really cool video to watch.
00:59:50.880 --> 00:59:52.480
It's really beautiful, really well done.
00:59:52.480 --> 00:59:56.639
Our our friend Samuel Felix, who's an animation artist down in Brazil, made this video.
00:59:56.639 --> 01:00:01.760
So we highly recommend that you guys, if you have a second, go and watch this video right now or after the episode.
01:00:01.760 --> 01:00:04.320
Again, it's on YouTube and it's linked down in the show notes.
01:00:04.320 --> 01:00:10.480
So uh you'll get a lot more out of the video if you're able to see it uh with all of the visuals that are connected to it.
01:00:10.480 --> 01:00:13.119
So, anyways, let's let's hop into this final segment here.
01:00:13.440 --> 01:00:19.519
From here, the kingdom of God moves outward, impacting society and culture, starting with the family.
01:00:19.519 --> 01:00:27.199
The family is the most basic social institution, ordained and structured by God for the purpose of advancing his kingdom.
01:00:27.199 --> 01:00:36.559
As servants of the king, we are to carefully obey his commands regarding sexuality, procreation, and the way we nurture, discipline, and educate our children.
01:00:36.559 --> 01:00:46.800
With families won over to God's kingdom, and with children trained to love the king and to walk in obedience to his ways, the kingdom advances into every sphere of society.
01:00:46.800 --> 01:00:58.480
For in the words of the famous Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper, there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, mine.
01:00:58.480 --> 01:01:16.000
Therefore, wherever we may stand, and in whatever God calls us to do, or in whatever it may be, we are constantly standing in the presence of our King, employed in his service, and determined to strictly to obey him and seek his glory.
01:01:16.000 --> 01:01:25.199
A culture where people are treated as precious image-bearers of God, a culture of order and beauty, of creativity and excellence.
01:01:25.199 --> 01:01:30.239
Until our King returns, God has called each of us to push back the domain of darkness.
01:01:30.239 --> 01:01:32.880
This is a privileged task for all Christians.
01:01:32.880 --> 01:01:37.440
Our King has a unique task that he has prepared for you to carry out.
01:01:37.440 --> 01:01:44.400
Make it your life's purpose to faithfully accomplish this task, so that in the end you may hear him speak these words.
01:01:44.400 --> 01:01:47.840
Well done, good and faithful servant.
01:01:48.960 --> 01:01:54.320
Okay, so yeah, that unpacks kind of the the the outward ripple effects of a changed heart.
01:01:54.320 --> 01:01:55.920
I just wanted to pull up really quickly.
01:01:55.920 --> 01:02:02.800
On our website, we have this this page called Our Strategy, uh, where it outlines, it really outlines this video well.
01:02:02.800 --> 01:02:06.239
Um you can find it on disciple nations.org.
01:02:06.239 --> 01:02:21.039
I'm just pulling that up right now because we have this um diagram that's a bunch of circles, and uh it all starts in the middle, in the bullseye with spiritual regeneration, but then it ripples out, like we just said, into the mind regeneration through our worldview.
01:02:21.039 --> 01:02:23.599
And then that, of course, will affect our character.
01:02:23.599 --> 01:02:27.920
Once our heart changes and our mind changes, that's gonna affect who we are, our character.
01:02:27.920 --> 01:02:34.880
And then if our character changes, the people around us most close to us will notice that and be affected by that transformation as well.
01:02:34.880 --> 01:02:49.519
Those are usually our f our families or our very close communities, and then from there the next step is uh our our communities, our societies, uh, and then when those are affected, uh our nations are affected.
01:02:49.519 --> 01:02:56.159
And that's really the the kind of imagery of how to disciple a nation as we unpack it here at the DNA.
01:02:56.159 --> 01:03:02.480
Um, anyways, guys, uh in that last segment, it started with the family and then it rippled outwards from there.
01:03:02.480 --> 01:03:04.639
Um why why does God start with the family?
01:03:04.639 --> 01:03:09.039
Why are uh I mean in the Bible it's interesting how many times God uses families.
01:03:09.039 --> 01:03:12.400
I think of I think of Noah, I think of Abraham, I think of David.
01:03:12.400 --> 01:03:15.920
He uses families and family lines and his redemptive mission.
01:03:15.920 --> 01:03:16.960
Why does he do that?
01:03:17.360 --> 01:03:34.800
Well, I think it goes back to the creation, you know, Genesis 1 and 2, that God creates uh Adam and Eve as individuals, but then he brings them together in marriage and you know, be fruitful, multiply is the very first command that he gives to Adam and Eve.
01:03:34.800 --> 01:03:37.199
Uh in other words, make families, create families.
01:03:37.199 --> 01:03:59.280
And uh Darrow has often kind of said there's um uh that that that this very uh aspect of the union of a husband and a wife, the creation of a family, there's something of the trinity in that, and that God isn't uh, you know, uh a un uh a single monad, but God is a trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
01:03:59.280 --> 01:04:08.320
Um and so when he creates human beings in his image, um just one man isn't going to uh fulfill all that it means to be made in the image of a triune God.
01:04:08.320 --> 01:04:14.239
It's uh there needs to be something bigger and broader, and and um that includes man, woman, marriage.
01:04:14.239 --> 01:04:23.119
Now I I have to be careful and and because I I know that there God also calls some people to be single, and that doesn't mean in any way that being single doesn't Jesus himself was single, right?
01:04:23.119 --> 01:04:32.639
So it's not it's not a diminishment of the reflection of the image of God, but God uh the point simply is that God created families from the very beginning, and that was part of his work.
01:04:32.639 --> 01:04:39.360
He wanted the world to be filled, and so and in even this is kind of an inside out, you know, ripple effect.
