Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 13, 2023


Ep 753 ｜ 'He Gets Us'： The Good, the Bad & the Unbiblical


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 2 minutes

Words per Minute

172.5255

Word Count

10,722

Sentence Count

780

Misogynist Sentences

7

Hate Speech Sentences

17


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 The He Gets Us ad campaign spent $20 million on Super Bowl advertisements the campaign says
00:00:06.700 are meant to point people to Jesus. So what is this campaign? What's it about? Is it biblical?
00:00:12.860 Should we as Christians be excited about it? We've got all of that and a little more today
00:00:17.320 on this episode of Relatable, which is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to
00:00:21.880 goodranchers.com. Use promo code Allie at checkout. That's goodranchers.com, code Allie.
00:00:30.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and that
00:00:42.380 you enjoyed watching the Super Bowl. If you watch the Super Bowl, you guys probably know I'm not that
00:00:47.240 much of a sports fan. I watch it because my husband watches it. And so, you know, I try to be a
00:00:54.360 supportive wife, but also those of you who are in my same stage of life, like the Super Bowl was in
00:01:01.600 toddler dinner time and bedtime, you know, that segment of the day. And so I didn't really have
00:01:09.020 very much time to actually sit down and watch it. I actually wanted to look at and analyze all the ads
00:01:13.960 and I was really only able to watch like the past few minutes and some of the, or the last few minutes
00:01:19.600 and some of the ads that I wanted to watch, but I did catch some clips. I caught some clips
00:01:24.720 on social media of things like the national anthem and things like that. And so before we get into all
00:01:30.820 the He Gets His stuff, we're going to play some of those moments. I was going for the Chiefs for
00:01:37.380 literally no reason, except for yesterday. I sat next to someone at church who had a Chiefs jersey on
00:01:43.980 and he said that he grew up in Kansas City. And I said, all right, now I have a personal connection
00:01:49.400 to one of the teams. And so I will root for the Chiefs. And so I did. And there you go. They won.
00:01:57.560 And so I guess I can say it was a great weekend for me. My team, the team that I am just a huge
00:02:03.460 committed fan to, fan of, won the Super Bowl last night. So I'm excited about that. A lot of people
00:02:13.660 were excited about the national anthem that was played by Chris Stapleton before the game. There
00:02:20.340 were actually two anthems played. There were two anthems played last night. So I'm going to play you
00:02:25.120 some of Chris Stapleton's, but let me say there was also what is considered a black national anthem
00:02:31.780 at the Super Bowl last night. And this song is Lift Every Voice and Sing. So this song was not written
00:02:38.980 as a black national anthem. It's just like a gospel hymn, typically sung in traditionally black
00:02:46.200 churches kind of throughout its history. But it has now been elevated to the point of being
00:02:52.260 the black national anthem. That's what it's been deemed now. And so apparently we had to have a
00:02:57.680 separate anthem that was sung before our national anthem. It should just go without saying,
00:03:04.220 I said this on Instagram, that we should not have two anthems for people with one kind of melanin count
00:03:12.300 and people with other kinds of melanin counts. Like there's nothing good or productive or redemptive
00:03:17.320 that comes from that. We're the United States of America. All of our good, our bad, our ugly
00:03:22.380 in our history. That's a shared history. And that all falls under one flag, one constitution,
00:03:30.640 and one national anthem, one God who created us all equal. And so if we really want unity,
00:03:37.680 like if you really want the reconciliation that social justice people say that they want,
00:03:42.580 like if we really want to come together and see our shared humanity, see that we're all made in the
00:03:47.180 image of God, you don't have two separate anthems. It's just silly. All it does is cause bitterness and
00:03:54.720 division and resentment and simply segregates us even more. We were going in a good direction with
00:04:01.780 all of this. And then over the past few years is the academic theories that drive racial division
00:04:07.100 have gone down to the masses and have manifested itself in like things like public school curriculum
00:04:12.320 and two separate anthems. Things have just gotten a lot worse. Things have gotten a lot worse.
00:04:16.580 And this absolutely doesn't help it. Now, the lady who sang it, Cheryl Lee Ralph, she's an actress.
00:04:23.720 She did a beautiful job. She's beautiful. She has a wonderful voice. So it has nothing to do
00:04:27.620 with her performance. I'm sure. I mean, I saw some of it. It was lovely. It was great. And all of that,
00:04:34.660 but it's just unnecessary, not just unnecessary, but completely counterproductive.
00:04:39.020 Okay. So here's a clip of Chris Stapleton singing the national anthem. And then the, um, you'll see
00:04:46.260 the Eagles head coach crying as well as an Eagles player crying, which makes, makes me cry when I see
00:04:53.140 this. So here it is. Love it guys. Something about grown tough men crying for love of country.
00:05:23.140 I'm sure it's also just like the surreal moment of realizing that you are in the Superbowl,
00:05:29.140 which is a big deal and worth crying over. But that was just, that was really sweet. You should
00:05:33.720 go listen to all of Chris Stapleton's, um, rendition, his singing of the national anthem.
00:05:39.840 I think it was really unique and it was really good. Um, other noteworthy things, uh, the halftime show,
00:05:46.880 Rihanna. I mean, honestly, there's not really that much to comment on there. She was dressed in red.
00:05:52.420 And then you've got like the marshmallow men who are, or I think women too, you couldn't really
00:05:58.580 tell dancing around her. I thought the dancing was kind of like funny. I don't know why it just
00:06:02.860 kind of made me giggle a little bit. And she appeared to be pregnant. Although everyone was
00:06:07.660 so quick to say on social media that she was pregnant. And I was like, guys, she just had a
00:06:11.420 baby. She had a baby last May. So I was like, this could just be postpartum. Like you'd be looking
00:06:16.420 like you're five months pregnant for a long time after you have a baby, or at least I did.
00:06:22.280 And so I was like, I'm not so sure that she's pregnant, but she did. Apparently her representative
00:06:26.820 confirmed after that she is in fact pregnant. And so she showed her baby bump. Some people are
00:06:33.360 upset that she apparently like grabbed her crotch and things. I didn't see that. I didn't even watch
00:06:37.240 the whole thing. I maybe watched like two minutes of it. She played the hits. It always surprises me
00:06:42.240 how many like mainstream pop songs I know without ever deliberately listening to them. But I was
00:06:48.720 like, yeah, I know all these songs. I mean, some of them came out when I was like in high school
00:06:52.100 and college. And so I probably listened to them back then. But I mean, I guess it was a good
00:06:57.120 performance. She didn't really dance that much, which if you're pregnant, I don't know how far
00:07:01.160 along she is. I don't really blame her. That would be difficult to do. I mean, I guess I thought it
00:07:07.240 was a fine performance. I don't. A lot of people are like up in arms that it was so inappropriate
00:07:12.180 I felt like it was at least what I saw was very mild compared to a lot of their performances
00:07:17.820 that we see. So there was that. And then there were some commercials that people like there.
00:07:25.380 Apparently, according to my research document here, this is not according to my my own assessment
00:07:32.480 of these ads since I didn't watch all of them. There weren't very many woke ones. I did see a
00:07:38.620 Disney ad where they tried to make it seem like Disney is still this, you know, upstanding family
00:07:45.280 friendly company when we know that's not true. I noticed that they didn't include any clips from
00:07:50.520 the proud family reboot and the Disney commercial. I wonder why that's so weird. Like I also didn't
00:07:58.560 see any clips of Disney employees protesting the law in Florida that bans talking about changing your
00:08:07.880 genitalia to kindergartners through third graders. That's so weird. So weird that they didn't include
00:08:13.180 that. But OK, so there were a few ads that people were talking about. So my producer included the Sarah
00:08:19.320 McLaughlin ad and I didn't think it was funny, but she thought it was funny. And I bet a lot of people
00:08:24.800 thought it was funny. So it's probably just my humor. I just didn't laugh at it, but you might laugh
00:08:29.940 at it. So I'm going to play you 30 seconds of this ad because maybe you'll get a kick out of it.
