163. Freedom from Identity Politics

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 Brett Martin. Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast. What an awesome time it has been these last couple of weeks. Brett is back with us in the hot seat. He has had some health issues and Lord's been gracious in working out some of those things and had a great two interviews with John two weeks ago and Joe this last week and looking forward to getting back into this series of wokeness and how this affects the church and looking forward to what we've got coming up in the future. But Brett, man, life has been busy for me in ministry these last couple of weeks. We had a new baby who was born this past week in the church and I was at the hospital and one of the lady that had gave birth, her mom looked at me and said, because the lady was asking me about different people in the church and she said, how often have you been in the hospital the last couple of weeks? And I said, well, this week I had this person have a surgery. And it looked, it basically came down to like the last three weeks, a different lady in the church has had some type of surgery, hip replacement, shoulder replacement, pay snaker put in, birth that was been given. And they were like, oh, I guess you've got something planned for next week too. Like joking about it. I was like, well, actually, yeah, next week I've got a lady that's going to be in the hospital on Tuesday having a heart ablation. So it's like four or five weeks in a row, just back to back to back, something's going on. But yeah, it's been great. How, how was things with you, my friend? Man, things are going, going great with me. I have been out for a couple of weeks, but you know, my, my, my, my cat's been scanned and my MR has been eyed. And so, you know, things are looking good. The doctor said, you know, did everything came back clean. Turns out just tension headaches on add on top of that. I've got, I've got a lower back issue that is right now kind of preventing me from standing for too long. Although I will say I've been getting better. I've been preaching and not having, you know, a couple of weeks I had to sit down while I was, while I was preaching. But now I'm, I've been able to stand the whole time I've been preaching and things are, seems like they're getting better. And I think it all just stems from just being too busy, you know, between the podcast and taking my masters and church work and writing sermons. And, and I took a full load of classes this year, which that was dumb. I'll never do that again. I'll just have to, you know, get done when I get done. But I just think it just took on too much. I had three papers I had to write. They were all due the same week. I had probably a dozen books that I had to read for class. And then add on top of that, all the stuff you got to do for ministry. And I just think I was, you know, my, I was writing checks that my body couldn't cash. And so it just kind of had a little crash out there, but things are, are better. Things are looking up. I've got some good reports. The doctor's got me on some, some medicine that seems to be working. I've got some doctor's visits down the road to help with my, my back issue. And so things look, they're going good in that regard. But, you know, other than that, life's been good. The Lord's blessed. We're got, we're in Easter. Easter season is coming up. So I got a box full of tracks, a box full of door hangers, and we're about to go out and do some soul winning. Amen. Some door knocking. And we're going to go out and meet some people. And, you know, we want people to come for Easter. And so that's what we're working toward. Now we're also working toward our crusade here in the County. We've got Alex McFarlane coming in from American family radio. Going to try and get him on the podcast. When he comes, he might even come in a month or two before we break for the summer, which would mean we could get him on the podcast a little early. I'd love to interview him, get him on here, talk to him about some wokeness. And, but yeah, other than that, things have been, things have been going good, man. Just excited about what we got coming down the pike. Yeah, that's awesome. I've got, you know, we can get in those areas of fatigue, those areas of not taking care of our bodies. And that's a, it's a good reminder for us to always be vigilant of our surroundings and be taking notice. You know, I tell people often, um, in there's a book that I read and I give the pastors often called reset. Uh, it's a book that deals with pastors and sabbaticals and taking care of our body. And he does it as he calls them bays. And he talks about how our, our vehicles, uh, that were told, you know, every 3000 miles or three months, change your rule. Every so often you change your windshield wipers, change your spark plugs at this many miles and go in and get a transmission service. And so he sort of takes this concept of a vehicle and applies it to our human bodies and says, you know, as pastors, we need to be making sure that every week we're taking the time for ourselves. We're having our own rest every month. We're taking a weekend getaway every, uh, couple of months. We're doing something with our family, just re-energize. I'm sorry, re-energizing our bodies, re-energizing our life and sort of hitting that reset bay. Um, so that when that time comes for a vacation, we're actually able to vacation instead of rest. And, uh, even should we be rest, but we're able to actually get away and detach when that vacation time comes to, to restore our souls. Um, so resets named that by, by Murray. Um, his wife does one, for the pastor's wife as well. And it's a great one that I hand out every once in a while. Um, but those are some great things and some things we need to be aware of as we go through life. Um, speaking of vacation, Brett, we've got some things coming up in the future. Um, I mentioned that this past week on the episode, as I get a short intro, but we're going to be in Dallas for the Southern Baptist convention here in just a couple of weeks, the second week of June. And, uh, I'm going to be actually going out there a week early to spend some time with my sister and, uh, spend some time with them. And then that second week we'll be there. Uh, we've rented a house like we talked about. And, uh, I think we, we, we got the house rented, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We did. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly right. I forgot about it for a minute. Yeah. We rented a house. I don't pay my money. So I hope so. That's right. Um, we got a house rented there in Dallas and me and Brett are going to hang out and get together and hang out with our families. It's always a great time to do that. Uh, but if you're in the area or you are going to be at the convention, let us know, but direct message us. We'd get together for some lunch or dinner and, uh, get together for some great time of refreshing there in Dallas. Amen. Amen. And also, uh, we can, we can go ahead and confidently give you the dates for our new Israel trip. Um, we've got people who are, who paid to go last time. Uh, they paid most of it or they paid half of it. And that's just going to roll over into this new trip. And, uh, we are dates for our Israel trip. Uh, the four, four freedom in the Holy land. That's going to be January 30th through February. February 7th of 2026. So that's, uh, that's a little less than a year away, plenty of time to put back plenty of time to save. We're going to put the website and the show notes and give you the password. And we want you to get on there. We want you to read about it. We want you to see where, where, where we're going to go, where we're going to stay, what we're going to do. I promise you, you will, you will never regret going to the Holy land. If you've ever wanted to go, now is the time to go. If you're a pastor, uh, and you want to go drop us a message, we might can work some things out with your church. But, uh, you know, if, if you want to go, it's time. And like, uh, even, uh, our Israel rep, when, when, when we were talking to her and she said, this is some of the, the next four years are going to be some of the safest times to go to Israel. Yeah. And so if you want to go, now is the time to go. Um, the wonderful thing about that is even though we've pushed it, the cost of our trip has stayed the exact same. They've worked really well with, um, still $5,000 a person. That's everything, all your meals, everything taken care of. That's, that's giving you money in your pocket for, uh, able to have some souvenir money and your lunches there, uh, that you pay for yourself, but that's what the cost is altogether. Um, so, you know, we haven't went up even though, you know, the cost of eggs and, and everything else has went up astronomically. They've worked really well with us to keep this cost very down, very affordable, and, uh, it's going to be a great time. So hopefully you will. There's a reason why we choose the time of year that we do because the crowds are, are, are low and, uh, you know, you have plenty of room there, plenty of space and just, just, just enjoy it while you're there. Yeah. What was that? I said the weather is great too, during that time too. Absolutely. Absolutely. Cold. Um, yeah, it's there like springtime, even though it's January for us, it's their spring. Yeah. Yeah. Swimming in the dead sea is very refreshing. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Some of that mud bath on your skin. Exfoliate. Absolutely. Yeah. Gotcha. Well, and we hope you also go and check out our cigar line. Um, we are super close to getting our, um, our sweet cigar in and our, uh, we're looking at adding a fourth line as well. Uh, to have four brands of the four freedom cigar line, uh, great, great opportunities. They're great opportunity to have a good time of fellowship. And, uh, hopefully you'll go and support us in that endeavor. And, uh, we don't make a whole lot off of it, but it's just something that, that helps the show go continue to go well and, uh, continue to create good quality content. You know, this is our time that we give, uh, for this. And so, uh, there are some, some time expense in that of just editing and doing some other things. And so, um, hopefully you will, um, go and do that. 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'll be a blessing to you in your listening experience. We willrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrew It started with a vote, a decision handed down from a church leadership at the highest level. Some called it progress. Others called it compromise. But no matter what side you were on, one thing was certain. This decision would change everything. At first, the conversations were quiet. Pastors and church leaders met behind closed doors in living rooms and sanctuaries, debating what to do next. Should they embrace the new policies or reject them? Should they stay with the denomination or should they separate? The discussions were tense, but they were civil, at least for a while. But something changed. The longer the debate went on, the less it would be about what scripture said. The more it would be about whose voice mattered. Lines were drawn, sides were chosen, and before long, it wasn't just theological differences, it was personal. And then one day, the tension exploded. A church in Nigeria, once a beacon of unity in its community, became the center of a tragic and violent conflict. It started with words, accusations, frustrations boiling over. Then, shouting turned to pushing, pushing turned to fists, and before anyone realized what was happening, violence erupted. Houses were set on fire, families were torn apart, a church member lost his life, and two young children, innocent bystanders, to a battle they never chose, were caught in the chaos and killed. Pause for a moment and think. For just a second. A church, a place meant to be a refuge, a place where Christ is lifted high and sinners are welcomed in grace, had become a battleground. And for what? A fight over identity. A fight over power. A fight that had stopped being about the gospel and started being about control. This is what happens when identity politics takes over in a church. It takes our eyes off Christ and fixes them on ourselves. It replaces truth with tribalism, love with loyalty to cause, unity with division. And before we know it, the body of Christ is fractured beyond recognition. And it's not just happening in Nigeria. It's happening here, in our churches, in our conversations, in