SPEAKER_01: Well, good morning, King of Kings family.
SPEAKER_01: So awesome to be together today for our special standalone Memorial Day service called Asking for a Friend.
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to give a quick shout out to both our Northwest and our Fremont campuses.
SPEAKER_01: We love you guys.
SPEAKER_01: So we have a panel of our campus directors here today.
SPEAKER_01: We have Seth Flick from our Millard campus.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Peter Bay from our Northwest campus.
SPEAKER_01: And Tyler Ralson from our Fremont campus.
SPEAKER_01: And these guys are going to be answering questions that have been submitted ahead of time by our church family.
SPEAKER_01: And you can also submit questions in real time, as was mentioned earlier.
SPEAKER_01: You can do that by texting the word asking to 94,000 and following the prompts.
SPEAKER_01: So today is not only Memorial Day weekend, but it's also Pentecost Sunday, which marks the end of the Easter season of the church.
SPEAKER_01: And Pentecost Sunday celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit to the early church and to all believers in Jesus from that time forward.
SPEAKER_01: And just like the early church, we have a mission to the world.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus hasn't left us on our own.
SPEAKER_01: And the Holy Spirit is in this room just like he was with the disciples.
SPEAKER_01: And he equips, empowers, teaches, comforts, and advocates for us.
SPEAKER_01: And he is going to be working through these guys on the stage today as they answer the questions that you've submitted for our time together.
SPEAKER_01: And he is going to be enlightening your minds to understand what's being taught.
SPEAKER_01: He'll be personally speaking to your heart during this time.
SPEAKER_01: And what a precious gift that is.
SPEAKER_01: So before we get started, let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: So, Holy Spirit, we thank you so much for your presence here in our lives, in this room.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, thank you that you didn't leave us alone, that you said you were going to send someone, a comforter, to be with us every moment of our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And that we can just lean on the Holy Spirit when we have questions in our minds and our hearts, that we can turn to your word.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you that it all works together and what a precious gift it is.
SPEAKER_01: So, Lord, we're just inviting you to this place and into this space.
SPEAKER_01: You are worthy of our praise and we dedicate this time to you.
SPEAKER_01: In your name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So this is how this time is going to be structured.
SPEAKER_01: We have three big questions to ask these guys.
SPEAKER_01: They're going to cover similar themes to a lot of the questions that were asked ahead of time.
SPEAKER_01: Then we have three shorter questions, and then we have six rapid fire questions, which are going to be fun and quick.
SPEAKER_01: So are we ready, gentlemen?
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: All right, here we go.
SPEAKER_01: First question, number one: how can we trust that God is good when the world is filled with tragedy and suffering?
SPEAKER_01: Peter Bay, I'm gonna give this one to you.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: And this is such an important question because this is a question asked by Christians and non-Christians alike.
SPEAKER_00: And you may very possibly get this question or ask it yourself.
SPEAKER_00: So if you if you brought some uh paper for notes, take them all morning long.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And this question can look several different ways.
SPEAKER_00: It might be uh if God loves me, why am I suffering?
SPEAKER_00: Or why do bad things happen to good people?
SPEAKER_00: Or where we are in Memorial Day weekend.
SPEAKER_00: How can people doing an important holy thing die over it?
SPEAKER_00: Or why did my aunt or uncle or mom or dad, or why do I have cancer?
SPEAKER_00: And there's kind of two ways to look at this: there's a theology of glory and a theology of the cross, and we're gonna walk through those, okay?
SPEAKER_00: The theology of glory says this that God is mainly seen in success and in strength and invisible blessings and in health and in upward progress and in achievement and winning.
SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like if you do good, life should go well.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you have big faith, you'll have less suffering, or if you struggle, well, God must be far from you in this time, or if you have doubts, your faith is too small.
SPEAKER_00: This is actually a fair, a very dangerous way to look at things, and it and it manifests itself in many ways.
SPEAKER_00: But an example of this is back in the day um when when the uh waters of the hurricane flooded, uh Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, and there was a prominent pastor who said it was their sin that earned this.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually a very unhealthy way to look at it, and a healthier way to look at it is through the theology of the cross to see life through the lens of the cross, which says that God reveals Himself most clearly through Jesus crucified, through suffering love, through humility, weakness, grace for all you sinners, and me as a sinner for resurrection, hope after death.