00:08:34.360 The Bush Guide. Cold and smooth survival skills. Three things are required in the great outdoors.
00:08:41.480 Food, drink and shelter.
00:08:46.280 Hello, I'm Sarah McLaughlin. For just dollars a day, you can help helpless animals find shelter.
00:08:54.440 Bush. Wrong shelter, Sarah. Also, that's a wolf.
00:09:00.160 Head for the mountains.
00:09:05.500 OK, I mean, I get it. Sarah McLaughlin, she used to do those commercials and everything,
00:09:12.740 but I just they don't like it didn't really go together with the Bush light product. It didn't
00:09:19.340 really just it didn't make any sense. OK, here's here's a commercial that I saw that I think that
00:09:26.280 everyone in the world had the same reaction. Who sat on the remote? Who did this? Here's that.
00:09:35.020 Welcome back to Super Bowl 57. So far, Greg, the game going like you expected.
00:09:39.220 Yeah. So far, these teams, they've really.
00:09:41.120 L.O.L. So if you're listening to this, it looks like you're watching.
00:09:53.500 Looks like you're watching the Super Bowl and that it like you exited the app that you were watching
00:09:58.620 it on and it went to the Tubi app and then you started watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith. When I saw
00:10:03.300 it go to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, like I knew it wasn't something that my husband was doing because I was
00:10:07.260 like, we would never watch that. You would never do that. You wouldn't change from the Super Bowl.
00:10:11.420 And so I figured out that it was a commercial, but I think everyone at the same time had the
00:10:16.060 same reaction. So that's kind of funny. And here's one that I have not even as I'm saying this,
00:10:20.260 I have not watched this yet, but I heard people talking about it. This is a commercial with Ben Affleck.
00:10:25.600 Welcome to Dunkin' A New Special. Dunkin' Run, medium or large coffee, get a donut for an incremental dollar.
00:10:31.280 Like, how can it be this inexpensive and good?
00:10:34.180 Pretty no sugar.
00:10:34.940 I'm just going to have to just give you 10 munchkins.
00:10:36.620 You look a little lost.
00:10:38.020 One second, I'm trying to find the bagels.
00:10:40.040 Do I look familiar?
00:10:41.380 Oh.
00:10:42.940 Should I be in it or do you want to just use the self-portrait?
00:10:46.900 What are you doing here?
00:10:49.180 Ask me if I like the bagels.
00:10:49.960 Is this what you do when you say you're going to work all day?
00:10:52.200 I gotta go, guys.
00:10:54.460 Grab me a glaze.
00:10:56.680 Okay, that was funny. That was cute. So that was Ben Affleck working at a Dunkin' Donuts.
00:11:01.500 And I guess he's from Boston, right? He donned his Boston accent
00:11:05.340 for the commercial and he is handing out coffees or he is the cashier giving coffees to people.
00:11:15.720 And at one point he asked someone, do I look familiar?
00:11:18.040 I mean, I honestly looked candid and the guy was like, no.
00:11:20.800 And then J-Lo, who is now his wife, drives up and then asks, what the heck are you doing?
00:11:27.900 So that was cute. That was funny.
00:11:29.680 All right. That's all we got to for the highlight portion of the podcast.
00:11:36.500 And now we're going to get into the He Gets Us stuff.
00:11:38.480 Okay. The moment that you've all been waiting for, the thing that you guys have been asking me about,
00:11:43.560 I've already shared some preliminary thoughts.
00:11:46.040 I shared it on Charlie Kirk's podcast and I shared some a couple weeks ago,
00:11:52.240 just saying kind of how I feel about it.
00:11:54.460 And actually, after I did that, the PR company that represents the He Gets Us campaign reached out to me
00:12:01.040 and said, hey, we would love to set up a call with you.
00:12:03.220 And I was excited about that. I was like, all right, I will talk to one of the guys who is a part of He Gets Us,
00:12:11.420 who I guess helps kind of run the show.
00:12:13.460 And I will kind of get some clarity about their heart behind this
00:12:17.160 and kind of what they're doing to lead people to Christ.
00:12:19.320 And I thought that that would be a really great setup for me to talk about this
00:12:23.480 because then I would have kind of a personal interaction to go off of.
00:12:27.080 And I had been waiting to officially talk about it until I had that personal conversation.
00:12:32.380 But unfortunately, they canceled the phone call.
00:12:34.700 And I'm not ascribing to them any malice or anything like that.
00:12:38.300 It was right before the Super Bowl.
00:12:39.500 So I'm sure that they were just busy.
00:12:41.000 They didn't have time to have the conversation. That's fine.
00:12:43.660 So, but just so you know, there was an effort to have this, you know, talk to them personally.
00:12:50.260 And unfortunately, it fell through.
00:12:52.280 But we've done a lot of research on this.
00:12:54.540 We've been working on this for a long time.
00:12:56.460 So I have a lot to say.
00:12:58.180 I have a lot to say about the He Gets Us campaign that I think that you're going to appreciate.
00:13:03.740 Maybe you won't agree with all of it.
00:13:05.300 But I do think that you're going to appreciate the perspective that we offer.
00:13:15.240 All right.
00:13:19.960 So before we get into the background of He Gets Us, because that's how I'm going to set this up.
00:13:24.360 I'm going to talk about the background, all of the research, who it's that we have, who is behind it, who is funding it.
00:13:31.400 And then we're going to talk about some of the criticism that it's gotten from the left.
00:13:35.480 We're going to get into all the details of it.
00:13:36.960 And then I'm going to give my analysis and assessment.
00:13:39.720 But before we get into any of it, let me address first those who are upset that I have any disagreements at all with this, that I am at all critical about any aspect of this campaign.
00:13:53.700 Because there are people who are frustrated with those who have any issue with the He Gets Us ads.
00:14:01.160 They'll throw out the word Pharisee or legalistic or rules-based or whatever.
00:14:05.320 They'll condemn you in some way.
00:14:06.400 They'll lash out in anger at anyone who dare critique this campaign because they'll say things like,
00:14:11.980 Why don't you want people just hearing and talking about Jesus?
00:14:15.540 Can't we all just get along as Christians?
00:14:17.200 Can't we just be happy that Jesus is being promoted in the Super Bowl?
00:14:21.360 Isn't that just such a big deal?
00:14:23.040 And shouldn't you just applaud that?
00:14:25.860 I've noticed, I've noticed this, it's not just with this campaign, but I have noticed that as soon as a Christian
00:14:31.400 attempts to exercise any bit of discernment, attempts to distinguish between truth and lies, biblical theology and non-biblical theology,
00:14:39.980 a very loud section of the peanut gallery will angrily accuse those Christians of being Pharisees.
00:14:45.420 It's like they believe Christians aren't supposed to have wisdom.
00:14:49.120 Like we're just supposed to accept any and all doctrines, especially those that come in the name of Christianity.
00:14:54.760 Here's Paul writing to the church in Galatia, asking them, telling them to please discern between true and false gospels.
00:15:03.220 He says,
00:15:03.480 That's Galatians 1, 6-7.
00:15:24.940 So God takes Christians who do not or cannot discern between the true gospel and a fake gospel to task.
00:15:31.720 It's a really big deal for him.
00:15:33.540 But we've actually got Christians out here today who will call you a Pharisee or hyper-religious if you attempt to distinguish between the truth and a lie.
00:15:42.200 Who refuse to see the difference between the prosperity gospel or the progressive gospel and Jesus' gospel and who condemn others who do.
00:15:50.880 And you've even got Christians who will get angry at Christians for condemning sin.
00:15:56.980 Christians are called to be wise.
00:15:58.600 We are called to discern.
00:15:59.740 We are called to distinguish.
