158. Freedom from Cancel Culture: A Biblical Perspective

I found my freedom in you I found a joy I can't lose And thank God it's true You wrapped your arms around me And heaven broke through From the moment you found me I found my freedom in you Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James Safer and Brad Martin. Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast. It's great to be with you again today. Jumping right back into our topic of this woke culture of freedom from wokeness. But we've had a good week this week. Good Sunday at church. Been a good week. Met some people. We're planning a crusade here in our county. And so we've been contacting some of the local colleges, getting those, getting different worship teams set up for each night of our crusade. We've got Alex McFarlane from American Family Radio. He's coming to our crusade. And so we're just excited about that. And, you know, things just are going well. James, what's going on in your neck of the woods? Man, it's doing good. We had a little bit of the cold snapped. Got some warm coming in. Brett, have y'all had any sickness going on in y'all's area? Oh, yeah. We definitely had a bug been going around, people out. It was COVID for a while. And then when people got over COVID, they started getting the flu. Yeah, some type of norovirus or something. I got an alert the other day. So we had a little stomach bug go through our family just a couple days ago. And I'm still, I sound rough, but it's just all in my nose. It's been like that for the last couple of days. Really, when it got cold, we started having some fires here in western North Carolina. And I think some of that spring weather, the pollen's opening back up. It's just affecting my allergies a little bit. So that's why the sound today is like it is. But we are doing well, man. God's been blessing. He's been good. I was honored to be nominated for the North Carolina Baptist Board of Directors. And so we had our board of directors meeting this last week. And I was able to be there for that. Heard a lot of great statistics and numbers for what our convention's doing. And a lot of even partnerships with our state legislator. The state of North Carolina awarded several million dollars to our Baptist on Mission, our yellow shirt team for disaster relief, which was an awesome opportunity and a blessing to see that the state is recognizing the work that we're doing and how effective it is. And they're funding it. So, man, it was good. It was a good meeting. Good time to hang out. Met some new guys. Met some friends. We had a great little circle of brotherhoods that had a great cloud of witnesses over us as we had a little fire pit and a little glory to God smoking. And it was a good time. I enjoyed that and made some great new friendships. Got some new contact information. Got to talk about some things that we're doing. And so it was really good, man. I saw Trump came to North Carolina to assist the hurricane damage. And I knew right away, I know you're humble, James. I knew right away what happened. You were at the inauguration. You said, Trump, here's what you need to do. You need to go check that out. And we appreciate you sending him down there to them. Yeah, he stopped by my house and asked for my signature. And I told him, I just didn't want him to be elevated to that status yet by having my signature. So I had him sign a couple things for me and took local pictures. Just tell him you're out of the Bible signing business. You're not part of that no more. Yeah, we smoked a Four Freedom cigar together. And he got his religion right. And so it was a good time. It was a good time. He apologized to you for not putting his hand on the Bible. Right, right. I think he didn't do that because it wasn't a 1611. Right, right. That's the reason why he didn't do it. Yeah, yeah. That's exactly right. New King James? No, no. That mess out of here. Man, that's great. Good to see some things going on. And God's been blessing in our family. And my son and daughter have been playing basketball. It's been a great time to see them learn and grow. That season's coming to an end. And I'll be starting football practice here soon. We do a spring flag football program at my wife's school. And I'm the coach. And so, man, it's been fun prepping for that. I've got an assistant coach that's coming in to help me. And I tell people all the time, we are busy people. I love being busy. I love staying busy and working. Man, I couldn't imagine just sitting around doing nothing. I was at a person's house yesterday, an older man in our church, just making some visits and studying the Word. And, man, it's been blessed. It's been great just to serve the Lord these last couple of years, coming from COVID and really just the way the Lord has changed ministry and the way we do things, the way he's opened up my eyes and the way we do things. It's been great. And I'm just excited for what the Lord's doing and is going to do. We meet every Wednesday. You can see behind me our local teams. I've just got my last helmet in. And we meet every Wednesday morning, and this past week we had like 150 teenagers from the local middle school voluntarily showed up at the library. We prayed together. They went to class. That's like a third of the school. The school's like 450 kids. And so that was just – it's just a blessing. Every Wednesday we show up and that happens. And so we don't promote it. We don't have this like come and get a free cookie or donut or something. They just come and show up and we pray. And so it's been good. Amen, brother. That's good stuff. Yeah, we're busy over here on this end too. The boys did have – we got involved with a homeschool basketball league. And the boys have really had a good time playing basketball. We've been so busy this year. We've actually had to cut a couple of things. Just, you know, a couple of things we just, you know, we couldn't do. Usually we do beta club and shooting sports and