SPEAKER_00: It says this that the sinner of Christianity is not our human success, it's Christ, dead and risen, forgiving our sins, that we see life through the lens of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus suffered most of all, you Paul suffered, the disciples suffered.
SPEAKER_00: You and I will likely suffer.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus lived the perfect life, he was a perfect sacrifice, and he suffered on the cross and kept himself there.
SPEAKER_00: And so if he was lonely, if he had pain, if he hurt, if he died, why should our lives be any different?
SPEAKER_00: And so when trouble comes, we can say, Why God?
SPEAKER_00: Because he can handle it, and we can cry out to him like a three-year-old banging on his chest, he can take it.
SPEAKER_00: But then let's see through the cross and see what Christ did for us and what we have that's coming.
SPEAKER_00: And so we live in this already not yet uh paradigm, okay?
SPEAKER_00: We're already saved, we're already redeemed, we're already given all the inheritance of the cross, but not yet experience it in its fullness.
SPEAKER_00: We still have pain.
SPEAKER_00: The cancer diagnosis may still come.
SPEAKER_00: Tears will fall, death will come.
SPEAKER_00: But God is good and he reigns over it all.
SPEAKER_00: And one day we'll experience that perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: And until then, see through the lens of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Anything else you guys want to add to that in like 20, 30 seconds?
SPEAKER_03: No, I think just being able to look at it and say, just like you did, if Jesus suffered, in fact, in the book of Isaiah, he's called the suffering servant.
SPEAKER_03: If he's called the suffering servant, we should expect nothing less.
SPEAKER_03: In fact, the New Testament believers, when they would suffer, it says in the scriptures that they would actually give God praise and thanksgiving, that they would consider themselves blessed enough to be like Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: So I'm 100% behind Peter's answer.
SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
SPEAKER_03: Great.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Question number two.
SPEAKER_01: Tyler, I'm gonna shoot this one over to you.
SPEAKER_01: How should Christians live faithfully when relationships become difficult, including marriages, parenting, and friendship?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's real life, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: It is, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I'm gonna solve all y'all's relational issues in five minutes.
SPEAKER_02: There's no doubt that's going.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so so a few things.
SPEAKER_02: One is um just recognizing on the one hand, God made us for relationships.
SPEAKER_02: He made us for connection, he made us for community.
SPEAKER_02: All the way back in Genesis 1 and 2, God said it is not good for man to be alone.
SPEAKER_02: And so loneliness and isolation, it's not God's will for our lives.
SPEAKER_02: But then on the other hand, we're all knuckleheads.
SPEAKER_02: I know the kids are in the room at each of the campuses.
SPEAKER_02: Kids, can you all say, we're all knuckleheads?
unknown: We're all knuckleheads.
SPEAKER_02: Well done, kids.
SPEAKER_02: Well done.
SPEAKER_02: And so, um, apart from your relationship with Jesus, every other relationship that you have on this side of eternity is going to be with someone who is prone to selfishness, who is prone to broken promises, and who is prone to saying silly, if not hurtful things.
SPEAKER_02: And so we have this tension to navigate that God made us for relationships and connection.
SPEAKER_02: But the only option is to be in relationship and connection with sinners.
SPEAKER_02: Your parents, your spouse, your children, heck, even your church leaders, those in your connect group, your neighbors, all sinners.
SPEAKER_02: And what I appreciate about what the New Testament talks about this is it doesn't downplay the significance of sin, but it does give us a few handles so that we can approach it the right way.
SPEAKER_02: And so there's a there's a verse in 1 Peter, maybe you heard it before, where Peter tells the churches around Asia Minor, he says, love covers a multitude of sins.
SPEAKER_02: Which means that in all of our relationships and our marriages and in the church and in our parenting, love covers.
SPEAKER_02: There's this like baseline of grace and assuming the best and believing the best about one another.
SPEAKER_02: I was I was thinking this week, um my my wife Aaliyah, uh, we've been married 12 years, and she's a saint, and she did not realize when she married me that she married a complete klutz.
SPEAKER_02: And so, like, like clockwork, every five or six weeks, there is some sort of glass dish or something as I'm doing dishes that ends up broken on the floor.