01:04:39.360 --> 01:04:49.599
Um and then, of course, in redemption, this is like where we get to Genesis 12, that process of redemption where God comes to Abram and He starts talking to him.
01:04:49.599 --> 01:04:52.800
Abram's married at this time to Sarah.
01:04:52.800 --> 01:04:56.079
They have no children, but he's going to talk about families.
01:04:56.079 --> 01:04:59.119
I'm gonna make you, I'm gonna, you're you're gonna have an offspring, right?
01:04:59.119 --> 01:05:04.000
You're gonna have children, um, you're going to be the father of great nations.
01:05:04.000 --> 01:05:14.880
So you can see God's plan, his process of redemption, even that is going to uh be carried out through families, clans, tribes, and nations, the the nation of Israel.
01:05:14.880 --> 01:05:16.960
And, you know, not just Israel.
01:05:16.960 --> 01:05:18.880
I think that's just his model, his plan.
01:05:18.880 --> 01:05:20.719
And I'll just speak personally for a second.
01:05:20.719 --> 01:05:26.800
This one has meant a lot to me because when we I, yes, people say, Scott, you know, what do you want to do?
01:05:26.800 --> 01:05:28.400
I say, I want to change the world, right?
01:05:28.400 --> 01:05:29.920
You know, I feel called to change the world.
01:05:29.920 --> 01:05:31.199
I want to transform the world.
01:05:31.199 --> 01:05:32.559
You know, that's that's just who I am.
01:05:32.559 --> 01:05:34.159
You know, I want to see the world made better.
01:05:34.159 --> 01:05:35.280
I always have.
01:05:35.280 --> 01:05:37.519
But that's a big deal.
01:05:37.519 --> 01:05:39.360
Like, that's how do you even begin to do that?
01:05:39.360 --> 01:05:40.960
The world's a big place, right?
01:05:40.960 --> 01:05:44.000
I mean, much less my own state, city.
01:05:44.000 --> 01:05:45.360
I mean, these are huge places.
01:05:45.360 --> 01:05:46.320
They go beyond me.
01:05:46.320 --> 01:05:47.760
What can I really do?
01:05:47.760 --> 01:05:50.559
Uh, and it can feel overwhelming, like, I don't know.
01:05:50.559 --> 01:05:52.400
I don't really know what I can do.
01:05:52.400 --> 01:05:59.360
But when you bring it down to the family, this is really the most basic social unit, and that's what we talk about in the video.
01:05:59.360 --> 01:06:02.960
Um, The most basic social unit of any society.
01:06:02.960 --> 01:06:12.400
And by the way, if I could just add a little bit of caveat here, this is why uh demonic religions and ideologies like Marxism, what do they want to destroy first?
01:06:12.400 --> 01:06:13.679
The family.
01:06:13.679 --> 01:06:15.039
That's what they want to destroy.
01:06:15.039 --> 01:06:16.239
And they want to destroy it.
01:06:16.239 --> 01:06:20.239
To me, that that strengthens my faith because it says this is God's plan.
01:06:20.239 --> 01:06:21.280
This is so important.
01:06:21.280 --> 01:06:22.639
This family is so important.
01:06:22.639 --> 01:06:24.800
This is God's central to God's plan.
01:06:24.800 --> 01:06:28.239
So, anyways, it's something that I can get my hands around, right?
01:06:28.239 --> 01:06:39.679
As I've often said, I don't know if I can change the church, the community, the nation, but I can, you know, put the flag of God's kingdom down inside my home and I could say, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, right?
01:06:39.679 --> 01:06:45.599
I'm gonna, I'm gonna live this out first and foremost in my own life, then in my marriage.
01:06:45.599 --> 01:06:49.199
And by the way, the Bible has a lot to say about that, marriage.
01:06:49.199 --> 01:06:52.000
And then in my family, how I raise my children.
01:06:52.000 --> 01:06:53.519
The Bible has a lot to say about that.
01:06:53.519 --> 01:06:56.000
I don't think any of that is by accident.
01:06:56.000 --> 01:07:02.400
And by the way, all the warnings about um sexuality in the Bible, when you put it in this context, it makes a lot more sense.
01:07:02.400 --> 01:07:07.679
It's not just God being a God who says, Oh, I don't want you to have any fun, you know, no, don't do that.
01:07:07.679 --> 01:07:11.360
No, God has something very precious and special in the family.
01:07:11.360 --> 01:07:14.800
And sex is central to that because it's sex and procreation, right?
01:07:14.800 --> 01:07:19.119
But it's, you know, don't mess it up because this is so central to my plan, right?
01:07:19.119 --> 01:07:20.480
Does that make sense?
01:07:20.480 --> 01:07:23.199
So those are just a couple of thoughts there, I think.
01:07:23.199 --> 01:07:35.360
That's why the DNA, we emphasize um when people, when we get to the point of our training of really putting this into practice, we say, before you go out and try to change the world, start, you know, what it think about your own marriage family.
01:07:35.360 --> 01:07:44.880
Even if you're not married, you know, the the people that are in your family, your brothers and sisters, the most basic relationship, your father, mother, are you living it out?
01:07:44.880 --> 01:07:48.159
Are you living out the biblical worldview in those most basic relationships?
01:07:48.159 --> 01:07:54.559
Because if you're not, you can't bypass it, you can't jump over that to get to some greater impact.
01:07:54.559 --> 01:07:55.440
It's just not gonna work.
01:07:55.440 --> 01:07:57.840
You've got to start in that most basic sphere.
01:07:59.280 --> 01:08:04.000
It was um, I know a lot of times, like you were saying, Dad, we have these big dreams of changing the world.
01:08:04.000 --> 01:08:11.920
And yet the smallest applications sometimes and the most simple applications sometimes are the most profound and impactful, and God's gonna use those in big ways.