things like that. With basketball, we had to let one of those things go. But, yeah, things have been just moving right along. Things are going good at the church. We started an outreach team here at the church just to think about some different ways we can reach our community. I've been really focused on servant evangelism, on finding ways we can go out in the community, you know, give out coffees or do, you know, change oil, things like that. Just things we can do for people. And just to be known, just – we got to get where the lost people are. We congregate in our little spheres of influence. We hang around each other. And that's not what Jesus did. Jesus went to the wild weddings where they were, you know, drinking the wine. And he went and he hung out with the prostitutes. And he went to the dinner parties with the lost people. That's what he did, you know. So we were preaching on 1 Corinthians 5 last night. And Paul said, look, when I told you to stay away from the immoral people, I wasn't telling you to stay away from the immoral people of the world. They're worldly. So you've got to expect they're going to be immoral. I was telling you to stay away from the immoral people in the church. Paul understands that you can't blame worldly people for acting worldly. The only way you're going to reach them is if you go out there to them. We live in a post-Christian society in our country. And, you know, how you're going to reach people today is more than just asking them, you know, a quick question on the sidewalk, handing them a paper track. You've got to build a relationship with them. So trying to be intentional in our evangelism in the church, think through some things. I've got some ideas. I'm just excited to where God's going to send us. Absolutely. You know, in Acts, the Bible says, go into all the world and preach the name of Jesus in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, none of the most parts of the earth. It doesn't say go into your church always. It doesn't say go into, you know, this one little believer. It goes into all the world. Go everywhere you can preaching and teaching the name of Jesus. Now, the difficult part of this, my church here in Mississippi is literally in the middle of the woods. Yeah. We're out. It's not like we're downtown. You know, I got to drive 15 minutes to get to the city, to get to our local town. So we're out in the middle of the woods. And so it provides a little bit more of a challenge, but it's not impossible. It's doable. Yeah. Same here. We're in a rural community as well. The big cities are about 15 minutes away on both sides, 15, 20 minutes. And, but man, it's an awesome opportunity for us to reach those that are around us. There's farmers that still need Jesus. There's chicken farmers that still need Jesus. There's mechanics that are around that still need to hear about Jesus. And so we have this awesome opportunity to do that. So, Brett, a couple things coming up. We've got a meeting tomorrow with our contact point there in Israel, talking about our 2026 date. We are looking at moving Israel again. We're hoping that the ceasefire works out and that everything, there's already teams on the ground. I've got a buddy of mine here in Mount Airy that's going to be with a group in Israel. He's leaving this week. And so we're excited about what we're seeing there. And I'll be talking to him about how things were while he was there. But we are still looking at going to Israel. And our goal is 1st of 2026 is what we're looking at. And we'll nail down some dates and times and costs and all that with her tomorrow. And then we'll be letting you know exactly. And so, man, I can't wait to be back. Right now we're in our two-year anniversary, Brett. We were there two years ago. And so I've been seeing Facebook memories and pictures. It's coming up on my time hop. Right now we're in like our fourth day there in Israel. And it's coming up on my time hop. And it's weird, the time difference, because it's, you know, my time hop goes for a 24-hour period. But because of the time difference, it starts in the middle of one day and ends in the middle of the next day. But, man, I'm just, James, you have this. I am so ready to go back to Israel. Yes, I would have went to Greece. And one day we will go to Greece. And probably the next trip will be to Greece, missionary journey of Paul. But, man, I'm ready to lead this group back to Israel. Look, I told somebody last night we were talking about it. If you want to go to Israel, the next four years are going to be some of the safest four years that you're going to have. It's the best chance for you to go. You got Donald Trump in office. You got a man in office. You know, he's like John Wayne toilet paper. He don't take crap off of nobody. He is going to be the man. He's going to, nobody's going to want to cross him. And so if you want to go, I'm telling you, the next four years is going to be your best opportunity. Yeah, they named a town after him, Brett. I mean, they love the man. He's a great man. Right next to the Golan Heights, you have Trump Heights. I mean, I tell you, it's great. Oh, man. What else we got going on, Brett? What else do we have going on? We've got our new adventure with our cigars, man. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes, we got the, the, the, uh, with a for freedom podcast and cigar company. We've got our samplers coming out. We're taking orders, uh, right now. Uh, we're still working on our sweet cigar, uh, but that's going to come soon. Uh, but we've got some, if you're interested, we've got some, uh, okay, we got father's day coming up and we might could do something for father's day. Uh, but go to our website, go to our Facebook page, check out our cigar. Check out our brand, try us out, get a sampler pack and, uh, put in your orders now. And, uh, we're definitely are excited about this new venture that we're in. Yeah. We, uh, we've had several that have, have bought and have reached out and contacted me after they smoked one. And this is what they've all said, man, I've had some high end cigars. This is some of the best cigars I've ever had. And, uh, so I'm thankful for those reviews. I'm thankful for these guys that have been enjoying it. And, uh, hopefully you'll, you'll go through our website there at 1689cigars.com. Backslash for freedom. Um, and you'll see our products there. We've got three lines right now and man, we're excited about it. This is something that I've always dreamed about and, uh, excited about the opportunity for us to be able to share, uh, just a little bit of what Spurgeon said was one of his favorite things to do was smoke to the glory of God. And, uh, so we're excited to be able to be in line with, uh, what Spurgeon said was good. And so I, I hope you're burning incense to the Lord. Yes. I like to say we're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, uh, when we do this, uh, say good, it's good. Uh, so man, we're excited, Brett. We're talking about cancel culture today. And, uh, so we're going to jump right into our episode and, uh, hopefully enjoy the content that we have for you today. We cannot truly worship God while we stay silent on injustice in all kinds of areas. And I know as a white pastor, I have blind spots. So I am part of the problem. James, Paul elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures. And my friends, we must as well. White people fear black men. That's not fair, but it's true. Jesus repents of his racism and extends healing to this woman's daughter. I love this story because it's a reminder that Jesus is human. He had prejudices and bias. And when confronted with it, he was willing to do his work. I believe in the non-binary God whose pronouns are plural. I believe in Jesus Christ, their child, who wore a fabulous tunic and had two dads and saw everyone as a sibling child of God. I believe in the rainbow spirit who shatters our image of one white light and refracts it into a rainbow of gorgeous diversity. I believe in the church of everyday saints as numerous, creative, and resilient as patches on the eighth quilt, whose feet are grounded in mud and whose eyes gaze at the stars in wonder. I believe in the calling to each of us that love is love is love. So beloved, let us love. I believe, glorious God, help my unbelief. Amen. This woke self-loathing. And we will never let the woke left take it away. It's because they're putting woke ideology. To a woke mob that can't even tell you what a woman is. In this season of the For Freedom Podcast, we want to bring to you some enlightening topics that deal with the wokeness of the church. We want to bring to light some issues that are often overlooked. And we hope that it will be a blessing to you in your listening experience. We will nottletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletle thoughtful and nuanced it raised questions about controversial social issues encouraged open dialogue and even acknowledges different perspectives at first the post only gets a handful of likes and few comments from friends but then someone takes a screenshot and shares it in a local facebook group labeling sarah as an out of touch and accuses her of holding harmful views within hours her post is shared hundreds of times the comments start pouring in how can someone like this be used and trusted by to teach our kids she needs to resign immediately this is unacceptable our school district must take action by the next morning parents are calling the school demanding answers some are threatening to pull their kids if sarah isn't fired others are emailing the school board insisting that her views make her unfit to teach the school district overwhelmed by the backlash places sarah on administrative leave pending investigation no one is interested in hearing her side of the story or the intent behind her post she advises she's advised to delete her social media accounts stay quiet and let it blow over but it doesn't blow over the local news story picks up the story framing it as a scandal people who've never met sarah are now weighing in attacking her character and speculating about her motives friends she thought she could count on begin distancing themselves afraid that they'll be associated with her by the end of the week sarah's name is synonymous with controversy in her small town all of this not because of something she did in the classroom but because of a single post on social media cancel culture in action it's swift unforgiving and relentless welcome back today to the for freedom podcast uh i'm james you're here with your co-host brett brett how are you today man we're doing great james we're just really i'm really excited about today's episode and this one it really hits close to home for a lot of people we're diving into cancel culture what is it how it affects us and most importantly how we can live free from its grip rooted in a biblical view yeah absolutely brett uh this is something that in our independent fundamental baptist movement um cancel culture is sort of synonymous right you you begin to go through life and you begin to wear pants or you begin to wear shorts if you're men or you begin to go through cutting your hair or changing some things about you and what does the independent fundamental baptism movement do they immediately cancel you they immediately cut you off and label you as a heretic they label you as someone who is left the faith and you're leaving the old paths and you begin to uh you're you're wicked and you're you know you become a sermon illustration i know that was for me i became many sermon illustrations uh after my day and it's it's one of those things that it just it's you leave the fold you become part of the rebellion it took one verse james it i i posted one niv verse and it's all it took for my whole ifb world to shun me to derail on me to call me effeminate to friends i've had for years completely turned on me it just