00:16:00.740 Jesus, in Matthew 10, 16, says,
00:16:03.820 Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
00:16:11.580 So, if you disagree with what I say today in regard to my concerns with the campaign, I respect that.
00:16:19.060 You can explain to me your perspective and I am happy to hear it.
00:16:21.840 I don't claim that my point of view is infallible by any means.
00:16:25.500 There are Christians I respect who see this differently, but I do not respect the silly accusation that thinking critically about public representations of Jesus is wrong or some form of legalism.
00:16:37.200 I follow Jesus.
00:16:38.420 I follow Jesus.
00:16:39.240 I'm a Christian.
00:16:40.500 Therefore, I care deeply about how he is being presented to the world as a conservative.
00:16:45.700 I'm not looking to see him represented as a Republican or as an anti-abortion activist or a protester outside of gender clinics, even though I'm confident where his word stands on things like abortion and gender.
00:16:56.480 Therefore, I am looking to see Jesus represented biblically, truthfully, accurately, period.
00:17:02.340 And there are ads in this campaign that do not do that.
00:17:05.760 And there are also reasons I am praising God for how this campaign has already impacted people.
00:17:11.380 So, stick with me.
00:17:12.960 I promise I will get to positivity and celebration about this too, but I do have some concerns.
00:17:19.540 But before we even get into that, I want to talk about what he gets us is.
00:17:24.760 Maybe you don't even know.
00:17:26.820 You haven't even heard this.
00:17:27.900 You don't know what I'm talking about.
00:17:29.100 Let me explain to you what these he gets us ads are.
00:17:32.020 So, this is from the he gets us website.
00:17:35.660 He gets us is a diverse group of Jesus followers with a wide variety of faith journeys and lived experiences.
00:17:41.840 Our work represents the input from Christians who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, as well as many others who, though not Christians, share a deep admiration for the man that Jesus was.
00:17:51.920 And we are deeply inspired and curious to explore his story.
00:17:54.600 We look at the biography of Jesus through a modern lens to find new relevance and often overlooked moments and themes from his life.
00:18:02.440 If you'd like to join us, you're invited.
00:18:04.000 Below, you'll find several resources to explore the story of Jesus for yourself.
00:18:07.740 So, this is an organization that is trying to create modern relevance for Jesus by putting out ads that depict him in modern ways, that depict him in ways that a lot of people today can relate to.
00:18:25.560 The point is he gets us.
00:18:26.740 So, there are several different ads that they have.
00:18:30.160 They have ads that say he was a refugee.
00:18:33.700 They have ads that say that he was an influencer.
00:18:36.120 They also say on their website that Jesus was an activist.
00:18:39.260 In fact, the greatest activist that ever lived.
00:18:42.160 So, the point of these ads, they say, is to hook people, to make people understand that Jesus can empathize with you, that Jesus has been there, that Jesus understands what you're going through.
00:18:54.960 And they say that their hope is that these ads will pull people in and then lead people to Christ.
00:19:01.920 So, the He Gets Us pilot launched November 29th, 2021, in 10 U.S. cities with a multi-million dollar advertising test conducted over two months.
00:19:12.160 And that went into 2022.
00:19:14.340 And so, this is millions and millions of dollars poured into this campaign, poured into these advertisements that you've probably seen running on your TV.
00:19:21.680 And they paid $20 million for two ads to run during the Super Bowl last night.
00:19:29.680 Before I play you the ads that ran in the Super Bowl, let me play you some ads that they have played in the past.
00:19:37.080 Here is one saying that he gets us because Jesus was a refugee.
00:19:42.260 There was a mother and a father who had a son.
00:19:48.020 They lived in a small village and didn't have much money.
00:19:52.240 But they were happy.
00:19:55.000 One day, they heard the head of their country was sending soldiers to their town because he thought they were part of an insurrection.
00:20:03.300 The young family decided to flee.
00:20:06.320 They grabbed only what they could carry and ran.
00:20:09.740 They hiked for days, wondering if soldiers might still be following them.
00:20:17.460 They were scared.
00:20:20.620 Hungry.
00:20:22.340 And exhausted.
00:20:24.480 But they were far away from the atrocities taking place.
00:20:28.780 In Bethlehem.
00:20:31.660 That's all Mary and Joseph wanted.
00:20:34.380 A safe place to call home.
00:20:39.740 All right.
00:20:43.440 So at the end there, it says, Jesus was a refugee.
00:20:46.880 He gets us, all of us.
00:20:48.260 I will respond to that claim that Jesus was a refugee in the later portion of this, in my analysis of all of this.
00:20:55.540 There is also a Spanish version of that ad that is not called the refugee ad, but the immigration ad.
00:21:01.920 And so it's interesting how we're kind of making these political points here.
00:21:06.700 But again, I'll get into all of that in a second.
00:21:09.380 Here is another one calling Jesus an influencer.
00:21:12.440 There was an influencer who became insanely popular.
00:21:17.560 Everybody started following him.
00:21:19.440 Then one day, he stood up for something he believed in.
00:21:23.400 People got angry.
00:21:24.940 The establishment called him an extremist.
00:21:27.380 Said he shouldn't be allowed to share his views.
00:21:30.020 They would stop at nothing to shut him up.
00:21:33.220 So they did what they had to do.
00:21:35.740 They nailed him to a cross.
00:21:42.440 So they say there that Jesus was canceled.
00:21:46.040 He gets us, all of us.
00:21:47.420 And you can see the depictions, actually, that they're putting up as, I guess, they're trying to say modern versions of Jesus.
00:21:55.240 This is some kind of so-called racial justice protest where you actually have people, like, trying to break down windows and are protesting against the police and things like that.
00:22:05.460 And so even though they don't say in this clip that Jesus was an activist, that's obviously what they're trying to portray here.
00:22:12.000 And they do, again, say that explicitly on their website.
00:22:15.060 So the ads that played last night in the Super Bowl weren't quite as overtly political as that.
00:22:23.480 In fact, I wonder if that was purposeful, that they made them a little bit more seemingly nonpartisan.
00:22:29.660 So let me play you that.
00:22:31.120 The first one is about being childlike.
00:22:33.640 Here's that.
00:22:35.460 If I could see the world through the eyes of a child.
00:22:52.580 What a wonderful world this would be.
00:23:01.180 There'd be no trouble.
00:23:03.880 So honestly, that one makes me tear up a little bit because some of those videos, they're like really viral videos from social media that I've seen throughout the years.
00:23:13.140 And they just kind of put them together.
00:23:14.320 And at the end, it says Jesus didn't want us to act like adults, be childlike.
00:23:19.380 He gets us all of us.
00:23:21.320 Again, interesting, interesting message at the end of that.
00:23:25.360 Although I do appreciate the just like the sweet depictions of love between those innocent children.
00:23:32.200 And so I think that's maybe the point that they're trying to make.
00:23:35.840 And here's another one in the same vein about loving your enemies.
00:23:39.800 Maybe I'm foolish.
00:23:55.760 Maybe I'm blind.
00:23:57.020 Thinking I can see through this and see what's behind.
00:24:00.320 Got no way to prove it.
00:24:02.020 So maybe I'm lying.
00:24:03.160 Take a look in the mirror.
00:24:08.540 What do you see?
00:24:10.020 Do you see it clearer?
00:24:11.720 Are you deceived?
00:24:14.660 And won't you believe?
00:24:15.900 Because I'm only human after all.
00:24:25.060 Okay, so that's the last one that we'll play.
00:24:41.400 So Jesus loved the people that you hate at the end of it.
00:24:45.140 And it was just a bunch of people yelling at each other, angry, different sides of the political aisle, different races, different socioeconomic backgrounds and ages.
00:24:53.840 You can tell that that's the point that they were trying to make, that Jesus told us to love our enemies.
00:24:59.880 And Jesus, in fact, has loved our enemies by, I mean, they don't say by dying on the cross, but I'm kind of filling in the blanks there.