the way we see each other. Not as brothers and sisters in Christ, but as members of different groups, different factors, different teams. Today, that's what we're going to talk about. How identity politics is creeping into the church. How it's dividing the body of Christ. And what the Bible actually says about our true identity. Well, today we're taking a deep dive into identity politics. What it is, how it aligns, and clashes with biblical truth, and what we as Christians should do in response. You know, Brett, we've talked about some big topics over the last couple of weeks and months of this series of wokeness. This is a big one. Identity politics, it's something that is everywhere. It shapes the conversation that we have on race, gender, and power. And as we've done every week, and I think it's good to do, it's good to define what we're talking about, and to talk about having a good working definition, and talk through what identity politics actually is. Right. You know, somebody might hear that term identity politics, and really not be able to nail down exactly what it is that we're talking about. And when we say identity politics, identity politics is an approach to politics that focuses on one's group identity. Okay. So instead of seeing individuals as unique people made in the image of God, it divides them into categories like race, gender, sexuality, and it just causes a lot of division. Yeah. This division is ultimately based on the worldview that measures life in terms of power, right? How much power do you have? And that is therefore your determining of who you are. Really to break it down is, who is the oppressor, and who is the oppressed? And so when we, if you historically belong to a privileged group, then automatically you're seen as part of the problem. If you're part of, your mom and dad were a certain diplomat, or a certain level of government, or a president, or whatever, you automatically are lumped in with this identity of who your ancestors are. Right. And it's all based on what somebody did in the past that you've never done. You're not guilty of. But another thing that it does is it, it sees truth as socially constructed, meaning there's no ultimate truth, just different perspectives shaped by oppression or privilege. Yeah. This, Brett, was something that has, that came out, I would say, really popularity in, in my world where we were at, probably eight or 10 years ago. We had recently moved back to North Carolina, and this relative truth began to come out, right? Whatever you decide that the, the sky's going to be is truth. If, if the grass is actually purple and you believe it's purple, then it's purple because your truth is, is truth. Um, and what happens is, is it departs from what we call biblical truth, biblical truth. Jesus says that I am the way I am the truth and I am the life. No one comes to the father except through me. And so truth isn't relative. Truth isn't what you decide it's going to be. Ultimately we as Christians and we, as the forefront and podcast believe that truth is founded and rooted in God's character and in God's word. Exactly. You know, identity politics, it encourages collective action to fight perceived oppression. And this is why we see the protest, the cancel culture, the sense, the censorship becoming dominant in our cultures. Like everything we've talked about so far is kind of, uh, this is like kind of the root of it. This is where it stems from. Um, and this is the idea that God doesn't, uh, uh, give us our identity. We decide what our identity is. And if it's not the identity we were born with, we can change that according to our whim. And every, so I think that everything we've, we've been through so far in this series is kind of rooted and come from this line of thinking. Yeah, absolutely. And, and what we're going to do now is we're going to transition for just a moment and talk about some real world examples. Some, some times where people in this world have, have been hurt or, or hindered from identity politics and how it shapes our society. So Brett, why don't you give us this first illustration? So first, uh, let's talk about the Harvard admissions lawsuit. So here's the deal. Harvard was sued for allegedly discriminating against Asian American applicants in favor of other minority groups through affirmative action policies. The Supreme court ruled against Harvard saying race based admissions violated the constitution. Yeah, this shows how identity politics shapes the education policies. Uh, this actually went so far, Brett, as, um, if you were, uh, Asian, uh, or if you were white or of, uh, even Asian Americans, um, they, they were, they were discriminated against them because they were scoring too high on their SATs. And so, and LSATs. And so, uh, this was some crazy stuff that was going on and the Supreme court ruled against this. Uh, but some see affirmative action as correcting past just injustices, right? Uh, the world has been done wrong. My, my family's been done wrong. Uh, something has happened in our life. And so we're just helping correct. Uh, others argue that it creates a new injustice by treating applicants based on race instead of individual merit. Um, and so do I believe there should be some, uh, recourse on some things, uh, you know, there, there were some things with, um, I'm, I'm just thinking off the top of my head of, of World War II, uh, when the Germans, I'm sorry, the, the, the Japan, uh, attacked Pearl Harbor, right? There were some Japanese American families that were Japanese of descendants that were living in Montana, Idaho, some of those areas, even in Hawaii. Um, and the American government, they said, Hey, out of your protection, we're going to put you into sort of an isolation camp so that no one can hurt you because your, your people just bombed our country and you're going to look like someone who, uh, could do that. And so what they did was they did that to help them. Well, later on, it looks like it actually was like some type of concentration camps that we put them in. And so there were some reparation actions that we helped them because we, we probably shouldn't have done that. We, we started out as good intentions, but what is, uh, our good uncle, our, uh, Aristotle say the, the good intention or hell is always paved