01:08:11.920 --> 01:08:22.479
We a couple weeks ago met a guy at a lake up here in Oregon who didn't really realize this, but he's had a big ripple effect in the world, I would say.
01:08:22.479 --> 01:08:30.960
Well, not huge, but a significant ripple effect in the world for God and his kingdom that he didn't really know about uh until this day when we met him at a lake.
01:08:30.960 --> 01:08:45.760
This is a guy that discipled you, Dad, when you were in high school, I believe, in young life, uh, and was uh instrumental in your conversion, I believe, and um your early years of discipleship, um, back whenever that was in the 80s.
01:08:45.760 --> 01:08:48.159
And we're at this family reunion.
01:08:48.159 --> 01:08:52.880
We have the whole family, the whole Allen clan there at the lake, uh, all my siblings, there's five of us.
01:08:52.880 --> 01:08:57.680
We're in the stage, we're all getting married and having kids now, so we're pretty big group when we're walking around.
01:08:57.680 --> 01:09:04.159
And we just randomly bumped into this guy who dad I know you've connected with recently, but not much since the 80s.
01:09:04.159 --> 01:09:06.640
And uh you just kind of introduced the family.
01:09:06.640 --> 01:09:09.439
Hey, here's my kids, uh, here's here's their kids.
01:09:09.439 --> 01:09:17.840
And I think it clicked in his head, like, oh, you know, God, you used me to evangelize to this young high schooler.
01:09:17.840 --> 01:09:22.960
You know, a lot of us serve in youth ministries, and we just think, oh, it's a bunch of stinky, annoying high schoolers.
01:09:22.960 --> 01:09:34.960
Yes, maybe, but 50 years from now it's gonna be a very different vision if one of them changes their life and then they go on to start a family, disciple their family, starts new families, they're discipling their families.
01:09:34.960 --> 01:09:36.880
That's the ripple effect of these kind of things.
01:09:36.880 --> 01:09:52.000
And in this case, a lot of that worked through the family, and it's just one guy in the 80s talking to another guy who's in high school, something as simple as that, and now you know, fast forward, and we see this much bigger ripple effect.
01:09:52.000 --> 01:10:00.159
And I thought that was really cool because he I I could see it in his eyes, it clicked, and you he was like, you know, you could see how much that shook him in a good way.
01:10:00.640 --> 01:10:02.159
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, Luke.
01:10:02.159 --> 01:10:19.279
You know, uh I that was really moving to me to to meet my friend Rick there at the lake, um, you know, just kind of again with you know, unexpectedly, and his wife Debbie, and um, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Rick for for the way that he loved me and discipled me as a young believer.
01:10:19.279 --> 01:10:23.680
And um, yeah, I could see him almost tear up when he saw you.
01:10:23.680 --> 01:10:28.000
And I'm so proud of you, Luke, and I'm proud of all my children, grandchildren, so proud, so grateful.
01:10:28.000 --> 01:10:33.520
But I said to him, this gets to your point, Nelson, earlier about I said, Well, all glory to God, you know, all glory to God.
01:10:33.520 --> 01:10:34.720
And that's the truth, you know.
01:10:34.720 --> 01:10:49.199
If anything good has come in our family, you know, it's it's purely because God has had grace on Kim and I, and we've tried, you know, in his strength to put principles into practice, you know, starting in our own marriage and family, not perfectly by any stretch.
01:10:49.199 --> 01:10:51.279
We still I make mistakes every day.
01:10:51.279 --> 01:10:54.319
But the but the putting it into practice has borne good fruit.
01:10:54.319 --> 01:10:55.600
I will be the first to testify.
01:10:55.600 --> 01:10:57.119
I said, Well, praise be to God.
01:10:57.119 --> 01:11:00.960
And Rick's response kind of funny was like, Well, I think you had something to do with that, Scott.
01:11:00.960 --> 01:11:07.359
It's kind of like you know, so this is this is your agency aspect as well, Nelson, isn't it?
01:11:07.359 --> 01:11:07.760
Right.
01:11:07.840 --> 01:11:11.119
You know, so um yeah, thanks, Luke.
01:11:11.119 --> 01:11:12.159
That's that's beautiful.
01:11:12.159 --> 01:11:13.760
That's the there you go, right?
01:11:13.760 --> 01:11:14.239
There you go.
01:11:14.239 --> 01:11:15.520
That makes it practical.
01:11:15.520 --> 01:11:21.920
That makes that it's a tangible example of how and we talk in the name the the forest in the seed, yeah, right?
01:11:21.920 --> 01:11:22.880
We talk about that.
01:11:22.880 --> 01:11:25.680
This is a tangible explain, and that's kingdom.
01:11:25.680 --> 01:11:28.399
And it's like the video that shows the seed, right?
01:11:28.399 --> 01:11:29.680
That's planted.
01:11:29.680 --> 01:11:33.439
It starts with a seed, it becomes this this fruitful tree.
01:11:34.239 --> 01:11:36.880
By the way, just on that, Nelson, I love that about family.
01:11:36.880 --> 01:11:41.199
It's so powerful, this idea that being it's it's multi-generational.
01:11:41.199 --> 01:11:49.279
It's one of the very few institutions that is that way, you know, that the in that the impact of it ripples through generations.
01:11:49.279 --> 01:11:51.920
Um, you know, children, grandchildren.
01:11:51.920 --> 01:11:54.000
The God, that's the way God created it.
01:11:54.000 --> 01:11:57.119
Uh and to have a vision, I I just always challenge Christians.
01:11:57.119 --> 01:11:59.439
Do you have a vision for that if you're married?
01:11:59.439 --> 01:12:05.439
You know, are you thinking about your great grandchildren, your great-great-grandchildren, and the impact that they can have for the kingdom?