00:25:06.020 And so those were the ads that cost tens of millions of dollars that were playing at the Super Bowl last night.
00:25:12.600 Now, the question is, who is behind these ads?
00:25:15.420 Well, there are a lot of people behind these ads.
00:25:17.080 The $100 million that have gone into this over the past two years, it comes from the Servant Foundation.
00:25:23.020 It's a nonprofit backed by a Christian Donor Advice Fund called The Signatory.
00:25:28.280 The Hobby Lobby CEO, David Green, is outspoken about funding the project.
00:25:32.900 He actually told Glenn Beck that a while back.
00:25:36.700 And there's a lot of evangelical ties to He Gets Us.
00:25:40.900 This is a pretty explicitly evangelical effort to try to, they say, reach people with the Jesus that maybe they haven't seen.
00:25:52.120 And they talk a lot about how our political discourse and our discussions and debates today, and even the church itself, has kind of distorted who Jesus is.
00:26:02.460 And so I think that their hope is that if they try to make Jesus relatable and kind of project him on or project our modern narratives onto him, then people will be hooked.
00:26:12.500 They'll be interested.
00:26:13.840 And then you can go to the He Gets Us website, and they have a few things that they do.
00:26:20.820 They have a chat feature, which I'll talk about in a little bit.
00:26:24.100 They connect you to a church.
00:26:26.020 Now, as far as we know, there are no doctrinal standards whatsoever that a church has to meet to be a church that an inquisitive person is connected to.
00:26:34.740 There are also other resources, like there are Bible studies that you can be connected to on the YouVersion app.
00:26:40.320 I will say it repeats a lot of the stuff that you just saw in the ads.
00:26:46.220 Some things I think are good in that.
00:26:48.340 And of course, I want people to read scripture.
00:26:50.280 Some of the things this I'll talk about in a second, I do not think are just accurate depictions of Jesus and can actually be harmful.
00:26:58.700 So obviously, there's a lot of money behind this.
00:27:01.000 There's a lot of effort behind this, too.
00:27:02.720 Jason Vanderground, he is the president of Haven, a branding firm that's based in Michigan, is working on the He Gets Us campaign.
00:27:10.660 And so they have been kind of helping market this and helping with the PR.
00:27:17.940 Pinkston was the PR firm that reached out to me, which is a major PR firm that I guess is also representing the He Gets Us campaign.
00:27:24.960 So this is a very formal, very well-funded evangelical effort to evangelize two nonbelievers in, I guess, a new and what they would call a relevant way.
00:27:39.660 Now, the North American Mission Board, which is a huge missions organization associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, they were at one point kind of supporters of the He Gets Us campaign.
00:27:51.760 But then they stepped back and said, you know what, this effort is a little bit too broad for us.
00:27:56.620 We're not really sure if we agree with all the doctrinal statements.
00:27:59.800 We're not really sure if we can fully support this effort since we don't know kind of what churches people are being connected to here.
00:28:10.400 And so there are a lot of concerns.
00:28:12.100 There are a lot of concerns, as I'm about to outline kind of across the board.
00:28:15.400 Christian conservatives like me who worry that this demonstration of who Jesus is is simply not biblically accurate.
00:28:22.500 But, of course, I am hopeful that people come to Christ.
00:28:25.120 And then you've got the left-wing side of this.
00:28:27.920 So the left-wing side of this, because this is an evangelical effort, they also are not super happy about these ads.
00:28:36.920 All right, so AOC has something to say about this.
00:28:51.060 She says, something tells me Jesus would not spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign.
00:28:59.020 Fascism?
00:29:00.720 Is fascism in the room with us right now?
00:29:03.000 Like, how do we just conjure up these things out of nowhere?
00:29:07.580 Fascism?
00:29:08.220 What does this have to do with anything?
00:29:09.320 I guess she's saying, like, we shouldn't love our enemies or we shouldn't reach across the aisle because the other side of the aisle, they're fascists, they're Nazis.
00:29:19.220 And so, like, Jesus wouldn't want you trying to talk to them.
00:29:24.140 I'm not really sure.
00:29:25.040 I did see some other people saying this.
00:29:26.620 Like, these millions of dollars could have gone to relief.
00:29:29.620 They could have gone to, you know, housing people.
00:29:33.240 They could have gone to satiating hunger and thirst and things like that around the world.
00:29:36.600 I will just say you don't have to worry your pretty little head about that.
00:29:39.780 Like, I've got my critiques of this campaign, too.
00:29:43.020 But Christians are out there.
00:29:44.460 Okay?
00:29:44.760 Christians are already spending millions and millions of dollars and millions and millions of hours aiding those who need it around the world.
00:29:54.520 Okay?
00:29:55.160 Christians still lead in philanthropic and charitable and rescue efforts around the world.
00:30:00.880 All right?
00:30:01.220 So, if you're worried about that, if you're worried about how Christians are spending their money, like, I'm interested to look at your bank account.
00:30:06.360 Where are you spending your money?
00:30:08.100 How much charity are you giving?
00:30:09.640 How many hours are you volunteering?
00:30:11.500 Because, like, I will say that the Christians who are backing this, like, the Green family, are incredibly generous.
00:30:19.840 And they're generous elsewhere.
00:30:21.180 They've got enough cash to be able to help fund something like this and to also offer relief from hunger and things like that, which they do.
00:30:30.740 And a lot of Christians do.
00:30:32.560 So, I don't think that's a proper critique of it.
00:30:35.780 I think that this could be a good stewarding of people's money if it is an effective and biblical campaign.
00:30:45.360 So, I have my criticisms.
00:30:47.140 I don't think that that's a good criticism.
00:30:49.540 But that's, of course, how the left always sees money or they see everything as, like, some kind of zero-sum game.
00:30:56.500 So, CNN and Slate are two outlets that I saw call out, he gets us, for being funded by the Servant Foundation and being funded by the Hobby Lobby co-founder.
00:31:10.420 Because the Servant Foundation and the Hobby Lobby co-founder have also donated millions of dollars to organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, which is a conservative Christian legal group.
00:31:24.480 And this is, according to CNN, the ADF has been involved in several legislative pushes to curtail LGBTQ rights and quash non-discrimination legislation in the Supreme Court.
00:31:35.220 That's CNN's wordings.
00:31:37.160 Of course, that is their way of saying protecting religious freedom and the freedom of speech.
00:31:43.620 A Hobby Lobby has famously been at the center of several legal controversies, including the support of anti-LGBTQ legislation and a successful years-long legal fight that eventually led to the Supreme Court allowing companies to deny medical coverage for contraception on the basis of religious beliefs.
00:31:59.860 Yes, of course, a company should not be forced to pay for the birth control or for any kind of ethically questionable so-called health care that it doesn't want to and that violates their religious beliefs.
00:32:16.700 So, I'm very thankful to the Green family for fighting that fight.
00:32:19.600 I'm very thankful to Hobby Lobby for choosing to stand their ground on that.
00:32:23.620 They didn't have to.
00:32:24.400 It would have been a lot easier not to.
00:32:25.740 And yet, they did.
00:32:28.000 And CNN is decrying that and they're also saying that this is an evangelical effort and Christian evangelicalism, or evangelism, they actually say, is closely tied to conservatism.
00:32:42.420 And everyone knows how scary that is.
00:32:45.580 And then also, they're mad that the He Gets Us campaign affirms the Lausanne, I guess that's how you pronounce it, covenant, the 1974 Lausanne covenant.
00:32:53.880 It's inspired by Billy Graham documents and decisions that have come out of the movement summits have decried the idolatry of disordered sexuality.
00:33:02.640 So, basically, they're saying, and Slate is also saying this in a recent article, that they have anti-LGBTQ ties.
00:33:10.720 And that is why this is problematic.
00:33:12.860 Other people just think that this is a waste of money.
00:33:15.700 And so, the left-wing criticism of this is that it's too closely tied to conservatism, even while they are admitting that the ads themselves seem to be progressive.