the path of good intentions. It was good intentions to begin with. And then it turned into something bad. So there's this concept of using identity in a way of protection, but there's also hurt that goes along with it. Brett, what's the Bible say about favoritism? Well, before we get to the Bible, let's talk about Hollywood. Um, the, uh, I, I don't want to make light of that situation you just brought up because it is something serious. It happens, but you want to know where I first learned about that? I have no idea where karate kid, man. That happened to Mr. Miyagi's family. Yeah. He was out fighting in the war. His family got put in one of those camps and they got killed. And, and so that was obviously a fictional story, but it's a fictional story about something that happened in real world. So I learned about that from the karate kid, but I will say, uh, the, the, that this story, I just heard of a story last week. I saw it on Tik TOK of this, um, this, this Asian kid who scored so high, you know, his GPA. No, it's like a, the max, like a 4.0 and his was over 4.0 with all the extra credit that he'd done. And he had scored so high on all of his, uh, uh, like his, his ACTs and stuff like that. His, his scores were just out of sight high and no, every Ivy league school would accept him. Uh, most state schools wouldn't accept him. They all rejected him. And now he's suing all of them because of that. So this, this is something that happens. I think what, that's what happens when you, when, when you go down this road, you, uh, but I, when you asked about the Bible, well, the Bible actually warns against favoritism. James two nine says, but if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. Yeah. So we, we know we're rooted in scripture and the Bible says that favoritism, this identity favoritism is against what God's word would say. Another example is a recent example is JK Rowling. You may know her as the famous Harry Potter author who repeatedly has been canceled for her views on gender. She argues that biological sex matters, but activists accuse her of being transphobic and they are trying to silence her. Exactly. You know, identity politics often frames disagreement as oppression. Okay. So if you don't conform to the dominant narrative, if you don't conform to the idea of police, you face social and professional consequences for that. Yeah. You lose your career. You can lose everything, you know, and I see your bookshelf back there. You've got all the Harry Potter's lined up. I do. Yeah. Get a lot of your sermon material from that. I did use a Harry Potter example in our, for the sake of the gospel, the last conference. And you've never been able to hear it because we're still waiting on JC to get me that recording. But you know, he's a wonderful, wonderful guy. That's always on top of things. And so eventually we'll get that maybe in a couple of years and we'll share that recording with you. But Jesus also warns us about some things in life. John 15, 18. Listen to what the words of Jesus says. If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you. Standing for truth often brings pushback. There are times where we'll stand up for what is right. We'll stand up for what is true. And the world doesn't like that. And the world pushes back. Does that mean you're wrong? No, it means you're standing for what is right. Exactly. You know, there's another example of this is there's been a rise of race based dorms and race based graduation ceremonies and universities. You know, these initiatives claim to create a sense of belonging for minority students. But they also reintroduce segregation, something that, you know, we, you know, had a victory over long ago when we desegregated things. And now we're trying to segregate things again. But it's only certain people that can do that. Because if white people tried to do that, that would, that would cause a big issue, a big stink. And, you know, so it's even, in my opinion, worse than before, because you've got some races that can do stuff like this and some races that couldn't. And, and the issue that can't. And the, but I think the issue is that shouldn't be allowed at all. Yeah. There's a, there's a university just right down the road from where I live at, that had talked about this last year, doing a black only dorms. So that they had a safe space for African-Americans and blacks. And I thought, hold on, didn't we fight this war? Like there was a whole civil war about this or. Have we been down this road before? Yeah. Color tree. Color tree. Color tree. Yeah. And I'm just one of the, one of the young people that went to the college was like, Pastor James, you're not going to believe this. And I said, listen, there's a lot of things I've heard. I'm, I think I could probably believe it. I'm like, actually, you know, I can't believe that. I cannot believe we're actually talking about that in our colleges, just right down the road from us. So instead of striving for unity, identity politics often pushes separation, right? Acts 17, 23, six says, and he made from one man, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. God designed, God has the design and his design is unity. It's not division. As I've been preaching to the book of acts, anytime a great move happened before that was a proceeding of unity and prayer of one mind and one heart. And God did a great thing. Exactly. And then of course you've got the black lives matter protests of 2020, all that stuff with George Floyd. While some protests are few of them will say we're peaceful. Most of them led to riots, led to destruction, you know, burning down buildings of people that were actually for the movement. They were indiscriminate burning down stuff. But of course what January six did was worse, but we won't go there. I digress. The movement called for systematic change, but it also labeled entire groups as oppressors based on race. Yeah. This really highlights the real issue of injustice. Identity politics often rejects reconciliation in favor of retribution. Instead of reconciling things, it's how can I get back at you? How can I take over? And instead of using the words of Jesus and turning the other cheek and trying to reconcile something, it's how can I avenge and how can I get back and how can I retaliate on what has