01:12:05.439 --> 01:12:09.359
Because that's going to change the way you know you treat your wife and your kids.
01:12:09.760 --> 01:12:09.920
Yeah.
01:12:10.319 --> 01:12:10.800
Yeah, yeah.
01:12:10.800 --> 01:12:12.800
The forest, the forest in the seed, right?
01:12:12.800 --> 01:12:13.920
We need to think like that.
01:12:13.920 --> 01:12:24.399
And and I I I mentioned before Vaclav Havel, the the the Czech uh communist dissident and first president of the Czech Republic, right?
01:12:24.399 --> 01:12:36.560
The new formed, um, he he used to say with God, we talk about significance, us as humans having significance, meaning, purpose, and responsibility.
01:12:36.560 --> 01:12:39.680
Um that's the whole idea of responsibility.
01:12:39.680 --> 01:12:41.439
Where do I have agency?
01:12:41.439 --> 01:12:50.800
Because God created me, part of being creating God's image is that representative aspect of the Imago Day, the image of God, where we have agency.
01:12:50.800 --> 01:12:52.079
We are agents, right?
01:12:52.079 --> 01:12:53.920
Where do we have agency?
01:12:53.920 --> 01:13:04.319
I used to say to the kids in poor communities in Brazil that we worked with and we still do work with poor communities in Brazil, but at that time we were on the field, directly involved with them.
01:13:04.319 --> 01:13:24.079
And one of the things that we always said is that you are not just an object for for manipul for uh abuse and uh and and so on, you're not just a s uh for manipulation, not just a subject for for government programs to manipulate numbers and you you're a subject of you are an agent.
01:13:24.079 --> 01:13:26.560
God created you in his image to be an agent.
01:13:26.560 --> 01:13:28.640
So where do I have agency?
01:13:28.640 --> 01:13:33.279
Where can I start to plant that seed that will become the tree, the forest and the seed, right?
01:13:33.279 --> 01:13:44.239
And then back to our example is uh someone who invests in your life who and you come to Christ and then there's a whole family, children and grandchildren, right, being impacted by that.
01:13:44.239 --> 01:13:50.159
So this whole idea it is seeking his glory, of course, because he's the king, as you say, Scott.
01:13:50.159 --> 01:13:54.000
Jesus is our king and we're seeking his glory, not ours.
01:13:54.000 --> 01:13:58.800
Uh but it is this idea of living quarantine, he live in his presence.
01:13:58.800 --> 01:14:06.319
It's it's and it's not only interesting, it's not only that we live in his presence, it's that he is constantly present.
01:14:06.319 --> 01:14:07.600
Right?
01:14:07.600 --> 01:14:08.399
In everything.
01:14:08.399 --> 01:14:15.920
And he's the Lord of all, present, working in history, moving history, and we inviting us to work with him.
01:14:15.920 --> 01:14:17.520
That's how the video ends.
01:14:17.520 --> 01:14:18.000
Right.
01:14:18.000 --> 01:14:22.479
And then the whole idea of uh hearing at the end good and faithful is well done.
01:14:22.479 --> 01:14:39.600
Good and faithful service because we are fulfilling our cultural mandate, our cultural condition of the the heart has been changed, the mind is the is being renewed, and uh there is service, there is work, there is loving our neighbor and serving and extending this kingdom of God, right?
01:14:39.600 --> 01:14:41.199
With the king, with the king.
01:14:41.439 --> 01:14:41.920
Yeah, exactly.
01:14:41.920 --> 01:14:45.680
Yeah, you can't stop at just uh just uh discipling your family.
01:14:45.680 --> 01:14:50.239
If you're gonna do that, then you can go get one of those compounds up in Alaska and go hide out with your kids.
01:14:50.239 --> 01:14:51.840
Uh it's a lot more than that.
01:14:51.840 --> 01:14:56.960
And uh uh as you you told us all the time, Dad, when we were growing up, you've been blessed to be a blessing.
01:14:56.960 --> 01:14:59.760
So you're you're not a reservoir, you're a river.
01:14:59.760 --> 01:15:08.159
And um that blessing should flow out to your family and your closest uh you know relationships first, but then it's it's supposed to go beyond that, it's supposed to affect this world.
01:15:08.159 --> 01:15:10.399
It's the Great Commission again, disciple the nations.
01:15:10.399 --> 01:15:20.720
And the the Great Commission and the Cultural Commission in Genesis 1 really echo the same idea when it says, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.
01:15:20.720 --> 01:15:24.319
The call is to work the garden and keep it, as some people say.
01:15:24.319 --> 01:15:25.840
Uh, what is the garden?
01:15:25.840 --> 01:15:26.960
The garden's the world.
01:15:26.960 --> 01:15:29.600
That's that's your nation, that's the world around you.
01:15:29.600 --> 01:15:33.840
You're supposed to work it and keep it, steward it, have dominion over it.
01:15:33.840 --> 01:15:39.760
Um we have we have a commission for this world, for impacting this world, and that affects that it's a call to everything.
01:15:39.760 --> 01:15:41.199
It's the garden, it's the whole thing.
01:15:41.199 --> 01:15:49.119
It's our workplaces, it's our hobbies, it's um it's the political structures around us, it's economics, it's everything.
01:15:49.119 --> 01:15:51.760
So just just real quick, can we just dive into that?
01:15:51.760 --> 01:15:59.439
Like what what does this look like, this kind of rippling outward past the family into the the the broader society around us and our in our nations as a whole?
01:16:00.000 --> 01:16:04.399
This is where I think um again, this is almost entirely neglected in the church.
01:16:04.399 --> 01:16:12.560
Um this is an area where the DNA really feels a calling to kind of remind the church of what its role is to disciple people in a biblical worldview.