00:33:28.460 I mean, Slate says this.
00:33:29.840 He Gets Us has insisted that they are not left or right.
00:33:32.120 But the reality is that using fraught terms like canceled and images of Black Lives Matter protests invites viewers to try to map partisan politics onto it.
00:33:40.600 And while it invites the questions, it can't help but spur others.
00:33:43.340 Mainly, is this really the best use of a billion dollars in Christian donations?
00:33:47.080 Wouldn't the more Jesus-like thing to do with that money be to actually work to reduce problems like poverty and homelessness and institutional failures of the justice system?
00:33:55.320 So, that's a really good, I think, summary of the progressive critique of this.
00:34:02.200 And then CNN also talks about that it seems progressive and that it depicts Jesus as kind of an advocate for women's rights and a progressive social and racial justice activist.
00:34:15.240 But then, of course, outlines the same concerns that Slate does.
00:34:18.700 So, that's kind of going from the left-wing perspective.
00:34:21.800 And then I've got my perspective.
00:34:23.260 And I've got my issues with it.
00:34:25.980 And then also why I am still hopeful in the midst of it.
00:34:30.560 So, now that I've laid this all out there, what it is, how much money is behind it, where the money is coming from, like what the goals are.
00:34:38.440 I hope I've given an accurate and a fair depiction of what it is while also already kind of highlighting some of the words that have been said that I'm concerned with.
00:34:46.720 In summary, I think that there is some good here.
00:34:50.940 I also think that there is some bad.
00:34:52.540 I think good things can come of this.
00:34:55.480 I think that there are very bad things that can come of this.
00:34:58.000 So, let's start there.
00:34:59.380 Let's start with my critiques and then I can move to some positive things that I see.
00:35:04.140 First, as I mentioned, some ads describe Jesus in a way that is not true.
00:35:08.960 It's not biblical.
00:35:10.080 Jesus was not an activist at all.
00:35:12.680 He wasn't a conservative activist.
00:35:14.180 He wasn't a progressive activist.
00:35:15.540 He wasn't an anti-abortion activist.
00:35:17.480 He wasn't a social justice activist.
00:35:19.080 Jesus, fully God, fully man, was a teacher, a healer, a preacher, a minister, a discipler, a friend, a son, a brother.
00:35:26.820 He was not an activist.
00:35:28.240 An activist seeks to change systems, particularly political systems.
00:35:31.880 Jesus did not do that.
00:35:33.020 In fact, when confronted by the Pharisees with a question about how they should participate in the political system, should they continue to pay taxes to Caesar, he pointed to Caesar's depiction on the coin and said, render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God's what is God's.
00:35:48.140 Jesus was also not a feminist.
00:35:50.740 He believed in the equal dignity and worth of men and women as written in Genesis 127.
00:35:55.320 He didn't seek to overturn the patriarchy.
00:35:57.420 In fact, he actively participated in it.
00:35:59.680 He was not a socialist.
00:36:01.020 In fact, we see that repentance from Matthew and Zacchaeus involved returning taxes from people who were overtaxed.
00:36:07.380 We also don't see necessarily that he was a capitalist.
00:36:10.040 This campaign claims to add modern relevance to Jesus by inserting him into our stories today.
00:36:18.320 But you see that when we do that, we depict him in ways that just aren't true.
00:36:21.960 We depict a Jesus that is not real.
00:36:24.620 He was not a political revolutionary.
00:36:26.880 He did not seek to take down the Roman Empire.
00:36:29.600 His purpose wasn't as a rebel against Roman rule.
00:36:32.320 His chief aim wasn't even a takedown of the Pharisees.
00:36:35.900 He repudiated the Pharisees not because they were too holy.
00:36:39.060 Too religious or cared too much about rules.
00:36:42.060 But actually because they added rules and burdens to Scripture that did not exist.
00:36:46.140 And therefore, they were lawbreakers.
00:36:48.320 They were unholy.
00:36:49.220 They were irreligious.
00:36:50.600 So Jesus came not to say, I'm getting rid of all the rules.
00:36:53.540 I'm going to do away with the so-called system.
00:36:56.220 Bye-bye religion.
00:36:57.580 Jesus showed us what religion and relationship with God, that it was always what it was always meant to be.
00:37:04.120 He made holiness and obedience even more important than the cheap imitation demonstrated by the Pharisees.
00:37:10.920 Matthew 5, 17.
00:37:12.320 Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets.
00:37:15.560 I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
00:37:19.120 Jesus doesn't push back against the Pharisees because the Pharisees cared too much about sin.
00:37:23.900 He pushed back against them because they didn't care about sin enough.
00:37:27.020 He took rule following to a whole other level by making it not just about what you do, but about also what you think and feel.
00:37:35.260 Matthew 5, 28.
00:37:36.360 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
00:37:42.900 So he took sin to an even deeper new level.
00:37:46.680 He cared about sin way more than the Pharisees ever did.
00:37:50.000 This was Jesus' concern.
00:37:51.560 Jesus was concerned with people's hearts.
00:37:54.120 He cared about their bodies.
00:37:55.180 Yes, that's why we see him miraculously heal and feed so many, but he really cared about their theology.
00:38:01.000 He did not preach political activism.
00:38:03.180 He preached salvation through him, John 14, 6.
00:38:05.500 He preached that his kingdom was not of this world, John 18, 36.
00:38:09.320 He could have led an earthly revolution.
00:38:11.480 He could have fought to take down Rome.
00:38:13.440 He could have led an insurrection.
00:38:15.200 That's actually what he was accused of doing, but he didn't.
00:38:18.840 It was through his preaching of the gospel that he was perceived as a threat, that he was a threat.
00:38:23.780 It was his relentless commitment to the radical truth that there is a higher kingdom, which is ruled by a higher king, namely himself, that was the threat to the Pharisees, to Rome.
00:38:34.040 He did not activate against these institutions in the way that an activist does or would.
00:38:42.380 Now, does that mean that we should not care about politics?
00:38:45.380 You know that I don't think that.
00:38:47.100 Politics matter because policy matters, because people matter.
00:38:50.320 But we can recognize that without saying, we can recognize that without saying that Jesus was an activist.
00:38:58.600 That idea is not supported by scripture, not in the gospels, not in the epistles.
00:39:04.000 Who was Jesus and what did he come to do?
00:39:06.920 We don't have to guess, but you don't actually get that from any of these ads.
00:39:11.160 John 1, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
00:39:15.600 He was in the beginning with God.
00:39:17.980 All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.
00:39:22.500 In him was life and the life was the light of men.
00:39:26.280 The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
00:39:29.420 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
00:39:34.640 who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
00:39:39.620 And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
00:39:41.960 And we have seen his glory, glory as the only son from the father, full of grace and truth.
00:39:47.660 Luke 19, 9, for the son of man came to seek and save the lost.
00:39:51.800 Mark 2, 17.
00:39:52.840 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician,
00:39:56.960 but those who are sick, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
00:40:01.180 To what?
00:40:02.180 To faith-filled, love-empowered repentance.
00:40:04.620 Also, not only was Jesus not an activist, but he was also not a refugee.
00:40:11.960 Not in our current political sense.
00:40:14.640 Again, this is the problem with trying to project our modern socio-political world onto Jesus.
00:40:19.760 The Spanish version of this ad, as I said, was titled Immigration.
00:40:23.700 The Immigration Ad.
00:40:24.780 Well, Jesus wasn't an immigrant.
00:40:26.420 He wasn't a refugee in our sense.
00:40:28.480 As a child, he and his family fled from one part of the Roman Empire to another.
00:40:31.640 That would be like going from South Carolina to Missouri and then returned home.
00:40:35.920 Refugees today, our definition of refugees today, go from one country to another, and
00:40:40.040 by definition, they stay.
00:40:41.940 That doesn't describe Jesus, and there is no reason to describe Jesus in this way to show
00:40:45.620 people the significance of who he was and is.