SPEAKER_02: It happened like on Thursday this week.
SPEAKER_02: And so, am I trying to break the glass?
SPEAKER_02: Of course not.
SPEAKER_02: But like, man, it's just like it's just a flaw that I have, and I'm not trying to do it.
SPEAKER_02: But love covers a multitude.
SPEAKER_02: Likewise, Paul says in both Ephesians and Colossians that uh we are called to bear with one another in love, meaning that we we we put up with one another, we we struggle together with one another, and and knowing that, man, we're we're prone to sin, but we're not gonna excuse sin, that like, yeah, we're going to choose love and grace up over um believing the worst and assuming the worst about one another.
SPEAKER_02: The the last thing I'll say is that in all of our relationships, again, whether it's marriages or friendships or parents, the Bible is really clear that God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.
SPEAKER_02: Can everyone say grace?
SPEAKER_01: Grace.
SPEAKER_02: He gives grace to the humble.
SPEAKER_02: And so choosing humility again and again and again, when everything inside of you says, I'm gonna choose pride, like that is the way of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And that leads us to healthy rhythms of confession and forgiveness and reconciliation, being willing to have the maybe difficult conversation when everything in us says, I want to avoid that.
SPEAKER_02: And the last thing I'll say is that when we are about reconciliation, we are displaying the gospel, we're displaying the good news of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: So that so even in Romans, Paul will talk about what Jesus has done for us in terms of broken relationship.
SPEAKER_02: That that while we were far from God, God has reconciled us to him through his son.
SPEAKER_02: And so because we are reconciled to God, that vertical meets the horizontal, and therefore we are committed to being people of reconciliation with one another.
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Tyler.
SPEAKER_01: All right, Seth, get ready.
SPEAKER_01: This is going to be a multi-part question.
SPEAKER_01: So you get about a minute for each topic.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have to be really disciplined.
SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
SPEAKER_01: What does the Bible teach about baptism?
SPEAKER_01: One minute.
SPEAKER_03: All right, here's why I love this because I watch theologians on TikTok, Instagram, just because I want to know what people are learning.
SPEAKER_03: And there's this really false thing where they're like, baptism doesn't save you, Jesus saves you.
SPEAKER_03: All right, well, here's the deal: if a carpenter drives a nail into a board, he uses a tool like a hammer, right?
SPEAKER_03: So what drove the hammer in or the nail into the board?
SPEAKER_03: Was it the hammer or was it the carpenter?
SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's both.
SPEAKER_03: So we can read a scripture like 1 Peter 3 that says, baptism, which corresponds to this, which is the real salvation.
SPEAKER_03: This word is talking about the real salvation that Noah and his family had just experienced.
SPEAKER_03: Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you.
SPEAKER_03: Super clear.
SPEAKER_03: Baptism saves you.
SPEAKER_03: And so people are like, No, but Jesus saves me.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus has chosen specific instruments to deliver his salvation.
SPEAKER_03: A lot like the hammer is to baptism, Jesus is to the carpenter.
SPEAKER_03: And wouldn't you know it?
SPEAKER_03: What was Jesus' profession before he was savior of the world?
SPEAKER_03: He was a carpenter as long as he followed in his dad's footsteps.
SPEAKER_03: And so when people say baptism now saves you, Jesus now saves you, one of the only one can be true.
SPEAKER_03: No, both are true because the scripture says this is a tool Jesus has chosen to use to give salvation to his people.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
SPEAKER_01: All right, how about confirmation?
SPEAKER_03: Confirmation, very short, a man-made process uh that you don't have to adhere to.
SPEAKER_03: So all you seventh and eighth graders are like, yes! No, no, because discipleship is non-negotiable.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, discipleship is a mark of Jesus, and confirmation is a program where we can disciple students as they grow.
SPEAKER_03: So if you're saying no to confirmation, you're like, no, I don't want to read the Bible, and no, I don't want to take the Lord's Supper, and no, I don't want to appreciate my baptism like the Bible says that I should.
SPEAKER_03: Confirmation is a way that we can talk about discipleship for people who are young.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
SPEAKER_01: Very good.
SPEAKER_01: Um, next question What about cremation?
SPEAKER_03: All right, this is tough.
SPEAKER_03: So, what was the material that God created humankinds with?