01:16:12.560 --> 01:16:23.600
And what that means is that um it's a comprehensive truth, this comprehensive story that affects everything, every area of society.
01:16:23.600 --> 01:16:34.479
Um, you know, when we think about nations, nations are a collection of families and clans, but there's something about nations that goes beyond individual relationships now.
01:16:34.479 --> 01:16:42.800
There's institutions, there's governments, there's cultures, there's schools, universities, there's there's all of these things when we're talking about nations.
01:16:42.800 --> 01:16:50.159
And the truth of the Bible is to shape every one of those areas is we we uh and it does, it shapes every area.
01:16:50.159 --> 01:17:11.920
I I was thinking about our podcast just recently with our our dear friend Owen Strawn, and he was pushing back a little bit on us on this, and we were talking about education, and I was saying that if you just you know, if you start with the biblical story, you're gonna end up with a particular way of doing education in the public that's gonna look different than probably what we're doing right now in public schools in the United States.
01:17:11.920 --> 01:17:22.079
Um you know, that that those principles, when they're applied, are gonna lead to a certain way of doing education that's gonna be better, that's gonna be good, that's gonna bear good fruit.
01:17:22.079 --> 01:17:28.800
Um, but he was pushing back and saying, you know, I do think there's some areas that, you know, right, you can carry this too far.
01:17:28.800 --> 01:17:31.439
And he I think he used the example of a plumber.
01:17:31.439 --> 01:17:35.920
Um I could be wrong on that, but I as that's what I recall, you know, what if you're a plumber?
01:17:35.920 --> 01:17:38.239
You know, like what does the Bible have to say about plumbing?
01:17:38.239 --> 01:17:42.000
And I thought, I thought about that after the show quite a bit.
01:17:42.000 --> 01:17:45.279
And I was reminded of something that I just saw recently.
01:17:45.279 --> 01:17:57.199
Uh, it was uh it was uh an infographic of the world, and it talked about the parts of the world that you can actually turn on a tap and have clean potable water coming out of the tap.
01:17:57.199 --> 01:18:02.000
And there's actually very few countries in the world where that's the case.
01:18:02.000 --> 01:18:05.039
Uh I happen to live in one, uh the United States.
01:18:05.039 --> 01:18:06.479
And Nelson, you live in Canada.
01:18:06.479 --> 01:18:09.760
You can turn on the water, you can drink it, you're not going to get sick or contaminated.
01:18:09.760 --> 01:18:16.800
That's not the case if you go to a lot of countries in South America, Latin America, Asia, Africa.
01:18:16.800 --> 01:18:18.000
Why is that?
01:18:18.000 --> 01:18:21.359
You know, we're talking about water, we're talking about pipes and plumbing.
01:18:21.359 --> 01:18:23.199
You know, why do we even have that in the first place?
01:18:23.199 --> 01:18:24.640
Why did somebody say it's important?
01:18:24.640 --> 01:18:26.159
Or I thought about Vishall.
01:18:26.159 --> 01:18:42.079
Vishal often talks about his trip to Uganda and he saw Ugandans take telling their wives to go all the way down to this stream a half mile away with a you know, this basket or this bucket, fill it up with clean water, bring it on their heads back up here so we can have water.
01:18:42.079 --> 01:18:47.279
That, you know, you know, why why is it that in the United States we don't do that?
01:18:47.279 --> 01:18:52.079
We don't send our wives down to the river to get water and carry it back on their heads.
01:18:52.079 --> 01:18:59.920
And meanwhile, they probably are gonna struggle with all sorts of issues structurally in their body after a while because it's so heavy heavy.
01:18:59.920 --> 01:19:06.960
No, we actually do we put in pipes and we plum and we bring the water, right?
01:19:06.960 --> 01:19:17.840
Well, maybe, maybe one of the reasons that that's happened in some countries and not others is because somewhere along the lines someone said uh human beings are made in God's image.
01:19:17.840 --> 01:19:23.840
And part of what that means is we need to care for people, we need to treat them with dignity, and they should be healthy and flourishing.
01:19:23.840 --> 01:19:27.680
So that means we need to have clean water and we need to have it in the home, right?
01:19:27.680 --> 01:19:30.720
We take we take these things for granted in the West, by the way.
01:19:30.720 --> 01:19:33.119
We just assume, oh, everyone thinks like this.
01:19:33.119 --> 01:19:34.479
No, they do not.
01:19:34.479 --> 01:19:42.000
Or, you know, why why not just send our wives or kids down to the river and you know, they spend most of their time hauling water?
01:19:42.000 --> 01:19:47.279
No, because that's beneath their dignity, and God has something more for them to do than just haul water.
01:19:47.279 --> 01:19:49.920
Okay, that's from the biblical worldview.
01:19:49.920 --> 01:20:04.880
Okay, so this is what we're talking about now when we talk about applying that worldview, that true story into a society, even in something as basic as plumbing, much less law or art or religion or business, you know, every area.
01:20:04.880 --> 01:20:16.319
Uh that's the quote from the video, Kuiper's, you know, every square inch, Jesus says it's mine and it's going to be changed when we apply the truths of the Bible and the biblical story to it.
01:20:16.319 --> 01:20:25.600
And uh any good that we see in the West, by the way, it's not because the Western people, uh, Europeans, United States, whatever, it's not because we're somehow superior.
01:20:25.600 --> 01:20:26.479
We are not.
01:20:26.479 --> 01:20:37.840
It's because faithful Christians over millennia now have applied the principles of the Bible faithfully, and they've lived them out in a way that has brought positive change and blessing.
01:20:37.840 --> 01:20:39.199
It's purely because of that.
01:20:39.199 --> 01:20:40.960
We're just the recipients of that.
01:20:40.960 --> 01:20:43.520
And that can go away, and it is going away, right?