00:40:49.960 GotQuestions.org, which I think is a great resource.
00:40:52.220 I liked this quote from their page about the He Gets Us ads.
00:40:54.840 It says,
00:40:56.120 The concern is that he Gets Us walks on the knife edge of doing exactly what they claim
00:41:01.520 to counter, repurposing Jesus' story to support certain political narratives while playing
00:41:07.660 fast and loose with scripture.
00:41:10.300 Exactly.
00:41:12.900 Jesus also, not only is he not an activist, not only was he not technically a refugee,
00:41:19.560 Jesus also shouldn't be diminished as some influencer.
00:41:22.120 Everyone didn't start following Jesus, as that ad says, and some people didn't just
00:41:26.720 start getting angry when he bucked against the system, as that ad argues.
00:41:30.640 They were angry at his ministry from the beginning because he claimed to have power from God.
00:41:35.820 So the He Gets Us ads at times depict Jesus in a way that is just not true.
00:41:40.320 It's not biblically accurate.
00:41:41.480 They sacrifice truth for relevance, and in so doing, they offer a Jesus that isn't real,
00:41:45.900 and a Jesus that is not real cannot save.
00:41:48.160 I understand that it's supposed to be a hook.
00:41:52.320 I get that it's supposed to be the first step of evangelism.
00:41:54.740 Okay.
00:41:55.440 Okay.
00:41:56.080 I get that.
00:41:57.040 But it's not necessary to deceive.
00:41:59.680 That's not an excuse for bad theology or a poor understanding or rendering of history.
00:42:04.680 This is another example to me of Christians thinking they can do a better job of reaching
00:42:10.780 people than God can.
00:42:12.780 Deciding that the truth about who Jesus is just isn't appealing enough.
00:42:16.440 And so dressing him up in a costume, hoping that people will be attracted to that instead.
00:42:23.400 And then I've got my second issue with the campaign.
00:42:25.500 And this is, I think, the really big one.
00:42:27.480 My second big issue with the campaign is that it makes central the peripheral, and it makes
00:42:46.300 peripheral the central.
00:42:48.180 It, in my opinion, does more to distract from the gospel than to attract people to Christ.
00:42:54.640 And here's what I mean by that.
00:42:56.060 Yes, Jesus, God who became flesh, sympathizes with our weaknesses.
00:43:01.040 Yes, Jesus was tempted as we are today.
00:43:03.860 Hebrews 4.15.
00:43:05.120 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who
00:43:09.700 in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.
00:43:14.420 That is an amazing aspect of God becoming human.
00:43:17.520 He didn't have to, but he did.
00:43:19.000 And so we have a high priest we can relate to in many ways.
00:43:22.460 It is true that Jesus dealt with hunger, pain, rejection, temptation, but that is peripheral
00:43:29.960 to the gospel, not central to it.
00:43:32.400 And I just think if we are going to spend millions of dollars on a brief advertising spot to share
00:43:39.920 Jesus with people, we really need to make sure that the main thing is the main thing.
00:43:45.700 In a compelling and creative way, sure, but not in a way that compromises what the gospel
00:43:50.740 is.
00:43:51.640 The gospel is that you are a sinner and that God is holy.
00:43:56.440 Our sin creates a chasm between us and God.
00:43:58.660 We are enemies because of it.
00:44:00.080 We need a bridge between us and God.
00:44:01.960 We need a form of reconciliation between us and God.
00:44:04.940 We need to be connected to God, but because God is holy, he can't be connected to sin.
00:44:09.600 So we must be made clean then.
00:44:11.980 Someone must pay for our sins.
00:44:14.660 There must be a sacrifice made on our behalf to do away with our sins so we can be made
00:44:19.300 holy and presentable to God so we can be reconciled to him, forgiven by him, friends and sons and
00:44:24.060 daughters of him and spend forever with him.
00:44:26.180 And that sacrifice, that reconciliation is Jesus.
00:44:30.020 2 Corinthians 5, 20 through 21, we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
00:44:35.640 For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the
00:44:42.540 righteousness of God.
00:44:44.580 That is the gospel.
00:44:45.440 Jesus died to pay for our sins so that whosoever would believe in him, as John 3, 16 says,
00:44:51.220 would not perish but have everlasting life so that we could become righteous, new creations,
00:44:56.080 as 2 Corinthians 5, 17 tells us, freedom from sin, total forgiveness, no matter what you've
00:45:02.420 done, joy, a new identity, hope, purpose.
00:45:05.440 I love this stanza of the hymn, Great is Thy Faithfulness, because I think it sums up what
00:45:10.000 we get in this glorious exchange so well, pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, thine own
00:45:15.940 dear presence to cheer and to guide, strength for today, bright hope for tomorrow, blessings all
00:45:20.640 mine with 10,000 beside.
00:45:22.980 So we get forgiveness, we get comfort, we get grace, we get God's protection and provision
00:45:28.400 and presence.
00:45:29.820 There are lots of creative ways, I think, to depict that message.
00:45:33.280 Actually, Jesus does it really well in his parables.
00:45:36.140 Maybe we should have had ads that depicted the story of the prodigal son or the lost sheep,
00:45:42.280 and maybe even modern versions of them while remaining true to who Jesus really was.
00:45:47.460 I don't know.
00:45:48.260 I just think that the Bible, I think Jesus already does a really good job of making the
00:45:52.840 gospel relevant.
00:45:55.240 That Jesus, like the real Jesus, the one who says, I am the way, the truth, and the life,
00:46:00.240 and no one comes to the Father except through me, that's the Jesus the world needs to see.
00:46:04.420 That's the Jesus the world hates.
00:46:06.480 We can blame the church all we want for wrongly representing him.
00:46:09.700 Some of that is certainly true.
00:46:11.160 But at the end of the day, the world hates that Jesus because they always have.
00:46:16.240 Jesus, we read in John 1, full of grace and truth.
00:46:19.380 Stephen, we read in Acts, was full of grace and power.
00:46:22.460 They were both examples in kindness and in love.
00:46:24.840 Jesus, a perfect example.
00:46:26.140 Stephen, an imperfect, but a great one.
00:46:28.360 Yet what was their fate for both of them?
00:46:30.000 These people that we are told were full of grace, were examples in kindness and love
00:46:34.460 and gentleness.
00:46:35.920 Jesus was crucified.
00:46:37.800 Stephen was stoned to death.
00:46:40.300 The He Gets Us campaign on their website seems befuddled as to how Jesus got a bad rap when
00:46:47.940 he did so much good.
00:46:48.860 Did we forget that Jesus was crucified 2,000 years ago?
00:46:56.340 He was spat upon by people who fully knew who he was and what he did.
00:47:00.720 Did we forget that the crowd in his day, a crowd that had no doubt seen or heard of his
00:47:06.160 restoring the sight to the blind and feeding the hungry, chose to execute him and free the
00:47:12.720 criminal Barabbas instead?
00:47:14.120 Did we forget that his own friend, who'd watched his ministry and received his love, handed
00:47:20.420 him over for 30 pieces of silver?
00:47:24.600 These things did not happen because Jesus didn't have a good PR firm representing him.
00:47:29.940 This happened to fulfill the ancient prophecies and because the world has always hated God.
00:47:36.400 Romans 1 explains this very clearly.
00:47:38.640 So let's not delude ourselves into thinking that if Jesus had better marketing, everyone
00:47:44.160 would accept him.
00:47:45.460 I'm not saying all marketing campaigns are bad.
00:47:47.840 I'm not saying that PR is bad.
00:47:50.080 But it's not that Jesus has a PR problem that people aren't accepting him.
00:47:56.620 It's that the world has always hated Christ.
00:48:00.820 The Jesus that the He Gets Us campaign shows us.
00:48:03.440 In an attempt to do PR for Jesus, to rebrand Jesus, to market him better than they believe
00:48:11.980 the church has for thousands of years.