SPEAKER_03: We'll say things like ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
SPEAKER_03: It's dust, right?
SPEAKER_03: If a body is cremated, what is the condition of what's left over from that body?
SPEAKER_01: Dust.
SPEAKER_03: It's dust.
SPEAKER_03: So the act of cremation in and of itself is not spoken of against in the Bible.
SPEAKER_03: But there's a reason why a lot of Christianity didn't practice cremation for a long time.
SPEAKER_03: That's because of two things.
SPEAKER_03: One, it was a common practice in other religions to burn the body as a sacrifice to their gods and goddesses.
SPEAKER_03: And Christians in that area were like, no, no, no, we don't want anyone to even think we followed them.
SPEAKER_03: But number two, there was a group of people that said that they did not love the Lord and they did not want him to resurrect them from the body for their body when he comes back.
SPEAKER_03: So their cremation was an affront to God, saying, like, resurrect this.
SPEAKER_03: But there's nothing in the Bible that says you cannot be cremated.
SPEAKER_03: In fact, in 1 Samuel 31, Saul has just lost to the Philistines and has died on the battlefield.
SPEAKER_03: The Philistines take his body, they decapitate him.
SPEAKER_03: Sorry, kids in the in the different campuses here, and then put his body up on a wall, which is gross.
SPEAKER_03: But that's desecrating the body.
SPEAKER_03: God's people go, they get this body, they bring it down, they bring it back to one of their hometowns, and what do they do?
SPEAKER_03: They cremate his body.
SPEAKER_03: But then it says that whatever was left over, they buried in the ground.
SPEAKER_03: Why?
SPEAKER_03: Because we wanted the symbolism of a seed being planted in the ground, waiting to sprout up when Jesus returns.
SPEAKER_03: So even back then, they were able to use either or.
SPEAKER_03: It's fine to do both.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, and nothing's too difficult for God.
SPEAKER_03: Nope.
SPEAKER_01: There we go.
SPEAKER_01: Uh suicide.
SPEAKER_03: Suicide.
SPEAKER_03: Now, this is gonna take a little bit longer than the time that we have, but here's what I'll say: many people have a mistaken idea that if you commit suicide, you go to hell.
SPEAKER_03: There's a big difference between faith between being faithless and hopeless in your circumstance.
SPEAKER_03: You can be hopeless in your current circumstance, right, Church?
SPEAKER_03: That doesn't mean you're faithless.
SPEAKER_03: Because if an action determines your eternity, well, that's completely outside the realm of grace.
SPEAKER_03: And so if your action determines your eternity, therefore, if I take my own life, therefore I go to hell, well then the corollary would also have to be true.
SPEAKER_03: If I do something good, then therefore I should have heaven.
SPEAKER_03: And is that the way that the scriptures talk about this?
SPEAKER_03: No.
SPEAKER_03: Your actions do not determine your eternity.
SPEAKER_03: Faith in Jesus does.
SPEAKER_03: So if by some chance you know someone who has committed suicide, God bless you, you are going through something tough, and there are trials and tribulations in this life.
SPEAKER_03: But you don't have to think that automatically that person went to hell because being hopeless in your circumstance is different than being faithless without Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: That's good.
SPEAKER_01: All right, purgatory.
SPEAKER_03: Purgatory.
SPEAKER_03: We don't have time for purgatory.
SPEAKER_03: So I'll just say there isn't such a thing in all of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_03: There isn't.
SPEAKER_01: Great.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus is super clear.
SPEAKER_03: You either go to heaven or you go to hell.
SPEAKER_03: There's nothing in the middle.
SPEAKER_03: There's only one thing that gets confusing where uh heaven is talked about as Abraham's bosom in one specific parable.
SPEAKER_03: That's heaven.
SPEAKER_03: That's not a third place.
SPEAKER_03: That's all that it is.
SPEAKER_01: Great.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Good job, Seth.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: These next set of questions, two minutes.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: You ready, guys, Peter?
SPEAKER_01: This is the first one that's going to you.
SPEAKER_01: So this question is about having a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: And this is a kind of multi-part.
SPEAKER_01: How do I know when God is speaking to me?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So one, I was hoping he was going to say purgatory will have to wait, but he didn't.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to throw that in there.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so God's speaking to me.