been done? Romans 12 says like this in 12, 19 beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. The Bible calls for justice, but warns against vengeance. It is never our place to take vengeance and action against someone else. It is up to the Lord and allow him to take care of what has happened. Exactly. And the worst, I'll tell you the worst part about this identity politic thinking is it has worked its way into the church. Yeah. And, and we're going to talk about now how identity politics affects the church. This is where James, now this hits even closer to home. This is where things get even more serious because now this identity politics has began to affect the church. It's began to affect the gospel. Yeah. And what we're going to look at, Brett is ultimately five things that we're going to look at in the church of how the church has responded or not responded. The first is this identity politics divides believers. As we just mentioned, unity always precedes the work of God. And instead of unity in Christ, we see divisions based on race, gender, and political ideology. And when that happens, we distance ourselves from God. We are distancing ourselves from what God has called us to do. Galatians 3, 28 says, there's neither Jew nor Greek nor slave nor feet free. There's no male or female for you. All are one in Christ. God has called us to be unified. God has called us to be unified of one mind, of one heart, of one spirit coming together for the sake of the gospel, ultimately for the gospel to be spread through the world, through our unity. And when we are divisive and we are divisive among one another, the unity of Christ will never be spread. Exactly. And secondly, it distorts our view of justice. So identity politics often seeks justice through power struggles, but the Bible calls for reconciliation and forgiveness. Now, Micah 6, 8 tells us, do justice and to love kindness and walk humbly with your God. You know, there is no, there is no forgiveness with this. If you're an oppressor, a part of this oppressor group, you'll always be an oppressor. If you're part of the oppressed, no matter what happens, no matter what's given, you'll always be oppressed, no matter what. It's an automatic. And there is no, oh, you know, I think they've paid enough. I think that, you know, no, there isn't. It's just forever. There is no redemption. There is no forgiveness. There is no reconciliation. There's no hope that we can ever be unified again. It's just the way it is. And it will never change. And that is so toxic. People don't know or understand how toxic that really is. Yeah. I think this next one, Brett, is probably of the five, we're going to talk about one, if not the most important of the five, because what happens is identity politics begins to redefine words. Words have meaning. That's why it's very important that we define them and we locate what they are, because when you begin to change the words and the meaning of the words, then all of a sudden the words that we once knew are now null and void and they have no meaning whatsoever. Right? The new terminology for the kids, skibbity-toilid and all these weird things that they're saying, they're saying a word that in our mind, okay, well, this means, you know, this. And in their mind, it's something completely different. And so it is trying to figure out what words mean. And what happens with identity politics is it redefines two main words, the tenets of salvation, which is sin and salvation. Instead of sin, it's now, instead of sin being rebellion against God, right? God said, don't do these things in the garden. And we did it. And sin entered into humanity. It becomes, instead of sin as a rebellion against God, it begins to be, I'm oppressed by a dominant group. There's someone else that's out there that's oppressing me. And so I am the victim of this situation. Instead of salvation, been by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, it becomes all about an activism, an ideology of purity. How well can I be? What can I do for this world? Where if we really look at it, Ephesians chapter two, verses eight, nine reminds us, for by grace, you have been saved through faith, not of works of righteousness. It is only through the gift of Christ that we have salvation. And so when we begin to change these words, they begin to change our ideology in a massive, massive way. I mean, our culture is already changing right before our eyes. I mean, we have, you know, a post, I mean, a host on the for freedom podcast, saying skibbity toilet on the, on the podcast. And we just go right along. Like, it's like, it's just life. Yeah. Like it's, you know, as it's normal, you know, it's in, it's in the lexicon. John now it's part of it. That's right. As we're going to our fourth one here, uh, it, it pressures churches to compromise biblical truth. Okay. Some churches in trying to be inclusive, accept ideologies that contradict scripture. And we, we see this so much. And, you know, especially with this stuff with David Platt and that church over in Washington. And, and, you know, if you get a chance to watch that documentary, that's eyeopening, but, you know, we have this going on right now. And then, you know, when we look at the Bible, we look at second Timothy chapter four, verses three through four. And it warns us that people will turn away from truth to follow what suits their desires. And that's what's, that's, what's going on today. We've got people, you know, compromise, you know, our job as pastors is to stand up in the church and preach. Christ crucified. And, you know, it's not supposed to be a platform for this social justice. You know, if you preach the gospel, then true social justice will come from that. But it should, that it is not the gospel message in and of itself. Absolutely. And did you talk about the final one, Brett? I did not. Okay. So finally, as we begin to talk through this, what happens is when we allow identity politics to incorporate into our churches, we begin to see a shift of the church's focus. What is the focus of the church? It is to share the gospel with every single person out there. It is to tell others about the faith, redemption, work of Jesus Christ, death, burial, and resurrection of him dying for our sins, Christ crucified on the cross. And