00:48:14.820 This Jesus that they show to us, Jesus, the man, Jesus who can relate to you, Jesus who is
00:48:21.480 just like you, but maybe a little better.
00:48:24.680 Jesus, the guy who only ever talked about love.
00:48:28.320 That is the Jesus the world already believes in.
00:48:32.640 That's the Jesus that the world is already presenting to you and begging you to follow.
00:48:36.580 Jesus, the empath who gets it and just wants you to feel good about yourself.
00:48:40.780 Everyone already has faith in that Jesus, loves that Jesus, the Jesus that makes things
00:48:47.000 about you.
00:48:48.740 These ads basically reaffirm that Jesus is exactly what the secular world has long been saying
00:48:55.220 Jesus is, and is also a tacit apology for how Christians have made him into something else.
00:49:01.760 So to summarize, Jesus is not you.
00:49:06.440 He's not me.
00:49:07.840 I don't look to Jesus to see my story reflected in him.
00:49:12.120 He had similar experiences to some of us, and we should be grateful for that.
00:49:16.140 That is comforting.
00:49:17.260 But it is not our right or our responsibility to project modern narratives onto him that distort
00:49:23.480 who he really is and the message he brings.
00:49:27.180 We are beneficiaries of the gospel, but we are not the point of the gospel.
00:49:31.000 The point of the gospel is God, his glory.
00:49:34.420 That's where the liberation is, that it's not about us anymore.
00:49:38.400 Like, isn't that good news?
00:49:40.360 Everything, everywhere, especially since the dawn of social media has been screaming to us,
00:49:44.980 it's about you.
00:49:45.940 In fact, here's your about you section of your page.
00:49:49.300 What Disney princess are you?
00:49:50.700 What's your Enneagram number?
00:49:51.940 What's your truth?
00:49:52.720 What are your pronouns?
00:49:54.040 What pictures best represent the life you want to show people?
00:49:57.360 Let us curate a timeline and an explore section that perfectly matches your interests.
00:50:01.360 Self-love, self-care, self-help, self-empowerment, me, me, me.
00:50:04.740 My story, my feelings, my lived experience, my identity, my wants, my needs, self, self, self.
00:50:10.100 I'm enough.
00:50:10.720 I'm perfect the way I am.
00:50:12.140 I'm the source of my own happiness and truth.
00:50:15.220 Fulfillment.
00:50:15.620 This is constant.
00:50:17.200 It's everywhere.
00:50:17.920 Every advertisement, every form of encouragement, inspiration makes it about us.
00:50:26.540 Every secular source, all day, every day.
00:50:30.220 Here's another way you can think more about you.
00:50:33.820 Guess what?
00:50:34.440 We don't need any more messages centering on ourselves.
00:50:37.640 It's exhausting.
00:50:38.380 It's actually weighing us down with a burden we can't carry.
00:50:43.600 Praise God.
00:50:44.280 The gospel frees us from this self-obsession.
00:50:47.940 Praise God for Luke 9.23, where Jesus says,
00:50:50.840 And he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
00:50:59.060 Praise God for Galatians 2.20.
00:51:00.940 I have been crucified with Christ.
00:51:03.220 It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
00:51:06.700 Praise God for Philippians 3.8.
00:51:08.300 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
00:51:14.360 For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them all as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.
00:51:20.660 John 3.30.
00:51:21.600 He must increase.
00:51:22.640 So, these are my two big things.
00:51:29.080 My two big things are that some of the ads get Jesus just straight up wrong.
00:51:35.240 I think overall, they distract from the gospel.
00:51:40.040 And they deliver us something that's worldly rather than biblical.
00:51:44.900 There are plenty of other things that I could say, but I will leave it at that.
00:51:49.320 And now, let me talk about the more positive side of this.
00:51:53.820 You got a more positive side to say, all right?
00:51:56.580 Because I know what some of you are thinking.
00:51:58.940 Okay, but all of that is too much to put in a 30-second ad.
00:52:02.560 This is relatable stuff.
00:52:05.080 It's a hook.
00:52:07.420 And these people get interested.
00:52:09.280 They'll look into it.
00:52:10.160 They'll be connected to a church where they will hear the true gospel.
00:52:13.400 So, like, a lot of that is valid.
00:52:16.260 And I'm just going to affirm that in just a second.
00:52:17.600 Let me tell you about our last sponsor for the day.
00:52:19.320 We'll be done with ads.
00:52:20.620 And then I'll tell you about my positive perspective on this.
00:52:34.360 Okay, so addressing that argument.
00:52:37.520 I mean, I do have some pushback to that.
00:52:40.380 The Bible study plans that the site connects to repeat some of the same problems that I
00:52:44.440 just outlined that we just talked about.
00:52:46.160 And there is no doctrinal standard, as I already said, that the churches must meet to be a
00:52:50.020 part of the He Gets Us Network.
00:52:51.520 So who knows if they're preaching the prosperity gospel, the workspace gospel, the there's no
00:52:56.320 such thing as sin gospel at some of these churches.
00:52:58.240 All of that said, though, I do take your point and think that there is something to it, that
00:53:06.380 maybe this could pique someone's interest and they be connected to a church whereas earlier
00:53:13.580 or earlier they weren't interested and they weren't interested in other types of evangelism
00:53:19.320 and this worked for them.
00:53:20.940 Because here's the thing.
00:53:22.480 God can and does use imperfect and even straight up wrong things to lead people in himself.
00:53:30.780 It is in spite of error, not because of it, that God may use campaigns, people, books,
00:53:37.080 whatever, as vessels to lead people to the gospel.
00:53:39.360 When I was in high school, I consumed all kinds of stuff trying to learn more about Christianity
00:53:44.180 junior and senior year when I really got interested in this.
00:53:47.480 I read Blue Like Jazz.
00:53:48.600 I read Rob Bell.
00:53:50.400 I read The Shack.
00:53:51.680 I listened to Stephen Furtick, watched Joel Osteen.
00:53:54.160 And then I also read C.S. Lewis and John Piper and Tim Keller and David Platt.
00:53:58.000 It was a wide range.
00:53:59.280 I probably would have been the person at that point if someone had told me, hey, The Shack
00:54:04.840 is no good or like, you can maybe do better than Blue Like Jazz.
00:54:10.040 I probably would have been the person to say that they were being pharisaical, but that's
00:54:13.300 just because I didn't have discernment yet.
00:54:15.380 The Shack is not an accurate depiction of God.
00:54:17.420 Rob Bell is now a straight up heretic.
00:54:19.040 Blue Like Jazz, questionable theology.
00:54:20.780 Furtick and Osteen, prosperity gospel.
00:54:22.660 And yet, I believe that God used these books and these people to lead me to the next books
00:54:29.180 and people.
00:54:30.460 Those things kind of piqued my interest in learning about God.
00:54:34.400 It wasn't just them.
00:54:35.480 It wasn't like just the heretical stuff, but it was easy to read and it was interesting.
00:54:41.520 And so God, in spite, not because of, but in spite, I think, of the error and some of
00:54:47.760 the false teaching that was being consumed, He moved me along to better teaching and truer
00:54:54.660 things.
00:54:55.100 Now, that is not me advocating for or defending false teaching or saying, you know, there's
00:55:00.140 a time and a place for a false gospel.
00:55:02.000 I'm not saying that.
00:55:03.020 I am saying that God is sovereign.
00:55:04.400 I am saying that I believe that He can use things, even misrepresentations, to draw people
00:55:12.040 to Himself, to pull people deeper into His word and what is true.
00:55:17.340 That is not because the messages are always good, but that's because He is good.
00:55:21.920 And I think that is absolutely possible and even probable here.
00:55:26.140 Not every ad that the He Gets His campaign shows is bad or wrong.
00:55:30.580 Jesus did tell us to love our enemies.
00:55:32.680 We are to have childlike faith.