SPEAKER_00: Compare scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Does it line up with what scripture has to say?
SPEAKER_00: Well, then possibly, then God is, he's definitely speaking to that to you through scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe he spoke that to you as as you were thinking as well, but confirm it with scripture because God's not going to say things to you that are outside of scripture or lead you to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he's going to speak to you through his word, through his promises, through his sacraments, and um, and confirm it with scripture.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit brings conviction, peace, wisdom, truth, not confusion.
SPEAKER_00: And so test it.
SPEAKER_00: Does it align with God's word?
SPEAKER_00: Will it produce Christ-like Christian fruit?
SPEAKER_00: And will it lead towards obedience, love, humility, those awesome gifts are so great, confident.
SPEAKER_01: Love it.
SPEAKER_01: How should I pray to the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we get to pray straight to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we get to pray through the power of the Son.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus died and rose from the dead and gives us life for all eternal.
SPEAKER_00: So we can speak straight to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And we get to do that by the power of the Holy Spirit, who lives and reigns in us, like he's working faith in us right now.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you get to pray right to God through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and you yeah, you talked a little bit about this.
SPEAKER_01: So the role the Holy Spirit plays in guiding, comforting, and transforming me.
SPEAKER_01: Like, what's up with that?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the Holy Spirit's incredible, and it bears some of the most important stuff we're ever gonna have in our life.
SPEAKER_00: That's the fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of cute songs about it.
SPEAKER_00: Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.
SPEAKER_00: But again, please.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal I'll do it every day.
SPEAKER_00: It's the grittiest thing you'll ever grow in your life because it comes from hardship and trial, and it is so important.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have peace when you're in an impossible circumstance, people see it and they say, How?
SPEAKER_00: Not by you, but through God, through the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Incredible work.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
SPEAKER_01: Great.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
SPEAKER_01: All right, Tyler, this one's for you.
SPEAKER_01: How can I be sure that I'm saved, forgiven, and truly belong to Christ, especially when I still struggle with doubt, recurring sin, weak faith, or fear of losing my salvation?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I unfortunately don't have a little song for this one, Peter.
SPEAKER_02: So but uh I do have a quote that's been attributed to Martin Luther, and it has everything to do with where your eyes are.
SPEAKER_02: And so um Luther said uh that if I look to myself, I can't see how I can be saved.
SPEAKER_02: But if I look to Christ, I can't see how I can be lost.
SPEAKER_02: And so if you notice in in each of those, um, when I still struggle with doubt, sin, uh weak faith, fear of losing my salvation, those are all things that are us.
SPEAKER_02: And like that's just that's just the reality of life.
SPEAKER_02: And so if if it's on me to have such a strong faith, or if it's on me to have um be be sanctified and holy enough to be counted worthy, Seth just talked about that.
SPEAKER_02: Like, we're not saved by that stuff.
SPEAKER_02: Who how and who are we saved by?
SPEAKER_02: It's by Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And so if you're looking for assurance, things that you can count on, that you can take to the bank.
SPEAKER_02: Don't look to yourself, look to Jesus and his appointed means.
SPEAKER_02: And so it's the truth of his word, his gospel preached.
SPEAKER_02: It says in Isaiah that when his word goes forth, it will accomplish the purpose for which it's sent.
SPEAKER_02: It's not going to return to him for you.
SPEAKER_02: And then what's beautiful is that we're a Lutheran church that we care about what God has said about the sacraments, especially baptism and communion.
SPEAKER_02: And with each of those, the words of Jesus, the promise of Jesus, and the promise of forgiveness and eternal life are attached to it.
SPEAKER_02: And so we don't have to go on the kind of um to and fro ness of our emotions, or man, I'm feeling strong today, weak next day, can say, I am baptized.
SPEAKER_02: Christ has claimed me.
SPEAKER_02: This is the body and the blood of Jesus which is given for me that I receive by faith.
SPEAKER_02: It's all Jesus, not us.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, love it.
SPEAKER_01: Mic dropped.
SPEAKER_01: All right, here we go.
SPEAKER_01: Seth, what is up with the possibility of extraterrestrial life?
SPEAKER_01: And how does that line up with the Bible?
SPEAKER_03: I have no idea.
SPEAKER_03: I've had like two weeks to prepare for this.