01:20:43.520 --> 01:20:46.319
Uh the cut flower that Osgenis talks about.
01:20:46.319 --> 01:20:50.800
But uh, but that's that's that's what we should be working for.
01:20:50.800 --> 01:20:52.800
Uh, anyways, I'm now preaching.
01:20:52.800 --> 01:20:54.239
Preaching, so I gotta stop.
01:20:54.239 --> 01:20:56.000
Yeah, Nelson and Luke.
01:20:57.279 --> 01:21:02.880
Yeah, and and I like that, Scott, because again, back to we are creating God's image with a mind.
01:21:03.119 --> 01:21:03.359
Right.
01:21:03.680 --> 01:21:08.960
I mean, these little graphics that we use to the view of man, we have a mind and a heart.
01:21:08.960 --> 01:21:10.720
There is a mind, right?
01:21:10.720 --> 01:21:13.600
And the mind extends all that that you talked about.
01:21:13.600 --> 01:21:23.680
I mean, uh I come from an engineering background, right, and and building all these structures and bringing order to society and making life flourish in a city and a community.
01:21:23.680 --> 01:21:24.640
And that's the mind.
01:21:24.640 --> 01:21:26.159
Even creating a no a tool.
01:21:26.159 --> 01:21:35.600
I mean, there's the hands, God gave us the hands to to do things, but then our mind creates a two that extends what the hand can do, right?
01:21:35.600 --> 01:21:38.159
And and brings efficiency and multiplies.
01:21:38.800 --> 01:21:43.039
Just on that, I remember talking to our dear friend Lennox uh Kawa Funga, you know, from Zambia.
01:21:43.039 --> 01:21:45.119
And I remember, I think it was Lennox, Luke, you'll remember.
01:21:45.119 --> 01:21:50.880
He said, you know, one of the things that struck him when he went from Africa, Zambia to the United States was sidewalks.
01:21:50.880 --> 01:21:52.319
I said, tell me more about that.
01:21:52.319 --> 01:21:54.479
He said, we don't have sidewalks in Africa.
01:21:54.479 --> 01:21:56.720
Oh, but talk about taking something for granted.
01:21:56.720 --> 01:21:58.000
We just, they're outside the house.
01:21:58.000 --> 01:21:58.880
I don't even think about them.
01:21:58.880 --> 01:22:00.880
I don't even, I don't, you know, they're just there.
01:22:00.880 --> 01:22:03.119
And he said, Where do those sidewalks come from?
01:22:03.119 --> 01:22:04.880
Like, why don't we have them in Africa?
01:22:04.880 --> 01:22:08.880
Why do people actually get hit on the road and die at a much higher rate?
01:22:08.880 --> 01:22:17.840
It's because uh somewhere along the line, somebody said human life is too precious for it to be risked, you know, flippantly on the street.
01:22:17.840 --> 01:22:21.199
We need to protect them and we need to create these little walking roads.
01:22:21.199 --> 01:22:22.560
That doesn't just happen.
01:22:22.560 --> 01:22:26.560
That's the fruit of a biblical worldview lived out in a society.
01:22:26.560 --> 01:22:31.039
And yet we again, we I I just again we totally take these things for granted.
01:22:31.279 --> 01:22:31.520
Yeah.
01:22:31.840 --> 01:22:35.920
Yeah, and I I we need this biblical review for sidewalks in Brazil.
01:22:35.920 --> 01:22:40.560
I thought, because in Brazil we have sidewalks, but they're also all uneven, all broken.
01:22:40.560 --> 01:22:42.880
So we how many times I tripped in the sidewalk?
01:22:42.880 --> 01:22:44.319
So we need the biblical review to fix it.
01:22:44.319 --> 01:22:49.119
My daughter Gabriela's that's when when I was a kid, that was one of our dreams.
01:22:49.119 --> 01:22:51.520
I'm gonna be an artist and fix the sidewalks.
01:22:51.520 --> 01:22:56.960
Uh so anyway, but it but it is, I mean, and and back to the institutions that we create.
01:22:56.960 --> 01:22:58.399
I mean we create culture, right?
01:22:58.399 --> 01:23:00.399
We the culture commission, we create culture.
01:23:00.399 --> 01:23:03.600
Creating culture is institutions.
01:23:03.600 --> 01:23:07.840
So we create institutions are a big part of our our our culture.
01:23:07.840 --> 01:23:12.159
So so and and also I uh I I quoted T.
01:23:12.159 --> 01:23:12.399
S.
01:23:12.399 --> 01:23:15.920
Eliot uh in a meeting a couple weeks ago, and T.
01:23:15.920 --> 01:23:16.079
S.
01:23:16.079 --> 01:23:23.439
Eliot was in this agnostic atheist before his conversion in his famous poem, The Wasteland.
01:23:23.439 --> 01:23:25.359
Life is a wasteland.
01:23:25.359 --> 01:23:36.640
But then he he he comes to Christ, his heart is changed, his mind is hard to be renewed, and he writes the poem in the four quartets and says, No, life is a garden.
01:23:36.640 --> 01:23:42.640
Um because God put us here, I mean, the nature of this here is not a wasteland, it is a garden.
01:23:42.640 --> 01:23:48.960
And we God is working and using us and calling us to work with him so that this garden can again flourish.
01:23:48.960 --> 01:23:55.920
There may be weeds right now, but it is not the nature of it, the of this creation, this world is not a wasteland.
01:23:55.920 --> 01:23:57.199
It is a garden.
01:23:57.199 --> 01:24:01.760
There is weeds, of course, but God is working on that, he's gonna solve it.
01:24:02.000 --> 01:24:06.560
Just on that, Nelson, there was weeds at the beginning, and there will not be weeds at the end.
01:24:06.560 --> 01:24:07.279
There will be.