took one niv verse for them to just completely dump me so i know what you're talking about yeah so cancer culture is a hot topic right now right it's it's all over social media outlets it's becoming even more crucial in churches people have been canceled for what they say for what they believe for things that they did years and years ago and some of that may be legitimate they did something that they tried covering up but some of it could just be simple a small issue but it's a complex issue in other areas and as christians we need to know how to respond when cancer culture happens and and not just respond but respond in a way that glorifies god and points people to christ so we're gonna unpack this today so grab your coffee your coke sit back kick up your feet take it off at double speed listen to us in regular speed and let's jump into it absolutely let's do this since a brett um oftentimes when we begin to talk about something especially like this and over these next several weeks as we talk through wokeness and what this is it's always good to start with a good working definition words have meaning and if we don't define words it's hard for us to ever know what we're talking about and so let's start out by defining and talking about what called uh cancel culture is brett how would you explain or define cancel culture so cancel culture is essentially a societal mechanism where someone is ostracized or publicly shamed often for expressing an opinion or holding beliefs that are deemed offensive or unacceptable by others it's like modern day excommunication but amplified to the max by social media i mean you understand that that information goes so fast today uh because of social media we didn't have to worry about this even 15 years ago um but this is uh every this is our reality today yeah that's a great summary and uh you know it can happen to celebrities it can happen to politicians it can happen to pastors it can even happen to everyday people as we talked about in our cold open with sarah uh where just a regular school teacher in a small rural town did something and nothing was wrong with it and all of a sudden she began to get canceled and ostracized uh so what makes it so intense is like you said the speed at which it happens man it's a long-lasting impact that can be happening on someone's life in just an instant today right someone shares or says one thing a politician has a word slip and all of a sudden man the whole narrative of the whole country takes it in a completely different way and so the real question we have to ask yourself is why has canceled culture become so prevalent before i answer that question one thing that popped in my mind was uh maybe a couple years ago i remember this story on social media where you have this kid this white kid who was standing there and then there was this this uh older native american man who was doing an american native chant and the 30 second clip that you saw looked like this kid white kid had come up in this guy's face that was doing them the native american chant and was just staring him down but what had but that was just 30 seconds of the clip but what had actually happened was that kid was standing there minding his own business doing his own thing and this guy come up to him the native american man came up to him and started chanting in his face but you didn't see the whole clip you just saw the 30 seconds but because of that 30 seconds uh that kid was quote unquote canceled um even after the truth came out people still blamed the kid for it so that's how fast uh these things can happen you know i to answer your question i think it's a mix of things on one hand you've got this heightened sense of justice where people want to call out wrongs which by the way is not inherently bad but on the other hand it's fueled by lack of grace forgiveness and the power of social media to amplify the outrage yeah it's it's justice without redemption right it's in the biblical sense that's dangerous because it removes god's design for justice which always includes an opportunity for repentance and restoration god is in the redeeming business and so this is the opportunity for us to do that exactly and let's not forget that cancel culture it's nothing new it may look different today but people have been canceling others for centuries even in the bible we see examples of public shaming and rejection think of women caught in adultery the the woman caught in adultery in john 8 the pharisees brought her out ready to stone her that's canceled culture in its ancient form man that's such a great point brett and jesus responds uh the response to the situation is in a way that stands out to us he doesn't condone her sin but what does he do he doesn't condemn her but yet instead he offers grace and he calls her to begin a new way of living he begins to say this is what we should do instead instead of condoning and condemning and and crucifying this person let's encourage them to turn over a new way of living a new way of processing life and and you see the grace that jesus offers uh is the way that we should model this in our life this is the way we should respond to these areas of our life right so let's dig into why cancel culture is incompatible with the biblical worldview first it's rooted in pride when we cancel someone we're essentially saying i'm better than you your sin is worse than mine the romans 3 23 reminds us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of god you know there is none righteous no not one we're all sinners yeah i think when we remember that brett it's convicting for us because it helps us to remind ourselves that we have also sinned we have also done wrong and yet someone still offered grace and forgiveness to us cancel culture thrives in unforgiveness colossians 3 13 tells us bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you have been as a grievance against someone forgive us the lord forgave you so when we refuse to forgive we