what happens is, is when we allow identity politics to come in, the church begins to shift its focus to social activism. As you just mentioned with the McLean Bible church, it begins to be this activism in the culture, this activism in the world. Instead of getting up and saying what Paul said in Romans one 16, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel for is a power of salvation. The gospel, not politics is what changes hearts. Exactly. You know, real quick, I heard somebody tell me the other day, that's all up on this social high horse. Oh, Christians, they walk around with a torture device around their neck, talking about the cross. And I responded, look, the crosses, we don't worship the cross, but the cross, what's God's plan from the beginning of time. I mean, before he created this world, he had the cross in mind, Jesus's work on the cross is what makes us Christian in the first place. And, and so we just need to remember and keep that at the center of our theology, keep the cross at the center of our mission, keep the cross at the center of our preaching. And when the cross stops being the center of what we do, then we're no longer Christian. Yeah. One of the things as we began to study this out and look through it was an unexpected ally of identity politics, right? Not everything has negative connotation to it, but here's something interesting. Identity politics for all of its problems actually reminds us of some key biblical truths. So, so get this, Brett, let's, let's jump into the first one here. Okay. Yeah. Like, like the pervasiveness of sin. Okay. Identity politics acknowledges that injustice exists. And look, we're not saying that there's no injustice out there. We're not saying that racism doesn't exist. We're not saying that there's some people out there that are racial profiling when they shouldn't. We're not saying that, that, that there is no prejudice because, because, you know, as Christians, we know this is true. I mean, the, the first step of our salvation is, is realizing as Romans 3, 23 says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, there is none righteous. No, not one. So, so sin is a real thing. And we, we freely and openly admit that we got some problems out there. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's not only personal, sin's not just personal, but it's systematic, right? The Bible talks over and over again of unjust kings and corrupt judges and nations that oppress their people. Sin infects entire societies, not just individuals. everyone is affected by sin because of our common ancestor, Adam and Eve, who sinned in the garden the very first time. And everyone from there on out now has this sin problem. And when we ignore sin, when we ignore those things, then we're no different than someone who is ignoring things based on identity politics. Exactly. And, and that means that repentance isn't just about personal sins. It's about acknowledging broader injustice. But here's the key to this. This is where identity politics goes wrong. It goes wrong in how it defines injustice and how it seeks to fix it. Yeah. This is where identity politics becomes part of what we like to call the counterfeit gospel. It offers a doctrine of creation, sin, and redemption, but all of them are twisted versions of biblical truth. One, one guy that I like to listen to, he said that Hollywood is just a cheap knockoff of the gospel, right? You can't take a superhero story. You pick any superhero out there, right? And they are going to have this wonderful power that's endowed upon them. Let's just take Superman. For example, he comes from another planet and he, he lives this life of justice and truth in the American way. Uh, and then he gets to the point where he has to make a ultimate death defined sacrifice. He has to sacrifice for the sake of those that he loves. And then when Superman dies and the movie ends, all of a sudden there's the sequel of Superman returns and he comes back to life and he is stronger than before. And he redeems all of humanity because of this wonderful story. What, what is that story? It's the gospel, right? It's Jesus is a cheap knockoff of Jesus and identity politics is the same way. It's a cheap counterfeit gospel of what true religion truly is. Exactly. In fact, uh, you're, you're the, uh, you just brought up Superman. It reminds me of an interview. I saw one time with Brian Singer. Brian Singer was a director of the 2006 Superman movie, uh, Superman returns. And there's one, uh, there's one, uh, scene in that movie where Superman comes up. Brandon Ruth, who plays Superman comes up in the air to like absorb the sun. And he's in the air with his arms spread out like he's on a cross. And even Brian Singer said, the reason why he did that shot, well, cause he was motivated by get this, the myth of Christ. And I'll never forget that. What he said, the myth of Christ when, you know, we all know that, that, you know, objectively speaking, Christ really did live. He really would, did die on a cross, you know, secular people can, can see that and admit that. Um, but yeah, that's what it all stems from. It all stems from all this stuff. It all stems from, it's just from Jesus. Um, getting back to what we're talking about. So let's start with this doctrine of creation. Okay. Identity politics treats both group and individuals as God. Okay. Um, I heard someone say the other day that, that a human makes a great mate, but a human makes a horrible God. Okay. You, your identity is self-determined and your group defines what's right and wrong. So this eliminates any real basis for human union. Unity or dignity. Yeah. In contrast, what does Genesis one 27 tell us? So God created male and female in his own image, in the image of God, he created, he them male and female. He created them. Our dignity comes from God, not from our identity groups. Exactly. And then there's the doctrine of sin. Okay. Instead of defining sin as rebellion against God, identity politics, divine sins as oppression by dominant groups. And this leads to injustices like cancel culture and force ideological conformity. Okay. So that's real sin. But what the Bible says is sin. That's not sin anymore. Okay. Do we live in a different time, a different culture? This is socially acceptable. Of course, if it's