01:24:07.279 --> 01:24:29.520
Doesn't mean it's gonna be perfected, but that we're to live in light of that, in the tr in the in the light of those two twin truths of the way that God created it and the way that it will be.
01:24:30.079 --> 01:24:30.319
Yeah.
01:24:30.319 --> 01:24:33.199
Interesting that you said that because I just think about Jesus.
01:24:33.199 --> 01:24:38.479
Uh someone may say, well, but the in the parable of the weeds, didn't Jesus say that there will be weeds?
01:24:38.479 --> 01:24:42.399
But sometimes we think, yeah, there'll be weeds, so let the weeds grow and destroy everything.
01:24:42.399 --> 01:24:44.000
But he said, let the truth grow together.
01:24:45.359 --> 01:24:47.760
And I will take care of those weeds, by the way.
01:24:47.760 --> 01:24:47.920
Yeah.
01:24:48.479 --> 01:24:52.560
I would take care of the weeds, but this there is not only weeds growing, there is the key.
01:24:52.560 --> 01:24:54.079
That's what's neglected.
01:24:54.319 --> 01:24:56.239
Yeah, those that weed is growing too.
01:24:56.239 --> 01:24:58.640
And it it and that wheat, by the way, can't just be reduced.
01:24:58.640 --> 01:25:01.279
I think sometimes we reduce that just to save souls.
01:25:01.279 --> 01:25:06.000
Uh no, it's it's it's the growth of a plant that's bearing fruit.
01:25:06.000 --> 01:25:09.199
And I think that fruit is rippling out into the entire field.
01:25:09.199 --> 01:25:10.239
Yeah, that's right.
01:25:10.399 --> 01:25:13.119
So yeah, it's the sidewalks.
01:25:13.119 --> 01:25:13.920
It's the plumbing.
01:25:14.239 --> 01:25:15.439
It's the sidewalks and the plumbing.
01:25:15.439 --> 01:25:28.960
And again, we're talking about very simple things because I think this is where some Christians push back and say, oh, I can see how you might be able to apply some biblical principles in education or in law, justice, which I mean, believe me, you can.
01:25:28.960 --> 01:25:40.479
You can, I mean, the whole Western judicial system historically, you know, things like, you know, you cannot just immediately haul someone off and execute them without a trial.
01:25:40.479 --> 01:25:47.039
And there has to be witnesses, and those witnesses have to you know pledge to tell the truth.
01:25:47.039 --> 01:25:48.159
All of that's from the Bible.
01:25:48.159 --> 01:25:49.520
A hundred percent of that's from the Bible.
01:25:49.920 --> 01:25:50.159
Yeah.
01:25:50.720 --> 01:25:50.800
Yeah.
01:25:50.960 --> 01:25:51.119
Yeah.
01:25:51.119 --> 01:26:03.279
In some fields, there definitely is much more clear biblical application as far as mandates go, but in every area of work, the the the simple cultural commission remains work the garden and keep it.
01:26:03.279 --> 01:26:07.039
That's that's very true for the plumber, having dominion over the water.
01:26:07.039 --> 01:26:08.720
That's that's that's true there.
01:26:08.720 --> 01:26:10.239
It's true in every single field.
01:26:10.239 --> 01:26:14.399
This quote by Dallas Willard I saw last week, I think fit fits perfectly here.
01:26:14.399 --> 01:26:30.479
He said, quote, it is as great and difficult a spiritual calling to run the factories and the mines, the banks and the apartment stores, the schools and government agencies for the kingdom of God as it is for the pastors of a church and those who serve in evangelism.
01:26:30.479 --> 01:26:38.640
The division of vocations into sacred and secular does incalculable damage to our individual lives and to the cause of Christ.
01:26:38.640 --> 01:26:39.520
End quote.
01:26:40.000 --> 01:26:41.760
As Christians, when we need that quote.
01:26:41.760 --> 01:26:42.239
I need it.
01:26:42.239 --> 01:26:43.600
Send me that quote.
01:26:44.159 --> 01:26:44.479
I know.
01:26:44.640 --> 01:26:49.680
When I saw that and I was like, Well, no, it's just it's speaking to something so true, and Luke, you know this, I know this.
01:26:49.680 --> 01:26:54.159
When I go to church and I talk to people about, I ask the question, hey, what do you do?
01:26:54.159 --> 01:26:57.119
It's I I just I'm so grieved by this.
01:26:57.119 --> 01:26:58.880
They get people always get apologetic.
01:26:58.960 --> 01:27:02.800
I'm just uh you hear it, I'm a little I'm just a- I just had that conversation the other day.
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It was a guy down in Hollywood, and he's an actor, and you know, hey, what do you do?
01:27:06.560 --> 01:27:09.359
And I told him about what I do, and he's like, Oh, that's so valuable.
01:27:09.359 --> 01:27:09.680
Wow.
01:27:09.680 --> 01:27:11.039
So spiritual.
01:27:11.039 --> 01:27:15.600
Yeah, like that must be so cool having immediate impact every day on God's kingdom.
01:27:15.600 --> 01:27:16.880
Right.
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You know, he said that impact on God's kingdom, and I said, Hey man, you're an actor in Hollywood.
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Who do you think has more impact?
01:27:24.000 --> 01:27:27.680
You know, like uh an evangelist or a Hollywood movie.
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You know, like come on, if you want to talk about impact in this world, preach, uh, you have just as much of an impactful role as I do.
01:27:34.159 --> 01:27:36.159
And in anyways, it's not about impact.
01:27:36.159 --> 01:27:38.000
You know, God, God's the one who measures impact.
01:27:38.000 --> 01:27:40.239
That's kind of what Dallas Swillard's getting at here.