are not reflecting the heart of christ christ christ says forgive and begin to move on into a new way of living exactly and then there's the issue of judgment matthew 7 1 through 2 warns us do not judge or you too will be judged from the same way you judge others you will be judged and with the measure you use it will be measured to you cancel culture often elevates us to the position of judge jury and executioner and we talked a little bit about this last night in church where once again in first corinthians chapter 5 paul tells the the the corinthians says don't judge outsiders let let god judge the outsiders you judge the people in in the church and people think oh don't be judgmental you should be judgmental but the thing is the bible doesn't condemn condemn judging people it condemns hypocritical judgment right judgment righteous judgment is something we ought to do paul would not judge anybody without applying the same standard to himself that he applies to everybody else else and that's where this falls short because it applies standards to other people that they don't apply to themselves thus making the judgment hypocritical yeah oh man i actually absolutely agree with that as you were saying that it sort of spurred on for me another question that i want you to sort of go with brent i know maybe a lot of listeners are asking how do we respond when we're on the receiving end of cancel culture what happens when when we're the ones that's been canceled or even when we see others that have been canceled maybe it's a friend or a relative uh how do we respond to those things that's such a great great question uh i think the first step is to trust in god's sovereignty romans 8 28 reminds us that god works all things for the good of those who loved him if we're being targeted we can rest in the fact that god is ultimately and sovereignly in control amen we do need to respond with grace and truth jesus never shied away from calling out sin but he always did with so much love and compassion uh and an invitation to redemption right jesus every time he he would go into a situation with so much care so much grace so much compassion uh especially when there was someone in sin now we see in a different situation where jesus comes into those who have made his father's house into a den of thieves and what does he do he he sees retribution he he sees vengeance and wrath upon them uh but in most situations we see that we can't let fear the fear of being canceled silence us from speaking the truth of the gospel too often uh brett in our in our world that we came out of um we see someone getting canceled and we stay silent because we're afraid if we defend them well maybe that group of people is going to cancel me as well and the fear of that is so powerful in our life how many pastors and evangelists well let's do this let's say evangelists i can't tell you how many evangelists are in the eye or missionaries evangelists and missionaries both fall under this they're still in the ifb because if they step out of line if they don't toe the line even though they might not agree with uh certain things they'll get canceled i can tell you story after story oh you went to so and so's church that believes different oh well guess what i'm gonna do i'm gonna call all my pastor buddies and i'm gonna blackball you and blacklist you and you won't go to their churches either and then you know that that's kind of what happened to phil kid phil kid he went and preached at paul's church his son's church people got now phil kid don't give a rip but uh but he uh but people got wind that he had preached at paul's church and so they called around and all their little buddies they canceled his meetings um but phil kid you know that's happened to several evangelists slash missionaries in the ifb but you you're absolutely right you know we have to remember we're also called to be peacemakers matthew 5 9 says blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of god when we see someone being canceled we can step in with kindness and seek to restore rather than tear down absolutely let's take a moment just for a minute brett and talk about for freedom right the name of the podcast is freedom and uh eagle screech that's right for freedom podcasts for a reason right true freedom isn't about escaping cancel culture or pleasing everyone it's about living in the freedom that christ has given us exactly our our our text verse our main verse what we center our podcast around galatians 5 1 says it is for freedom that christ has set us free stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery canceled culture can feel like a yoke of slavery but we're called to live differently yeah when we're free in christ we're not defined by the opinions of others brett we we our our identity is secure in him we have the utmost freedom knowing that nothing and no one can separate us from the love of god whether you are canceled from a speaking engagement whether you've been canceled from a church movement whether you've been canceled from your own family christ said that there's nothing going to separate you from his love and his care i'm so reminded of that verse there where it says that they're their height nor death nor persecution more famine nor man nor angels nor nor anything created he in heaven or above or below heaven will ever separate you from the love of god amen brother that's good preaching they should put that in their tailpipe and smoke it come on now put that in a cigar and smoke it baby and that you know and that freedom allows us to extend grace to others as well even those who try to cancel us extending grace to people who try to cancel us it's counter-cultural but it's exactly what jesus did yeah so brett let's take just a moment here and let's add some more context and um why do you think cancel culture is so popular right now man uh 15 20 years when i was coming up in college when when i was in the ifb even in those moments and in