SPEAKER_03: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_03: So, what I find really helpful because I love science, I study the sciences as much as I can.
SPEAKER_03: I love watching YouTube videos about um the universe and all these other things.
SPEAKER_03: But what I found incredibly helpful is you've got to make a choice as you follow Jesus in terms of how your life is going to be framed.
SPEAKER_03: You can frame your life with faith as the highest priority, and then you three see the whole world through that lens of faith, or you can see it through the realm, like the realm or the perspective of how we as broken people observe the world.
SPEAKER_03: One of those is faith and one is science.
SPEAKER_03: I choose to see what the Lord has revealed and how the world was created, and say that is reality, and anything else that we find out as humans has to fit within that.
SPEAKER_03: So, as a for instance, if God has created all things and we're talking through the different days of creation, and we're going to, I think it's the fourth day of creation in Genesis, where he creates all of the swimming and teeming things of the ocean.
SPEAKER_03: Now I know for a fact that there are many swimming and teeming things in the bottom of the ocean.
SPEAKER_03: There are some freaky looking creatures that I will never see, and I don't even know that they exist.
SPEAKER_03: But I know that God created the oceans and all that dwell within them, even though I don't know anything about them.
SPEAKER_03: So anytime we learn about something new, I just fit it within my understanding of the world.
SPEAKER_03: God created it.
SPEAKER_03: When it comes to the heavens, God created the heavens and the earth and everything that is inside of it.
SPEAKER_03: I follow this kind of information and file it in the same way.
SPEAKER_03: If the Lord created all things in the heavens, then it stands to reason that he could also have created extraterrestrial life in whatever way that is.
SPEAKER_03: Whether it's carbon, whether it's amoebas, what's an amoeba?
SPEAKER_03: You all know what amoebas are, right?
SPEAKER_03: Single-celled organisms that turn into a game that's really fun to play with kids.
SPEAKER_00: I do not know what those are.
SPEAKER_03: But those are the kinds of things they're all created.
SPEAKER_03: Anything that's up in the skies, then that is up in the cosmos, God has created this.
SPEAKER_03: So if somebody were to say to me, God created extraterrestrials, I'd be like, Great.
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of things I don't know about that He created.
SPEAKER_03: I'll file it under.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: All right, guys.
SPEAKER_01: It's time for a rapid fire portion.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So we got two minutes on this.
SPEAKER_01: And the question is, and Seth, it's back to you.
SPEAKER_01: What's your belief about the rapture and the second coming?
SPEAKER_03: Yes, I'm so glad we have two minutes for this.
SPEAKER_03: All right.
SPEAKER_03: So within our church body, we're called amillennials.
SPEAKER_03: That is, we do not believe that there's going to be a thousand years in between a secret return of Jesus and a public return.
SPEAKER_03: We follow the scriptures.
SPEAKER_03: So if revelation is a little bit unclear, and it can be as we read it, I don't care what campus you're on, revelation can be tricky.
SPEAKER_03: We have a way to approach the scriptures that say the scriptures interpret themselves.
SPEAKER_03: So if you don't understand something in one portion of scripture, go to the broader scripture.
SPEAKER_03: So if you read Revelation, you're like, but what about a thousand-year difference?
SPEAKER_03: What about Jesus coming back secretly and then publicly back in a thousand years or whatever?
SPEAKER_03: Go to clear passages, go to First Corinthians 15.
SPEAKER_03: First Corinthians 15, Paul actually says, in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, in the blowing of a trumpet, Jesus will return.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus says in John chapter 5, verse 28, that he will come quickly at the sounding of a trumpet.
SPEAKER_03: These are all very clear communications to God's people that it's not going to be something secret that nobody knows about.
SPEAKER_03: It's not going to take place over a thousand years.
SPEAKER_03: Because then nobody can take for granted the task of evangelism.
SPEAKER_03: Because what are people going to hear in Christianity if you're like, look, a bunch of people are going to disappear that you know, planes are going to crash from the sky because Christian pilots are going to go to heaven.
SPEAKER_03: Then you'll know that Jesus is real and he's coming back.
SPEAKER_03: They're going to live a life however they want to live it because they think they're going to get that big moment.