01:27:40.239 --> 01:27:42.800
It's just as important to be a banker as a pastor.
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Uh that's up to God.
01:27:44.079 --> 01:27:48.319
And this kind of hierarchy of like more spiritual, less spiritual is more important, less important.
01:27:48.319 --> 01:27:49.439
We totally think that way.
01:27:49.439 --> 01:27:52.399
Exactly what this video we're talking about is trying to address.
01:27:52.399 --> 01:27:56.399
We stop at the heart change and we never get to the rippling out effects.
01:27:56.399 --> 01:27:58.560
And if you stop there, then yeah, sure.
01:27:58.560 --> 01:28:03.279
If it's just about heart change, then The evangelist is the most important person in the world, but it doesn't stop there.
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It ripples out.
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And all of those ripples matter because that's all part of the big discipling nations commission that we're trying to do here.
01:28:09.439 --> 01:28:12.880
So the banker plays just as just as important role in that if you see it that way.
01:28:12.880 --> 01:28:14.640
That's kind of the body of Christ imagery.
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We need all of us working here in the body.
01:28:16.319 --> 01:28:21.439
We have been called to different things, we have different gifts, but we're all part of the same body working towards the same goal.
01:28:21.439 --> 01:28:27.119
And once you see that, it just it destroys the sacred secular divide, as as Willard is is pointing to here.
01:28:27.199 --> 01:28:36.319
So how many times have you heard sermons in the church, evangelical churches, Bible-believing churches on this that that affirm just exactly what you said, Luke?
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Almost never.
01:28:37.600 --> 01:28:44.000
And so consequently, people that are in these vocations, actor, banker, plumber, they they feel it.
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They feel it like, oh, I'm not doing very much for God's kingdom.
01:28:48.399 --> 01:28:53.199
Not like you, pastor, you evangelist, you DNA worker.
01:28:53.199 --> 01:28:55.680
Um, it just is heartbreaking to me.
01:28:55.680 --> 01:29:00.960
And yet at the same time, when they see the truth of this, that God has called us, right?
01:29:00.960 --> 01:29:03.039
He's called us to have a role to play.
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This is how this video ends, by the way.
01:29:04.880 --> 01:29:10.000
We all have a role to play, a calling, and that calling encompasses every area of society.
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So you can be an actor in Hollywood or you can be a bank or plumber, whatever it is that God's called you to do and have a such a significant impact.
01:29:17.359 --> 01:29:24.960
When we've taught that around the world, I have seen people literally be brought to tears because they feel for the first time affirmed.
01:29:24.960 --> 01:29:35.359
Like what I do matters, you know, matters beyond just earning a living to support my family and tithe to the church, but something about it actually is redemptive.
01:29:35.359 --> 01:29:40.000
It's it's it can it can be redemptive and it can make an impact.
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I can change the world by God's grace.
01:29:42.640 --> 01:29:50.000
Anyways, I I just uh I it really I do really want to preach on this, Luke, right now, because I I care so deeply about it.
01:29:50.079 --> 01:29:50.800
Yeah, anyways.
01:29:50.800 --> 01:29:53.680
Yeah, I I that's a great place to wrap it up, though.
01:29:53.680 --> 01:29:56.399
I mean, uh it's that's again what this video is about.
01:29:56.399 --> 01:29:57.199
Great commission.
01:29:57.199 --> 01:29:58.159
This is how we're doing it.
01:29:58.159 --> 01:30:01.359
This is this is kind of a game plan, a very simple three and a half minute game plan to do it.
01:30:01.359 --> 01:30:03.119
Again, the video is linked down in the description.
01:30:03.119 --> 01:30:05.039
You can find it there, you can find it on YouTube.
01:30:05.039 --> 01:30:07.840
And uh, if it's helpful for you, please share it with your friends.
01:30:07.840 --> 01:30:11.520
This is a message that we want to just continue to spread as far and wide as possible.
01:30:11.520 --> 01:30:18.640
Pretty much everything that comes out of the Disciple Nations Alliance follows this general problem solution discussion we've been having today.
01:30:18.640 --> 01:30:21.840
This really is our mission here at the Disciple Nations Alliance.
01:30:21.840 --> 01:30:31.760
Um, we exist to equip believers with a biblical worldview so that they can go out and affect their families, communities, and nations for Christ and his glory.
01:30:31.760 --> 01:30:33.199
Uh that's what we're all about here.
01:30:33.199 --> 01:30:38.079
So pretty much everything that you see come out of our work here also plays a part in this.
01:30:38.079 --> 01:30:43.119
So our books, our trainings, uh, all of it on thediscipelnations.org points to this.
01:30:43.119 --> 01:30:46.000
So if this is exciting you, uh feel free to access any of that.
01:30:46.000 --> 01:30:46.640
It's all free.
01:30:46.640 --> 01:30:48.720
It's all it's all uh there for you.
01:30:48.720 --> 01:30:53.279
And we hope that this is uh a helpful start in a journey for you in unpacking all this.
01:30:53.279 --> 01:31:05.600
It's uh it's a lot of fun to to dig into the fact that God reigns over all things and cares about all things, and therefore anything you're doing in life, God cares about, has a mission for, and has a design for you to to live in.
01:31:05.600 --> 01:31:09.279
So, anyways, with that, Nelson uh Dad, thanks for joining today.
01:31:09.279 --> 01:31:10.159
This was a lot of fun.
01:31:10.159 --> 01:31:12.880
It was a little bit long, but uh it was a great discussion.
01:31:14.399 --> 01:31:16.960
I want to keep talking anyways, but uh Okay, part two.
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I'm sure we'll have it at some point.
01:31:18.640 --> 01:31:21.439
It's great, great to be with you, Luke, and great to be with you.
01:31:21.439 --> 01:31:22.640
Thank you.