socially acceptable, it's not sin anymore. So then the social, so our social identity becomes the, the author of sin. And the Bible says, what the Bible says sin is, that's not really sin anymore. Yeah. And the, the most importantly, the doctrine of redemption returns into something that is completely wrong. Identity politics teaches that salvation comes through activism and retribution. And again, we're going to quote again, Ephesians two, eight, nine that you quoted earlier for by grace. Have you been saved through faith? It's not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not of any works of results of works. So that no one may boast. No one's going to be able to boast on what they did at the day of redemption. When we stand before the Christ of our living savior, who we get to stand before God, we get to say, it's nothing that I have done, but it's all because of Christ. And that is the opposite of what this identity politics movement is. It's what have you done? What retribution have you done? What vengeance have you done in order to receive this salvation? And it is completely opposite of what Christ has done. Right. The identity politics gospel demands moral purity, but it absolutely positively has no grace. If you disagree, if you have a different way of thinking, if you go against the movement in any way, you're exiled, you're canceled, you're shamed, you're put on the shelf, you can't work anymore, you lose your house, you lose your income. They don't care if you go out on the street and there's nothing you can do to repent. There's nothing you can do to get back. Once you're canceled, you're canceled forever. And it's, it's final. Yeah. One of the questions that gets asked often in this debate and this conversation is, is identity politics to blame for the divisions that we see in our culture today? I would answer that question. Yes. Yes. And no, it certainly has fueled division, but it is also a symptom of a deeper, older sin in our culture. Exactly. Yeah. Our society has a history of racism and we don't need to pretend that it doesn't. Okay. That does nobody any good. You know, we need to know about it. You know, it doesn't do any good to sweep it under the rug. We have a history of injustice. We have broken systems. We're not saying that we don't, but instead of offering forgiveness and instead of offering healing, identity politics demands endless retribution. It can't offer the reconciliation that only Christ brings. Yeah. I love how second Corinthians five, 18 and 19 says, it says, all this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of retribution. No, the ministry of reconciliation. Our world needs this more now than ever. Our world needs to hear the ministry of reconciliation now more than any other time in cultural history, because we are so divided and divisive on so many things that we need people to stand up and say, let us reconcile one another back to Christ so that we can have these conversations in a real manner and be able to talk through some of these things. You know, this reminds me of something that John said in y'all's episode that I loved, by the way, is that Christians don't need to be ashamed to tell people that the answer is Christ. Yeah. You know, we don't need to. And then I thought, man, that stuck with me. That was so good. You know, a lot of times we, you know, we're all for, you know, counseling and we're all for looking for practical ways to help people and, and, and things like that. But Chris Christians, we don't need to shy away from the fact that we have the answer. The answer is Jesus. The answer is Christ. And, you know, psychology and psychiatry, it's all good. And, and we need it, but we need to remember that the ultimate fix is Jesus, which kind of brings us into kind of the, the final question is, okay, all this is on the table. Where do we go from here? What's the Christian response? How, how do we correctly navigate this cultural moment and movement that is taken over our society? Yeah. I think first and foremost, we must get back to preaching the power of justification by faith alone. That is the foundation of the church's spiritual and political use. Unity. It is the primary identity that is in Christ Jesus, not in our racial or social groups that, you know, we have this common bond of Christ and what Christ has done that transcends all divisions, right? When I, when we get to heaven one day, it's not going to be these different groups of people worship in different areas. It's going to be all, what does the Bible say in revelation, all tribes of all tongues of all nation groups. They're going to stand before Christ and worship him and sing. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, because we get to worship the King forever, not based on what we look like or what identity we have, but based on Christ and what he did for us. And when we get back to preaching the power of Christ, I believe we'll see this changes that happen in our culture. Exactly. And you know, you, you've already read this verse once, but I want to read it again. Galatians 3 28 says, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female. You are all one in Christ Jesus. That is real unity, not the shallow unity of political alliances. Like you said, every nation, every tongue come together, worshiping the lamb. That's heaven, you know, and, and that's what we have to look forward to. Yeah. I think secondly, we can point to the church as the hope for all the nations, right? The, the people won't justice and reconciliation and they won't find it in activism alone. The gospel is the only true foundation for peace. Christ died for the church. He died for the bride of Christ. And that's what the bride is, is the church. And so we need to point people to the church, this, this body of believers that is, there to encourage one another. When times are tough, when difficult happens, when, when tragedy strikes in the world or in your nation or in your, your simple life that you have, the church is there to build you back up and to edify one another and to grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ. As we grow together in what we see Christ doing. Exactly. And, you know, there's this movement out there of people in this social realm, social justice realm, identity politics. They