SPEAKER_03: But also within Christianity, we're like, we'll wait until that time, until we're bold enough and courageous, courageous enough to talk about Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: We can't afford to do that because Jesus says, I'm going to come back so quickly that a trumpet will blast and an eye will twinkle.
SPEAKER_03: My eye twinkles really fast.
SPEAKER_03: And that's how Jesus is coming back.
SPEAKER_03: So as a church, all campuses, we got a lot of work to do because there are a lot of people that desperately need Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Great.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Peter, this one's for you.
SPEAKER_01: In the Apostles' Creed, why would Jesus descend into hell before he rose?
SPEAKER_01: Did he go there to save souls or what?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm actually gonna uh bring you in on this one.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna tag team.
SPEAKER_00: You got it, Seth?
SPEAKER_03: I feel like there's a Peter story.
SPEAKER_03: There is.
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
SPEAKER_00: I went to the Nondanam church every year for a play called Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what they showed.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll see how accurate this was.
SPEAKER_00: I love this play, it was super dramatic.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus, he dies, and then there's this scene where he marches into hell and Satan comes flying out of hell like a blast, and he lands and crumples on the ground, and he's like, Oh no! And Jesus comes out and he points at him.
SPEAKER_00: And Satan's got this big ring of keys, and he grabs the key from him and he points him back to hell, and Satan wilks his way back to hell.
SPEAKER_00: How accurate was that?
SPEAKER_03: That is 100% accurate.
SPEAKER_03: Nice! No, okay, it's not 100%, but it's actually not bad.
SPEAKER_03: Okay, it's actually really not bad.
SPEAKER_03: All right, so here's where we're gonna read from from the scriptures.
SPEAKER_03: So in 1 Peter chapter 3, this is actually right before the verse that I quoted about baptism now saves you if you want to look it up later.
SPEAKER_03: Uh bapt uh 1 Peter chapter 3, starting with verse 18.
SPEAKER_03: For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but being made alive in the spirit.
SPEAKER_03: So this is talking about the death and the resurrection of Jesus, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey.
SPEAKER_03: And so what we have here is Jesus not going further and further into hell to suffer more for our sins.
SPEAKER_03: We have Jesus storming hell to proclaim victory over sin, death, and the power of the devil.
SPEAKER_03: So I don't know how many like explosions there were as you were telling the story.
SPEAKER_00: Several, several.
SPEAKER_03: But but when Jesus said on the cross, it is finished, he meant it.
SPEAKER_03: There was not one more thing he needed to do.
SPEAKER_03: He fulfilled all of the law, he fulfilled all the expectations of the Father.
SPEAKER_03: And when he says it is finished, the debt was paid in full.
SPEAKER_03: Your grace was secured, and what he was doing in hell was proclaiming that over the devil.
SPEAKER_03: So now I want you to go out the next time your conscience or the devil or something speaks to you and says, You're not good enough, he doesn't really love you, and read this passage because this is where Jesus spoke truth to the devil that you were saved by grace through him.
SPEAKER_03: So, all right, maybe we need to go back to Green Bay for a field trip.
SPEAKER_03: Let's go! Woo!
SPEAKER_01: Love it.
SPEAKER_01: All right, guys, we're down to the 30-second questions.
SPEAKER_01: Prepare yourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's I'm gonna shoot this one over to Tyler.
SPEAKER_01: What's the role of women in church and ministry?
SPEAKER_02: In 30 seconds.
SPEAKER_02: 30 seconds.
SPEAKER_02: All right, so uh um God in Genesis chapter one.
SPEAKER_02: We know that God created God created man and woman, male and female.
SPEAKER_02: Um, if if you are a man, God created you that way on purpose.
SPEAKER_02: If you are a woman, God created you that way on purpose, and it is good.
SPEAKER_02: Hear that, it is good.
SPEAKER_02: And in God's creation, there are different roles and responsibilities.
SPEAKER_02: And so in the church, we believe what the New Testament says that the the office of pastor is reserved for for the man, but that does not mean that men are better than women.
SPEAKER_02: We just say, God, we submit to your word.
SPEAKER_02: And if you are a woman in this house, if you're a woman at Northwest or at Fremont, hear very clearly: God has made you, He has called you.
SPEAKER_02: There is purpose on your life, and don't let the devil lie to you that you have to be like a man in order to be effective in God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Love it.