those years there wasn't a lot of canceling there wasn't a lot of this bittering and backbiting it was just okay they believe different than us uh they may not be part of the the baptist briders but but we're part of this area and so we just sort of moved on and did our own thing now man when when someone comes out and they're not part of the king james only movement it's like a whole sermon on them it's just we've got to set this example why is that so prevalent right now dude you bringing up baptist brighter that's such a niche subset of the ifb that's like an insider call out right there um brings me back uh but you took back to your question i think that's a great question and i think part of it has to do with the rise of social media platforms like uh twitter and instagram facebook have given everyone a voice and a platform which is a blessing and a curse it's easy to amplify outrage and rally people against someone with just a few clicks and like we mentioned earlier 30 seconds of a video maybe even five seconds not getting the full picture yeah there's also this cultural shift where everyone's wanting to be an influencer everyone's wanting to have followers popularity and uh power and identity uh in calling out other people right we want to have the podcast or the platform or whatever it is that people go to listen because we're the ones saying the the risque cliche niche things and when we do that uh it's almost like we substitute a real justice uh without any accountability for grace and truth that actually justice requires we become the our own judge jury and executioner by by us canceling someone else and let's not overlook fear people people don't want to be on the wrong side of an issue so they jump on the cancel culture bandwagon to protect themselves or fit in and it creates this toxic cycle of fear and conformity and most people i would dare say that most people don't even care about certain things but jump on the bandwagon because they want to protect their own name or they want to protect their own brand and if they go against the way they know they'll get canceled too yeah that's that's a great point that you make there but because as christians we're called to stand firm in truth we're called to stand up for what is right even when it's unpopular even when no one else is doing it even when the world says we're fanatics and we're crazy cancel culture may be popular right now but it's not eternal it's not something that's going to last forever we're told that there's one thing that's going to last forever and that is god's word god's word is the standard for our life it is the reason that we exist and we we stand up every week and we preach the word because it's it's not shifted by the crowds it's not shifted by man's opinion it is firm on what the bible says it's infallible it's inerrant it is truth and it does not care what the opinions of the crowd say and so we must live by the standard of god's word so as we reflect on this bread i want to i recently read something that stuck out with me said this it said cancel culture at its core seeks to impose a kind of final judgment declaring people irredeemable but as christ as christians and christ followers we know that only god can make such a judgment you referenced it earlier romans 3 23 all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god but it doesn't end there there is a hope and a redemption through christ it's so true because cancel culture it thrives on a lack of forgiveness it's about shaming and sidelining people not not calling them the restoration but the gospel flips the script that tells us that no one is beyond hope first john 1 9 says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness yeah cancel culture reveals something deep about the human nature it shows that people inherently believe in the concepts of sin right when when society cancels someone it's a recognition that certain words actions beliefs are morally wrong but here's the issue without christ there's no way to separate sin from the center and there's no way to offer true forgiveness and so we must always and constantly be bringing christ into everything we're doing exactly james the this reflects a deep human desire for more purity a need to rid ourselves of what we perceive as wrong but instead of offering redemption an offering of redemption cancel culture often seeks to destroy the individual along with their actions the bible gives a better answer in the old testament the scapegoat was sent into the wilderness to symbolically remove sin from the camp and in the new testament jesus becomes the ultimate sacrifice taking our sin and offering us real cleansing and restoration man that's such a powerful truth brett i think when we can understand what that truly means where christ becomes the scapegoat for us uh it totally radically changes our life jesus was in a way brett you can say like this he was canceled he was rejected he was cast out and he was crucified he was canceled by his own culture he came to redeem his culture he came to set up his kingdom and the ones that he came to redeem canceled him so that ultimately we could be restored back to god hebrews 13 to 14 reminds us this profound sacrifice uh 13 11 to 14 it reminds us this profound sacrifice that through him we can be free from the relentlessness and the unforgiving grip of the cancel culture and we get to live in true grace and freedom brett that's what we get to live in it's the grace of the lord jesus christ so brett when when we begin to think through this uh we always like to end with sort of a positive note cancel culture it's it's negative it's hard it's difficult maybe you're listening and you have been canceled maybe you're listening and you have been those sermon illustrations time and time again in the world and in the churches uh what we want to do is we want to leave you with some practical steps that you can take and live free from cancel culture while reflecting