00:55:34.600 He did advocate on behalf of the weak and the poor.
00:55:37.320 That's something another ad says.
00:55:38.680 I think God can, and I pray that He will use these ads in spite of what I believe are
00:55:44.500 some wrong representations of Him to glorify Himself and draw people to Him.
00:55:48.480 I saw this tweet from a former guest on the show.
00:55:51.480 Her name is Melissa Chen.
00:55:52.580 And she said, it's so weird, I say this as an atheist, that the best Super Bowl ad was
00:55:57.660 the Jesus one.
00:55:59.040 Was it just another ad with scathing political commentary for some product trying to cash
00:56:04.500 in on the zeitgeist?
00:56:05.720 No, it wasn't so black and white.
00:56:07.360 It was raw, edgy, poignant.
00:56:09.440 Then boom, Jesus.
00:56:10.640 That's coming from an atheist.
00:56:11.740 Honestly, that reaction makes me so happy.
00:56:15.560 I love that.
00:56:17.140 I am so excited by that.
00:56:19.140 Like, so even though I'm not the biggest supporter of this campaign, like, if that is
00:56:23.220 success, like, I want it to succeed in that way.
00:56:27.680 One of you also messaged me saying that you have a friend who is part of the chat function
00:56:32.560 on the site.
00:56:33.460 And she's answering questions to, or she's answering the questions that come in from
00:56:37.480 people, and you said that she has been able to share the gospel with multiple people who
00:56:42.360 are interested.
00:56:43.060 Another one of you messaged me saying that your neighbor, who is not a believer, texted
00:56:46.740 you last night about the ads and wanted to talk to you about them.
00:56:49.780 That's amazing.
00:56:51.300 I used the chat function on the site last night just to see what the responses would be, just
00:56:55.620 for a couple minutes, because I didn't want to take this guy's time who could be talking
00:56:59.200 to someone sincerely curious about who Jesus is.
00:57:03.640 But he answered my questions.
00:57:04.960 And even though it was a little slow and I wasn't sure where he was going to go, he
00:57:09.640 ultimately shared the gospel with me.
00:57:13.340 He said this when I asked just, what is salvation?
00:57:17.000 And he said, you receive salvation by confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you
00:57:21.180 believe in your heart that he rose from the dead.
00:57:22.880 Through baptism, you signify the death of your old life and becoming renewed through faith
00:57:26.800 in Christ.
00:57:27.300 I mean, that's straight gospel.
00:57:29.120 That's Romans 10, 9, almost verbatim.
00:57:31.460 And you know what?
00:57:32.240 The word of God does not return void.
00:57:36.040 Isaiah 55, 11.
00:57:37.800 It will accomplish its purpose.
00:57:39.520 It will bear fruit.
00:57:40.620 Praise God.
00:57:41.580 I pray that there are a million more stories like this.
00:57:44.620 Now, we don't get much Bible at all from these ads, but I did get it when I chatted with one
00:57:50.080 of their volunteers, and I praise God for that.
00:57:52.020 I pray people get the gospel, get the Bible when they get connected to a church, and I will
00:57:57.220 praise God for that.
00:57:58.080 Philippians 1, 18, only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is
00:58:02.200 proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
00:58:04.420 So while I disagree with a lot of this messaging, I will be praying, and I hope you will join
00:58:08.540 me, that God would use this campaign powerfully.
00:58:11.340 If 10 people come to know Christ and start attending the gospel preaching church, that's
00:58:15.920 worth all of the millions of dollars in the world.
00:58:18.180 Heck, when one sinner repents, the angels in heaven rejoice.
00:58:21.260 That's what Luke 15, 10 says.
00:58:23.140 So I pray that souls are saved.
00:58:24.600 Hearts are changed.
00:58:25.520 Lives and families and communities are transformed.
00:58:27.500 I hope this campaign is wildly successful in that sense.
00:58:31.180 If they come out with numbers and say, here's how many people heard the true biblical gospel
00:58:36.220 through our chat function, I will be rejoicing right along with them.
00:58:39.420 Some of you who are going to gospel preaching churches have told me that your church is connecting
00:58:44.100 with this campaign, with the He Gets His Campaign, because you want people to go to your church,
00:58:53.380 because they want people to actually hear the gospel.
00:58:55.860 So I can't speak for all the churches involved, but I'm glad that there are Bible teaching
00:58:59.060 churches who will reach these people who are interested in the gospel.
00:59:05.300 I think most of the people funding this, like the Green family, are good intentioned people
00:59:11.880 who love Christ.
00:59:13.280 I think they genuinely want to see people following Jesus and changed by Him.
00:59:18.040 That's my desire, too.
00:59:20.200 And look, I get messages from people, probably people who love all of these ads, who tell
00:59:24.800 me, you know, you're not leading anyone to Christ.
00:59:27.100 Your political views get in the way.
00:59:28.920 Your tone is off.
00:59:30.320 Whatever.
00:59:31.380 And they can think that.
00:59:32.800 But the truth is, by the grace of God, by the grace of God, I receive multiple messages
00:59:37.880 every month from people who tell me that they've come to Christ after reading my book or listening
00:59:42.460 to my show or they've gone to church for the first time or the first time in a long time.
00:59:45.880 And I don't say that to pat myself on the back at all, because Lord knows how unbelievably
00:59:50.020 imperfect and unworthy I am.
00:59:51.620 But I say it to use myself as an example of how God uses people in campaigns, even ones
00:59:56.620 we don't like and adamantly disagree with and whose methods we disdain to share truth
01:00:01.400 and to bring people to Himself.
01:00:04.620 And let me emphasize again, I am not saying it is okay for any of us to depict Jesus in
01:00:08.760 a way that is not biblically accurate, as I think some of these ads do.
01:00:12.500 I am not saying the ends justify the means.
01:00:15.180 I am still against the idea that we need to project modernity onto Jesus to make Him relevant.
01:00:20.400 I think the same gospel that was relevant then is just as relevant now in our attempts
01:00:24.760 to make Jesus like us actually diminishes what makes Him distinct and therefore obscures the
01:00:29.520 gospel message.
01:00:30.860 However, I am saying that God is sovereign and that God can use this, and I think is using
01:00:36.540 this to rescue people.
01:00:37.540 And I can't not rejoice in God-authored salvation, however it comes.
01:00:43.020 So we can dislike these ads, but let's pray.
01:00:47.020 Like, let's pray that every person whose curiosity was struck by these ads and reaches out to
01:00:53.500 someone because of it hears the gospel and believes.
01:00:55.780 That's my prayer.
01:00:56.780 So I hope that you can join me in that prayer and in that hope.
01:01:04.600 I understand there's going to be people on both sides who disagree with me on this, and
01:01:09.860 that's fine.
01:01:11.860 I'm giving you honesty, my honest, full perspective on it.
01:01:16.260 And I know a lot of you are going to be able to relate to it.
01:01:18.680 I also hope it equips you in conversations with people who say, well, I don't understand,
01:01:22.600 you know, what's wrong with this?
01:01:23.880 What's the issue?
01:01:24.840 Why are you trying to practice discernment here at all?
01:01:27.360 I hope it can give you some talking points for lack of a better term in your conversations
01:01:32.840 with them, because we can even use our arguments about this to lead people to the true Jesus
01:01:37.620 and lead people to the self-denying, self-crucifying gospel that is in scripture.
01:01:44.140 All right, we've got a ton to talk about this week.
01:01:46.620 With the flying things, I mean, should we talk about the theology of aliens?
01:01:51.420 We kind of did a little bit with previous guests.
01:01:54.640 You can go back and listen to that.
01:01:56.480 But also, like, what the heck is our government doing?
01:01:59.260 What is going on in Ohio?
01:02:00.600 We're going to talk about that stuff.
01:02:02.700 Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to get to it.
01:02:04.780 I'll keep you updated.
01:02:05.640 Thanks so much for listening, and we'll be back here soon.