want to, you know, call themselves Christian. And so what they want to do in the Bible, and I've had some experience with people like this, is they want to throw Paul away and just read the words in red, just read the words of Jesus. He taught us how to live. And, and, and, you know, we, he gave it, he laid out a way for us to live our lives. Well, even it look, Jesus was, was pretty tough. You know, if you actually read the words of Jesus, you'd be thankful for Paul. Uh, because Jesus, Jesus was pretty hard on that, uh, religious Jewish crowd, which brings us to our next point. We need to preach the whole Bible. Okay. Not just the parts about grace and love and kindness and mercy, but we need to preach on sin and we need to preach on justice. And we need to preach on repentance. The Bible has the answers that identity politics distorts. We don't need to fill the Astrodome three times on a Sunday and stand up and say, this is my Bible. I can do what it says I can do. And I am what it says I am, you know, you know, you know, put that in your tailpipe and smoke it, Joel. Right. Well, Brett, if I, if I preach sin and if I preach repentance and justice, uh, my crowds may not be big. Oh no, we can't do that. Yeah. Come on now. Uh, I think finally though, there needs to be a balance of love and truth and grace and mercy and, uh, sin and retribution. There must be a balance in what we say and everything we do. Jesus got up and said, profoundly, uh, I'm here to speak grace and truth. I'm here to speak truth, but also to power. I'm here to begin this balance of life and identity politics thrives on outrage and self-righteousness. And Christians, we must be different. We must be bold in our truth and full of grace. We know also we need to do James is we need to engage in real relationships. No, social media debates won't change hearts. Keyboard warriors really don't make a difference, but personal conversations might. If we truly care about justice, we should be listening, learning, and pointing to people to Christ. I had, uh, uh, devotion with my church last night. We preached on Matthew five verses 13 through 16. We talked about, we are the salt and we are the light, but what good is a salt? If it stays in the shaker, what good is a light? If it stays under the basket, we've got to get where the lost people are. I said, listen, we go to our Christian schools and we pick up our Christian kids and get in our cars and listen to Christian radio stations. We drive and have Christian lunch with our Christian friends. And then we, we eat down and have dinner with our Christian families and then go to the Christian fellowship. And we never see, and we never get around lost people, you know, say, Oh, aren't we supposed to be separated from the world? We're supposed to be separated from the sin of the world. We're not supposed to be separated from the people of the world. Even Jesus said, I, you know, he said, I, I don't pray that you take them out of the world. They got to be in the world. I just pray that you keep them from the evil one. Just as you sent me into the world, I sent them into the world. So us as Christians, you know, we've got to get off of Facebook. We got to get off of Tik TOK. We got to get off of the gram and get off YouTube. And we got to go where the lost people are. Because how are they going to see our light? And how are they going to, uh, uh, our saltiness, make them thirst for God. If we just stay around each other and we never get where the lost people are. Oh, we'll, we'll comment on a Facebook post, but we won't actually go where they are and share the gospel with them. Absolutely. And I think the last thing we can do is we can pray for our culture. Uh, the divisions that we see, Brett, they're not going to be healed by policies that our president signs as an executive order. Our legislative branch puts in the law. Uh, the protests alone are not going to heal the nation of what we have seen in distress, but our prayers for one another and our prayers for our culture will begin to see that hearts and lives can be transformed through the gospel. And we can begin to unite people through this truth and love. We can begin to heal our nation and heal our world. If we will just simply pray and tell others about Christ. Exactly. I think that's a great note to end on. I'm going to give you my final thought. Then I'll throw it over to you for your final thought. But, you know, I just think that, that just like, you know, I'll call back once again to what John said. Christ is the answer. The gospel is the answer. The cross is the answer. It's not about racial identity or sexual orientation. Um, in the gospel, you know, none of that matters. We're colorblind. We're all the same. We're one people. We're God's people. And that's why what's laid out in the new Testament, for society will work every time. We've seen it time and time and time again. The Christians, they, they last. I'm not saying they're perfect. We're still sinners. We're, we're still gonna, gonna mess up. But you put Christians in government, um, who are doing right and, and living by the word of God. And that society is going to flourish. And a society that doesn't have biblical truth, uh, as its foundation, um, is just going to turn into horrible, horrible, uh, thing, a horrible government that oppresses its people. The answer is always Jesus. And we just need to continue to preach Christ. That's right. Point people to Christ should be our message. Pointing people to the redemption of salvation through Christ. Resurrection should be our goal in life. Thank you for joining us today. It's been a blessing to be able to record on this looking forward to, uh, next week as we talk through cultural relativism and what that means and how we identify with that. And, uh, we hope you've enjoyed this series as always. If you, uh, ever have a thought or comment, please feel free to reach out to us, uh, give us a message, a like a review, uh, that always helps us out with our algorithms until next time to God, be the glory. Great things. He has done. Found my new name. Found that good grace. Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. 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. Oh, Oh, Oh, . Thank you.

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