a biblical worldview you know first immerse yourself in scripture when you know god's word and you abide in god's word and god's word abides in you you'll be able to discern truth from lies second pray for boldness and wisdom it takes courage to stand for truth in a cancel culture world in around people that don't care about your family don't care about your livelihood they want to take your house away throw you out on the street because of your beliefs especially because you're a christian you need to pray for that boldness you need to pray pray for that strength sometimes we underestimate so much the power of prayer but it is so vital in the life of a christian and and if we want to win against a cancel culture world we've got to spend time on our knees in prayer absolutely i'll add to that two things brett uh also we need to build a strong community surround yourself with people who will encourage you and challenge you to stay rooted in christ i tell people often as i go through marriage counseling and i go through different things with people i tell the husband and the wife who you surround yourself with will eventually become who you are if you surround yourself as a woman who is around single women who dog their husbands or dog the married life or talk about how bad their husband is you will eventually see all the mistakes that your husband makes but if you surround yourself with the community of graceful women who love the lord and love their husbands you'll begin to appreciate your husband man the same thing if you surround yourself with with men who constantly talk about how horrible their marriage is and how their wife does nothing you'll eventually have that same attitude and so who we surround ourselves with is a huge thing because we are created to be mimetic creatures we mimic what we are around we begin to grow closer to the things that we're around and so surround yourself with godly believers who are going to encourage you challenge you and ultimately drive you back to christ and and the last thing i'll say is remember to lead with love remember that people may not always agree with you but they should see the love of christ in you and how you respond when you're canceled man if you take the social media and you start a firestorm back they're not going to remember that you're canceled they're going to remember your response they're going to remember how you responded when those things happen i love taking jesus as the example here when jesus was canceled when jesus was on his way to crucifixion and the soldiers came and punched him in the face as they put a bag over his head and said tell us who who hit you if you're the son of god and it said he spoke not a word because he loved them and he cared about them and it said when he was lifted up on the cross and the soldiers were around and they they looked at each other and the soldier said we have never killed a man quite like this this truly is the son of god because of how he responded he responded with grace he responded with truth he responded with love and he said father forgive them they don't know what they're doing you know as you're talking and as you're talking about love it got me to thinking about tolerance and the the left liberal ideology these type of cancel culture woke people they are so incredibly intolerant there's no love there even though they claim that be love to love everybody they're so intolerant and i want to get down to the to the core of this thing this cancel culture woke mentality they trump's in office guess what they don't blame trump okay the republicans voted for him well guess what they don't blame republicans you know who they blame they blame they blame the christians they blame the church ultimately the person they want to cancel is the christ of the bible they want their own christ they want their own rainbow colored justice centered christ they want to cancel the jesus of the bible that's ultimately who they want to cancel james i think what you said is about love is just so good and we don't need to forget to extend grace to them even when it's hard even when you want to jump back at them and you want to retaliate and you want to be the keyboard warrior and you've got something really witty to say and something good to say and you type it all out you write a novel in a facebook post and the holy spirit says do you really want to put that out into the world until you start deleting the post listening to the holy spirit extend grace we've been forgiven for from so from for so much we are called to forgive others as well even forgive the people who are trying to cancel us it's not easy but it's it's the way of christ we have enjoyed talking this this this subject uh this is a great subject i'm really enjoying this season james do you have any last things you want to say yeah amen and amen to that brett that was a great word and i appreciate it people uh let's let if i could give one challenge i would say let's be people who live in the freedom of christ especially showing to the world around us that grace and truth are better than judgment and condemnation uh thanks for joining us today if we we need to live in that grace and truth live in what god said is true live in a grace-filled life and live in a way that is going to ultimately glorify christ in everything we do so until next time to god be the glory great things he hath done found my new name found that good grace found that healing and the tears fell down my face when i found my beginning that has no ending found that second chance found my best friend found my forgiveness found my happiness i've been singing ever since i found my freedom in you thanks for listening to the for freedom podcast if you enjoyed our content do us a favor by liking subscribing or sharing our podcast or whichever podcast platform you use be sure to join us next time for the for freedom podcast you . . Thank you.

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