SPEAKER_03: Did they cut on mics when we go over the 30-second mark?
SPEAKER_03: Because all of that was good, but we went over.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, Peter, I'm gonna give this one to you.
SPEAKER_01: My sister has decided to marry a woman.
SPEAKER_01: Should I attend their ceremony, struggling on how to navigate this?
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, fantastic book by a guy named Caleb Coltonbach called Messy Grace.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, check it out.
SPEAKER_00: I would uh I would recommend it to everyone who has these type of questions because God has called us to love.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we're like, yeah, Jesus hung out with the prostitutes and the sinners and the tax collectors, and we should do the same.
SPEAKER_00: No, I am the tax collector, I'm the prostitute, I'm the sinner, I'm the one who runs away from God.
SPEAKER_00: So read that book.
SPEAKER_00: It gives you a very healthy description on what grace can look like with people who disagree with me.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I'm gonna leave it at.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because it's a lot.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So, Seth, question.
SPEAKER_01: How, well, I guess this is to all of you.
SPEAKER_01: So you get 10 seconds each, right?
SPEAKER_01: Doing the math here.
SPEAKER_01: How did you each realize that you wanted to go into ministry?
SPEAKER_01: And how early did you know that in your life?
SPEAKER_03: I'll start.
SPEAKER_03: So it was on a garbage dump during a mission trip.
SPEAKER_03: Uh the Lord just spoke very clearly that I was to shift from uh I wanted to study medicine and to go and follow after the Lord and be a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and whatever field that God led me, I knew I was gonna be in ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And so um teaching, which was where I started, I think I realized that in high school.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: For me, so many of you here at our Millard campus and and even at Northwest, like you saw me grow up here.
SPEAKER_02: And uh and so it really was the it really was the church, um, God working through the church to say, yeah, God, this is this is where God has you, and I couldn't couldn't be more grateful.
SPEAKER_01: Love it.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent, thanks, guys.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, a question here, Peter.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna direct this one back to you.
SPEAKER_01: How can I get my grandchildren more interested in learning about Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Show them Jesus yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, speak God's word to them, do it in love, show them the life that it gives you.
SPEAKER_00: Like, talk to them about communion, talk to them about the Holy Spirit, and and show that joy.
SPEAKER_00: And the fruit of the Spirit is contagious.
SPEAKER_00: And your grandkids will say, I want some of that because it looks sweet and not rotten and boring and gross.
SPEAKER_00: And then it'll be like, come to VBS because it's the best week of the summer.
SPEAKER_00: And before you know it, they'll be coming to church, they'll give their life to Jesus, and everything will be wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: Woo! Okay.
SPEAKER_01: And the final question is hang on, it's really good, and I gotta find it.
SPEAKER_01: Which campus director would win in a campus director cage match?
SPEAKER_03: Is the cage match musically driven?
SPEAKER_03: Because it'd be these two.
SPEAKER_03: They're amazing.
SPEAKER_03: I was gonna say, if it's music or sudoku, I could win that one.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I I feel safe for not saying anything at this point.
SPEAKER_00: That is an excellent question, though.
SPEAKER_03: New outreach UFC matches with campus directors in the parking lot.
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
SPEAKER_00: I'm for it.
unknown: I'm for it.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you, guys.
SPEAKER_01: Really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01: We've just scratched the service today.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for all of the thoughtful questions that you submitted.
SPEAKER_01: I would imagine that we'll be taking some of these questions that weren't answered today, and we're gonna bring them to our next asking for a friend uh service.
SPEAKER_01: So take heart.
SPEAKER_01: I know that there are lots of things that are important to all of you, and and we hope to address all of those soon.
SPEAKER_01: Um, God wants us to come to him with both of our both our joyful and painful experiences with the tough questions and the concerns of our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the best ways to know his heart for us is to get into his word.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just want to take this moment to encourage you to get into God's word.
SPEAKER_01: It's worth it every single day.
SPEAKER_01: And that that routine that you build into your life will bear so much fruit and will change you from the inside out.
SPEAKER_01: God loves you and wants to meet with you in the pages of his word and through prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And so, if there's something that you can take away today, is just meet God in his word.
SPEAKER_01: All right, guys, great job.
SPEAKER_01: Let's give them a final round of applause.